Colombia This Week

09/03/2007

Fri 02- Bomb kills woman in Buenaventura; new scandal hits the Attorney general’s office.

·         A small bomb exploded in the coastal port of Buenaventura, killing a woman in an area where left-wing rebels, paramilitaries and criminals battle for control of drug smuggling routes, Cali newspaper El Pais reports.

·         A new crisis in the Attorney General’s Office led to the resignations of Camilo Bula, the special Attorney for drug-trafficking, and Maria Fernanda Cabal, Director of International Liaison. According to the weekly SEMANA, Bula resigned in relation to mafia blackmail, while Maria Fernanda Cabal has been accused of leaking information to the press concerning on-going investigations of drug traffickers and interfering with the Attorney General’s Human Rights unit into the case of San Jose de Apartado. It was learnt last week that 69 members of the army are under investigation for this massacre, the magazine reports.

·         Following a recommendation from the National Commission of Reparation and Reconciliation (CNRR), the relatives of Yolanda Izquierdo, the leader of the displaced people claiming their land from the paramilitaries, killed in Cordoba last month,  have left the region under the  witness protection programme, El Colombiano reports.

 Sat 03 –FARC attack in Tolima leaves five dead; prosecutors order arrest of Alvaro Araujo.

·         Three soldiers where killed and fifteen more injured in combats with the FARC group in the settlement of Junin,  in Venadillo (Tolima) when a column of the FARC attacked an army convoy. A civilian was also killed in the crossfire and one ambulance was destroyed. According to reports 450 children were present when the shooting took place, sheltering in a nearby school, El Espectador reports.

·         Prosecutors ordered the arrest of Alvaro Araujo Noguera, the father of Colombia’s former foreign minister and an influential regional political leader, amid a widening scandal revealing ties between supporters of President Uribe and paramilitary death squads. Mr. Noguera, 74, father of former Foreign minister Maria Consuelo Araujo and detained Senator Alvaro Araujo, was implicated in the kidnapping of Victor Ochoa Daza, a member of a rival political family, the New York Times reports.

 Sun 04 - Five killed in new bomb explosion in Neiva; indigenous guards free 3 kidnapped police.

·         Four bomb disposal experts from the Colombian police and a civilian were killed when a bomb exploded in Neiva, the same city where the FARC had tried to assassinate the mayor with a car bomb two days earlier. Police found the explosives in a duct at the radio station where rebels had tried to kill Mayor Cielo Gonzalez with a bomb which blew up as police were moving it, Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos reported to RCN radio.

·         The Indigenous Guard in the Cauca region have been able to free three out of five policemen initially kidnapped by the FARC. According to reports a commission of local officials, members of the church and the indigenous guard advanced a humanitarian delegation and were able to return to Toribio with the three agents unharmed, Caracol Radio reports.

 Mon 05 – combats between Army and FARC in Puerto Rico, Meta leave 18 dead.

·         Seven Colombian soldiers and 11 guerrillas were killed over the weekend in the heaviest combat in recent months in a remote southern jungle area, authorities reported. The Commander of the military's Omega joint task force, Gen. Alejandro Navas, said fighting with a large column of rebels from the FARC broke out early Saturday in the town of Puerto Rico in Meta province, about 186 miles (300 km) south of Bogota. "We recovered 11 bodies, which is nothing compared to the number who went down. We know from observations and the blood trails, it was more," Navas said, showing reporters rebel bodies in black body bags at a local army base in Meta, Reuters reports.

 Tues 06 - Colombia accepts responsibility for Cepeda’s killing; ‘Chavezism’ spreads in Colombia.

·         Colombia has accepted responsibility for the 1994 assassination of Senator Manuel Cepeda in a victory for his family 13 years after his death. The assassination was one of the highest-profile political killings during a brutal campaign against the country's left-wing Patriotic Union movement. Vice President Francisco Santos said before a human rights commission at the OAS that the government acknowledged responsibility for the murder because two soldiers were arrested and convicted for the shooting. But Cepeda's son, Ivan Cepeda, said the family would seek to take the case to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to try to bring to justice those who ordered the murder: "We want justice and that those responsible are jailed," Reuters reports.

·         In the aftermath of claims that the Venezuelan Ambassador to Colombia, Pavel Rondon, interfered with Colombian domestic affairs. El Tiempo reports that President Hugo Chavez' Bolivarian movement has spread to Colombia, where it has followers in several towns. The newspaper quoted a classified intelligence report obtained from President Uribe's intelligence services as saying that "Venezuelan envoys traveled regularly to Colombia to deliver invitations to local authorities" the newspaper added, quoting an unidentified intelligence agent.

 Weds 07- Violence against trade unionist imperils TLC agreement; One dead in new attack in Neiva.

·         Colombia's reputation as the deadliest place in the world to be a labour organiser threatens to sink a free trade agreement with the US. Democrats, who now control Congress, are so concerned about the unsolved murders of trade unionists that they are threatening to derail the trade pact entirely unless President Uribe makes clear progress. According to Escuela Nacional Sindical, a Medellin-based national labour rights research group, the number of Colombian trade unionists killed annually exceeds the total for the rest of the world. Yet the number of slain unionists rose last year even as the overall homicide rate dropped under Uribe's government. Jorge Sanchez, the vice-minister of labour, told the Associated Press that unions inflate the numbers of slain members "because they thrive on violence and blood". The same Labour Ministry reports 43 trade unionists were killed in 2005 and 58 last year. None of those murders have been solved. 'Colombia's labour record is one of most problematic and controversial of any country to sign a free trade agreement,' said Thea Lee, policy director of the AFL-CIO, based in Washington. The biggest threat is hit men hired by employers, especially in parts of the country where many workers work in semi-feudal conditions and illegal militias hold sway. 'Countless numbers of trade unionists in Colombia have been intimidated, have been threatened and have been murdered,' said US Congressmen James McGovern, who visited Colombia last week. 'Until those issues are addressed, I think there's going to be some rough sledding for the trade agreement', AP reports.

·         One woman was killed and one man injured in a new attack reportedly carried out by the FARC in the city of Neiva (Huila). According to the reports the attack was aimed at Milton Gerardo Cortes, local councillor of the city. This is the third act of violence in the city in eight days Caracol radio reports. 

·         Visiting Washington this week, Colombian Senator Gustavo Petro has called on the Organisation of American States (OAS) to apply for the application of the “Article 19” of its Democratic Chapter. The measure, which involves the presence of an international delegation to oversee electoral processes, has been swiftly criticised by Defence minister Juan Manuel Santos, who said that Petro was “playing dirty with the country” as such a measure it’s only applicable ‘when the democracy is at risk’, El Tiempo reports.

·         Riot police fired tear gas to disperse dozens of students of the El Valle University in Cali protesting at the upcoming visit of US President George W Bush. Students threw homemade explosives at police and officers responded with water cannons and tear gas. According to local media, nobody was injured or killed during the protest and no arrests were made, the Associated press reports.

 Thurs 08- Uribe pleads for US financial support; FARC “plans to attack Bogota” during Bush visit.

·         President Uribe pleaded with the American public to continue a US $700 million annual aid package that he credits for making his violence nation ‘more peaceful and less corrupt’. "I ask the world, I ask the United States, to support us. We haven't yet won but we are winning. And we will persist," Uribe said in an interview with the Associated Press, three days before President Bush arrives in the country for a six-hour visit. There is scant evidence that the assistance has diminished drug trafficking: Colombia remains the source of more than 90 percent of the world's cocaine despite record aerial fumigation of coca crops and the FARC has neither been defeated nor had any members of its leadership captured. Uribe said, however, that 50,000 fewer Colombians are now cultivating coca and that 520 suspects have been extradited to the US to stand trial, the Associated Press reports.

·         The FARC planned to carry out attacks and sabotage during President Bush's visit to the country: "We have listened to some communications, some orders from these criminals to carry out acts of public disorder and we know they could be acts of terrorism," National Police Commander Gen. Jorge Daniel Castro told a local radio. "The idea is that the plan we have and that has been in place for eight days will be enough to counter this and we hope nothing will happen," he said without giving details, Reuters reports.

·         The Bush administration appears increasingly focused on undertaking a risky military rescue of the three Americans held hostage for more than four years by the FARC. Addressing the FARC, Bush said: "Give up these hostages. You're making it clear to the world the kind of people you are when you take innocent people and hold them hostage. And it's very sad for the families here in America." In Bogota, President Uribe told Reuters that while he is open to negotiating a deal to secure the release of the hostages, it "is also the duty of our government to seek a rescue." This week, Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Shannon, who oversees Western Hemisphere affairs, said the U.S. would "be very happy" if Uribe could negotiate a humanitarian accord that would result in the hostages' release, while the hostages' families have nearly lost hope of seeing their loved ones alive.

·         Colombia has allowed genetically modified (GM) corn to enter its borders for the first time, and will authorise plantations of other GM products later in the year. Andres Arias, from the Ministry of Agriculture, says growers from four regions, -Cordoba, Huila, Sucre and Tolima- will be allowed to buy the seeds. Arias also announced approval of semi-commercial plantations of GM cassava, rice, roses, sugarcane and coffee later this year, with commercial approval to be granted in 2008, Swiss-based Checkbiotech reports.

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