Colombia This Week

06/04/2007

Fri 30 – Peasants denounce intervention of US soldiers; US businessman killed in Cali;

• The inhabitants of Remolinos del Caguan, a rural settlement in the municipality of Cartagena del Chaira (Caqueta) have denounced that last January, a group of US soldiers accompanied by Colombian army personnel landed in their village, damaging property and asking for the whereabouts of ‘the  kidnapped Americans’. According to the reports they retained two people from the settlement; they were freed days later, Caracol Radio reports.
• A US citizen who ran a web site to introduce men to Colombian women was killed in Cali by gunmen on a motorcycle. Robert Marshall Vignola, 50, was shot and killed while he was driving to Cali's airport, police said. His 33-year-old Colombian wife, Beatriz Ramos, was hospitalized with bullet wounds in the shoulder. Cali's police chief said authorities did not know why he was killed but had ruled out robbery, Reuters reports.
• Ana Maria Flores, former Director of the Attorney General’s office in Cucuta (Norte de Santander) has been condemned to 12 years in prison and to pay a fine of 4.6 billion pesos (c.US$100.000) for supporting and collaborating with the paramilitary groups in the region while she was in office between 2003 and 2004. The file details how lawyers, businessman and social leaders were killed by these groups after she obtained information from the Colombian secret police, (DAS), the Army and the Police and passed it to the paramilitary commanders in the region, El Espectador reports.

Sat 31- Congressmen: Ralito meeting was authorised by government; Ecuador protest killings.

• In a statement to the Attorney General’s office, Colombian Congressmen Jorge Luis Feris Charid reported that the meeting between Congressmen and paramilitary commanders celebrated in Ralito back in 2003 was authorised by the Colombian government; ‘The meeting was attended by officials from the government and the signed document is adjusted to the Colombian Constitution’ he said. In the statement he also asked public opinion not to stigmatise him for being the brother of paramilitary commander Salomon Feris Chadid, also known as ‘08’, Caracol radio reports.  
• Colombian Foreign Minister Fernando Araujo has declared as ‘hostile’ the attitude of the Ecuadorian authorities towards Colombian officials. In the latest incident two people were killed on the border between the two countries by units of the Colombian army. The Ecuadorian government claims the soldiers entered illegally into the territory killing two civilians, while the Colombian Army claims the two were members of the FARC, El Tiempo reports.
• In a statement posted on their website the FARC announces they have successfully completed their 9^th National Conference with the participation of commanders of all their military structures, announcing they will publish a statement following the event.

Sun 01 – Supreme Court upholds convictions of ‘three Irish men’; ELN asked to make a peace move.

• The Colombian Supreme Court upheld the convictions of the three former IRA members convicted and later sentenced to prison for providing explosives training to the FARC. Monaghan, Connolly and McCauley were arrested at Bogota International Airport for traveling on false passports and were found to have spent five weeks traveling through a demilitarized zone of southern Colombia, then under the control of the FARC. They fled to Ireland while prosecutors in Colombia appealed the trial judge's verdict, the New York Times reports.
• In a letter to the press, the Secretary of the Colombian Bishops Conference Monsignor Fabian Marulanda reported that the peace contacts between the ELN group and the Colombian government were ‘at a critical moment’, accusing the armed group’s negotiators of a lack of transparency during the latest contacts with Colombian Peace Commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo in Cuba, El Nuevo Siglo reports.
• The Colombian Ambassador in Mexico and former Attorney General, Luis Camilo Osorio is due to be investigated by a parliamentary commission and the Senate in three processes in which he has been accused of collaborating with the paramilitary groups while in office. He will be required to respond to questions about why he dismissed the case against general Rito Alejo del Rio, investigated for gross violations of human rights, SEMANA magazine reports.

Mon 02 – Government backs political rights for AUC commanders but not for next elections.

• The Colombian government has denied a request from jailed paramilitary commanders to be allowed to campaign for candidates in local elections, saying the once-feared warlords are barred from politics and must stay in prison.  Fourteen of about 60 paramilitary bosses jailed in Itagui had asked permission to campaign in their central and northern hometowns on behalf of gubernatorial and mayoral candidates in the next elections to be held in October.  "The president does not think it would be viable for them to leave jail," Colombian Peace Commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo told local radio.  Even if militia leaders are not allowed to openly control local elections, as they did before demobilization, they are expected to let their voting preferences be known. "They still have their cell phones and personal computers with Internet access," said political commentator Ricardo Avila. "So they will exert a good deal of influence anyway", The Miami Herald reports.
• The International Red Cross, Medecins san Frontiers ICRC, the Catholic Pastoral department and the governmental agency Social Action are coordinating efforts to cope with a major displacement of thousands of people in Nariño. According to reports hundreds of families from the municipalities of El Charco, La Tola, Magui, Payan and Policarpa fled the rural areas as a result of the sustained combats between the FARC, the ELN and Colombian Marines. According to the acting governor in the department, Maria Ines Bacca, the situation is critical and there is an early alert for a displacement in another four municipalities in the area, Caracol radio reports.  
• The Human Rights unit of the Attorney General’s office has charged paramilitary commander Rodrigo Tovar Pupo, (Jorge 40) with the killing of two trade unionists from the mining company Drummond in El Cerrejon (La Guajira) back in 2001. In a separate case, he has also being accused of the killing of Eliad Duran Rico, a representative of the transport union in the city of Barranquilla, El Colombiano reports.

Tues 03 – Explosion kills one in Buenaventura; 3 Israelis accused of training paramilitaries.

• One person was killed and two soldiers injured by the explosion of a bomb in the costal city of Buenaventura. According to reports the dead person was handling the artefact. Buenaventura has seen five bomb attacks this year, leaving 20 people dead and 39 injured, Agency France Press reports.
• Interpol issued an international arrest warrant for three Israelis accused of training private armies of Colombian drug cartels and paramilitary squads. Yair Klein, Melnik Ferri and Tzedaka Abraham were being sought on charges of criminal conspiracy and instruction in terrorism, said Oscar Galvis, spokesman for Colombia's domestic intelligence agency (DAS). Klein, a former lieutenant colonel in the Israeli army, appeared in a 1989 video used to train paramilitary squads. In 1991, he was convicted and fined $13,400 by an Israeli court for selling arms to Colombia's illegal groups. In a recent interview with Caracol television, Klein denied working with the cocaine cartels but confirmed that he did instruct the paramilitary militias in how to eliminate leftist insurgents. He said he was originally hired — with the Colombian Ministry of Defence’s blessing — to organize security for the banana industry in the northern region of Uraba, Associated Press reports.
• An file containing key documents of the links between Colombian functionaries and members of the paramilitary groups has disappeared from an office in the Colombian General Prosecutor’s office (Procuraduria). According to reports it is known that one official was paid 5 million pesos (US$ 2375) for taking the documents from the office, CAMBIO magazine reports.

Weds 04 – UN: mines kill hundreds in Colombia; fugitive AUC commander captured in Antioquia.

• As the world marks International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action, the Colombian government acknowledged the situation in the country is worsening after hundreds of Colombians, mainly from rural areas, are falling victims to landmines and other unexploded munitions each year. Government figures showed that in 2005 about three people a day were victims of landmine explosions, compared to two a day in 2004. And 258 of the 1,100 reported casualties – 40 percent of them civilians, including children – died of their injuries, which gave Colombia the highest, mine casualty rates in the world. The report also states how the indiscriminate use of landmines has contributed to an increase in internal displacement in the country, the UN agency for refugees (UNHCR) reports.
• Authorities have captured Ever Veloza, (Hernando Hernandez) a fugitive paramilitary commander accused of massacres and involvement in drug trafficking and extortion.  Veloza, one of the few top paramilitary bosses who fled into hiding rather than embrace a government peace deal, was arrested in Bolombolo (Antioquia). Better known by his alias "Hernan Hernandez," Veloza once commanded the Banana and Calima blocs of the United Self-Defence Forces, (AUC). A police statement said Veloza formed a 120-man criminal band engaged in extortion and assassination called "The Paisas." Police commander Gen. Daniel Castro said the band had revived cocaine trafficking in the eastern lowland states of Meta and Vichada, Associated Press reports.

Thurs 05 – Humanitarian crisis in Nariño worsening; Gen. Montoya’s scandal put US aid at risk.

• The Diocese of San Andres de Tumaco in Nariño department reports that their Pastoral Care office and other institutions such as social, indigenous, humanitarian and human rights organizations in the department received a threat via internet on the 20^th of March from a presumed paramilitary group called ‘Organization New Generation’ (ONG). The diocese rejects the threats, and calls for the resolution of the grave situation in this part of the Pacific Coast because of the increased number of selective killings, disappearances, massacres and displacement in the region. According to the latest reports from the Diocese, 837 families, a total of 4,823 persons, were displaced from the rural hamlets of Taija, El Hojal and San Francisco, in the municipalities of El Charco and La Tola, fleeing from a battle between the Army’s 10^th Infantry Marine Battalion and the 29^th Front of the FARC, US-based Colombia Support Network (CSN) reports.
• A leaked CIA report saying that Colombia's army commander may have worked with illegal paramilitary groups comes as Colombian courts and prosecutors are increasingly investigating army officials with alleged ties to the militias. The attorney general's office says it has more than 400 open investigations against active and retired armed forces personnel facing accusations of collusion with the paramilitaries. As head of the army, Montoya also faces allegations from the UN High Commissioner for Human rights, NGOs and politicians of hundreds of cases of ''false positives'' -where the army kills civilians and then dresses them as guerrillas. 'At some point we have to stop issuing a blank check and say `Human rights do matter,'' said US Congressmen Jim McGovern. ''This is a critical moment in Colombia, and to the extent that it is a moment of transition toward a better and more peaceful country will depend on whether the government provides the Attorney General with more resources,'' Associated press reports.

Top