InfoBrief – October 24, 2005
InfoBrief is a weekly news summary of events in the U.S. and Colombia produced and distributed by the U.S. Office on Colombia. Colombia This Week is reproduced with the kind permission of the ABColombia Group in London. Other sources include U.S. and Latin American newspapers, and reports from non-profit and grassroots groups. The content does not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Office on Colombia. If you would like to receive InfoBrief please contact jess_hunter@usofficeoncolombia.org indicating why you would be interested in this weekly news service. Previous editions of the InfoBrief can be found at www.usofficeoncolombia.org
U.S. Current Affairs and Media
- New Report Praises Plan Colombia and Calls for Continued Assistance In a newly released report, The Heritage Foundation points to the multiple successes of Plan Colombia and calls for additional U.S. funding for the embattled Andean nation. The report suggests that due to increased public security, “unemployment is down, the economy is growing, justice reforms are taking hold, drug production has decreased, and rural rebels have demobilized in record numbers.” The report also indicates that since 2002, illegal cultivation of coca and opium poppies has been reduced. while from 2003-2004 there was also a 42 percent decline in terrorist attacks. The report mentions the arrest of three left-wing FARC leaders in 2004, paramilitary demobilizations in 2003-2005, and a drop in the murder rate in the city of Medellín during the last three years. The report recommends that U.S. policymakers help Colombia strengthen its military and police forces, prioritize development support for improving government accountability and effectiveness while pressing Colombia to undertake stronger economic reforms and advance free trade. The report does call for “more varied drug crop eradication strategies,” including manual efforts, confiscating cultivated areas, and researching coca-specific mycoherbicides. Read the Heritage Foundation report: http://www.heritage.org/Research/LatinAmerica/bg1887.cfm
- Colombian Cartel Leader Pleads Not Guilty to Drug Charges On October 20, Jairo Aparicio-Lenis, a senior member of the powerful North Valle del Cauca drug cartel, was extradited to the United States where he pleaded not guilty to racketeering and drug charges in a Washington, DC federal court. Since 1990, the North Valle del Cauca cocaine cartel run by Aparicio-Lenis and eight others allegedly sent more than 1.2 million pounds of cocaine, worth over $10 billion from Colombia's Pacific coast to the United States. In April 2004, Aparicio-Lenis was charged with violating the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act and aiding in the smuggling of billions of dollars worth of cocaine. The North Valle del Cauca cartel employed members of the right-wing AUC paramilitary to defend their cocaine laboratories and distribution routes. “Aparicio-Lenis enabled the cartel to flourish with millions of dollars in blood money,'' said U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency Administrator Karen P. Tandy. The extradition “demonstrates the commitment of the U.S. and Colombia to work together to end the flow of illegal drugs,” said U.S. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales. “We will continue pursuing those who would bring illegal drugs into this country, regardless of where they may be.” Aparicio-Lenis could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted of importing cocaine into the United States, and 20 years in prison on racketeering charges. U.S. and Colombian officials expressed pleasure over successes dismantling drug trafficking operations during the past month. On October 21, ten members of a drug trafficking operation were arrested in Bogotá and several other Caribbean coastal cities. Colombia’s anti-narcotics police chief, Gen. Jorge Alirio Baron told reporters the traffickers used mainly human carriers and container shipments to export the drugs and had a complex network of bank accounts and front businesses in several countries to launder drug money. Authorities said that this drug trafficking and money laundering operation exported about $1 million worth of cocaine every week to the U.S., Europe and Asia.
- Colombian Court’s Re-election Ruling Likely Pleasing to Bush Administration President Bush’s closest ally in Latin America, Colombian President Uribe, may be able to seek a second four-year presidential term according to a land-mark Constitutional Court ruling. On Wednesday, October 19, the Colombian constitutional court’s nine judges voted to approve a congressional amendment that lifts a ban on presidential re-election. “For the Bush administration, it means that they're extremely likely to have their best friend in power for the next four-and-a-half years in a region where they're short on friends right now,” says Adam Isacson of the Center for International Policy in Washington. Since presidential re-election terms have had a poor record in Latin America, there is concern that a second term of the Uribe administration might result in an authoritarian state. President Uribe assured the public that he would not be “tempted by vanity.” Other presidential candidates were concerned. “We're afraid Uribe's policies are going to continue for a longer period," said Carlos Gaviria, who hopes to be the main left-wing presidential candidate next year and argues for more social spending and negotiations with rebels. A U.S. military officer who works on Latin American policy said that the re-election decision is positive for the US government because “its no secret that [they] would like to see Uribe continue for another term.” The court must still, however, establish election laws for a sitting president seeking a second term. The court is expected to deliver its decision on that law next month. For the past 50 years, Colombian presidents were limited to a single term in order to prevent power corruption in the executive branch. Analysts believe Uribe would easily win in May if allowed to run.
- U.S. and An dean Presidents Scheduled to Resume Trade Talks Next Month Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe, Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo, and President Alfredo Palacio of Ecuador, sent a letter to Bush urging his administration to be more flexible in negotiations for a free trade agreement. Now President Bush and presidents of Peru, Colombia, and Ecuador are set to meet again for trade talks on November 4 th in Argentina. The meeting will coincide with the summit of American leaders in Mar de la Plata, Argentina . U.S. chief negotiator Regina Vargo said last month that if the four countries do not reach a trade deal by the end of November, talks will not resume until December.
Upcoming Events and Seminars in the U.S.
On November 4, Rutgers University will host a conference entitled “40 Years of War: The effects of Colombia’s Civil War on Afro-Indigenous Populations” with keynote speakers Jess Hunter, Senior Associate at the U.S. Office on Colombia in Washington D.C. and Fatimah Williams Castro from the Rutgers Department of Anthropology Ph.D. program. The program is at 7 pm in the Multi Purpose Room at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ. For more information, contact Diego Alejandro Arias at alejandroariasjr@aol.com.
Colombia This Week is reproduced with the kind permission of the ABColombia Group in London
Colombia This Week editing date: 10/24/05
Fri 14 – Millions displaced by conflict denied basic rights; paras suspend demobilisation plans.
- The Colombian government has failed to protect the basic human rights of millions displaced by the country’s armed conflict, Human Rights Watch says in a new report. Displaced families are often denied access to education, emergency healthcare and humanitarian aid. The families were interviewed for the 60-page report, “Displaced and discarded: the plight of Internally Displaced Persons in Bogotá and Cartagena”. Forced displacement is a consequence of Colombia’s armed conflict, but officials in President Uribe Velez’s administration frequently describe displaced persons as “economic migrants” and have suggested that directing assistance to internally displaced persons discriminates against other poor Colombians. Uribe’s government has promoted return to communities of origin as its principal response to internal displacement, even though safe return is not possible in many areas, Human Rights Watch reports.
- The far-right Colombian paramilitary group suspends plans to disarm thousands of gunmen in protest at the government's decision to move one of their chiefs from house arrest to a high-security prison. "The demobilization timetable is suspended as of now until the government makes the rules of the game clear and offers the necessary guarantees to restore confidence," the outlawed army's political chief Ivan Roberto Duque said in a statement he read by telephone on national television stations, Reuters reports.
- Thousands of protesters led by state workers' unions, indigenous groups and students took to the streets of Bogotá, Medellin and Cali last Wednesday. Organisers of the protest, which targeted Uribe's conservative economic policies and free-trade talks with the United States, said 500,000 people demonstrated countrywide, El Tiempo reports.
- The International Secretariat of the World Organisation against Torture urges the Colombian government to intervene promptly to ensure that the Colombian police force keeps public order through democratic means. The statement comes as a result of the brutal treatment dispensed by the Colombian anti-riot police to the Embera indigenous assembly of the National Minga in Risaralda. Colombian Police charged the community as they marched. Following the aggression, Marco Antonio Soto, a member of the Katio community was pronounced dead as a result of the injuries he sustained.
- Colombia will explore for oil in Caribbean waters disputed by Nicaragua, the government announces. A ship contracted by the Colombian government will begin processing seismic information in waters near the island of San Andres, said Energy Minister Luis Ernesto Mejia, state news agency SNE reports.
Sat 15 –UN: for millions, nowhere left to run; NGOs denounce Army detentions in Microahumado.
- Colombia is by far the biggest humanitarian catastrophe of the Western Hemisphere, and yet the plight of those people remains a largely untold story," said Jan Egeland, UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, at a forum on Colombia's displaced people last week. "We have to shed light on the forgotten emergency of Colombia. The way it is now it cannot continue," he added. Observers say that unlike the previous government, President Alvaro Uribe Velez seems more focused on using military means to defeat the leftist insurgency rather than opting for peaceful negotiations, a strategy that is driving thousands of people into neighbouring Panama and Ecuador, and to other parts of the country.
- The Association of Miners in Southern Bolivar and the regional NGOs and organisations from the social movement in Barrancabermeja, denounce the arrest of Isidro Alarcon a member of the Agro-mining Federation of Southern Bolivar and a leader of the Peace Laboratory, financed and supported by the European Union through the Programme for Development and Peace in Magdalena Medio. He was detained during an army operative, along with Laura Cristina Canonico, the partner of Isidro and the leader Elba Maria Galvis, also a member of the Federation. They were informed that there was an arrest warrant out for them for the crime of rebellion. The NGOs ask the Colombian government to immediately free the arrested leaders and to cease the policy of criminalization of the social movements, calling on the European Union to make a statement showing support for the communities that participate in the Peace Laboratories.
Sun 16 – Ibero-American summit condemns US embargo on Cuba; 5 soldiers killed in Choco.
- Leaders of more than 20 Latin American countries, along with Spain and Portugal, have vowed "maximum commitment" to fight terrorism. Leaders at the summit also issued a statement calling on the United States to end its blockade of Cuba. They also decided to set up a permanent Ibero-American secretariat. President Uribe Velez took a swipe at what he described as "presidential tourism" on the last day of an Ibero-American summit in Spain, encouraging the use of teleconferences instead of costly meetings, and said austerity was needed in global diplomatic policy, BBC reports.
- Five soldiers from the Colombian Army’s VIII brigade in Choco have been killed in combats with a front of the FARC group, in the municipality of Mistrato (Choco), authorities report. Another three soldiers were injured in the assault, El Colombiano reports.
- Dismissing allegations of a possible cover up, Commander of Colombian National Police, Luis Alberto Gomez Heredia announces he will involve the office of the Colombian Inspector General in the investigation of a reportedly foiled attack in central Bogota last week. According to authorities, several mortars were found in an empty house in the Candelaria district, but no detentions have been made, Caracol Radio reports.
- A Senator allied with President Uribe was the target of a car bomb that exploded in an upper-class neighbourhood of Bogota last week, injuring nine bystanders but leaving the politician unscathed, Reuters reports.
Mon 17 – International Criminal Court applicable in Colombia; six soldiers killed in Dabeiba.
- Colombia’s independent Senator Jimmy Chamorro reports that the International Criminal Court could charge Colombian paramilitary commanders for crimes against humanity, if they are exempted by the Colombian justice system. He also denounced that the recently approved Justice and Peace Law does not fulfill the rights to truth, justice and reparation of the victims of the armed conflict, RCN reports.
- Colombia’s Army Commander Reinaldo Castellanos reports that six soldiers from the XVII Brigade have been killed after combat with the FARC group near Dabeiba (Antioquia). Authorities also reported that the main road between Medellin and Uraba has been closed for security reasons. Three people where kidnapped on that road last week, El Tiempo reports.
- The Regional Council for Indigenous people in Cauca (CRIC) informs the national and international community that after two weeks of peaceful occupation of several properties, the NASA communities in this department re-affirm their intention to re-take control of the land promised by the judicial authorities in multiple rulings over the years. They also denounce the Governor of Cauca, Juan Jose Chaux for making false allegations against the indigenous communities, suggesting that they are collaborating with armed groups.
Tues 18 – Colombian victims tour the US seeking support from Congress; displaced HRD killed.
- Three representatives of Colombia’s Movement of Victims of the State travel to the United States to present their testimonies and the reality affecting the victims of Colombia’s armed conflict; they want the US Congress to refrain from funding or supporting the implementation of the Justice and Peace Law. According to the victims, this law would mean further impunity with no truth or reparation for the victims, El Colombiano reports.
- The Solidarity Committee of Political Prisoners reports the killing of Eislen Escalante Perez, a human rights defender who represented NGOs from Barranquilla on different national platforms. He was a displaced leader from the city of Cucuta. As a member of the Association of Displaced Victims, he denounced the misuse of funds meant for the displaced beneficiaries in the region. He was killed by a gunman in the city of Barranquilla.
- The inhabitants of Fortul, Arauquita, Cravo Norte and Puerto Rondon in Arauca are still affected by the armed strike declared by the FARC group two weeks ago. As the local authorities report, the army and the police have been unable to provide the necessary safety guarantees for the transport companies, and food blockades persist in many areas of the region, Caracol radio reports.
Weds 19 – Constitutional Court passes presidential re-election; US declassifies Army-AUC links.
- Colombia’s Constitutional Court increases the chances of the current right-wing president of running for a second successive term next year. The Court’s nine judges ruled that it would be constitutional for President Alvaro Uribe to seek a second term in office, effectively ending a prohibition reinforced in Colombia’s most recent constitution, which was introduced in 1991. However, to remove the final obstacle to Mr. Uribe’s candidacy in next May’s election, the Court must still approve separate electoral legislation designed to guarantee the rights of opposition candidates. That ruling must be handed down before 11 th November, UK-based Financial Times reports.
- Recently declassified U.S. documents, including the first-hand accounts of senior Colombian army officers, are beginning to lift a veil of secrecy. Obtained under the US Freedom of Information Act by the National Security Archive, these records provide important new details about Colombian military involvement in paramilitary attacks and offer a unique and intimate perspective on the institutional pressures that encouraged a wide range of cooperation with paramilitary forces - from the tacit acquiescence of senior commanders to the direct participation of field officers and their troops. One case sure to be examined will be the infamous series of paramilitary massacres in and around the towns of La Gabarra and Tibu in the summer of 1999, US-based Colombian Documentation Project reports.
Thurs 20 – Judge challenges President of the Court on decision; pre-candidates accept ruling.
- An extraordinary public clash over a bribery allegation breaks out among judges from Colombia's Constitutional Court after the Court opened the way for President Uribe to run for a second term. Magistrate Rodrigo Escobar said he would seek disciplinary proceedings against a fellow court member who, he said, accused him of taking money for voting to approve a law allowing presidents to serve more than one four-year term. The ruling in favour of re-election was announced on Wednesday night and could allow the right wing, pro-U.S. Uribe to compete in May's election, RCN reports.
- Opposition leaders and presidential pre-candidates greet the Court’s ruling with respect but vow to continue the political fight. Ex-President Cesar Gaviria, now head of the Liberal Party, said that the court’s decision "radically changes the political panorama." "For the first time in more than 50 years, not only the president, but public officials can campaign from their desks," Gaviria complained, referring to the Uribe government's new power to shift policies in ways that bolster a re-election bid. Ex-Minister Horacio Serpa, reaffirmed that he would run again on the Liberal ticket. Former Bogota mayors Antanas Mockus and Enrique Peñalosa also vowed to continue in the race. But the opposition is greatly divided and facing a president whose popularity is based on his providing more security to the population and launching a military attack against guerrillas, while negotiating peace with right-wing paramilitaries, US-based Christian Science Monitor reports.
Colombia This Week is a news summary produced and distributed by ABColombia Group. Sources include daily Colombian, US, European and Latin American newspapers, and reports from non-governmental organisations and the UN System. The content does not necessarily reflect the views of the ABColombia Group. If you would like to be put on the mailing list, please send an email message to Colombia_this_week@hotmail.com, indicating why you would be interested in receiving this summary.
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