Colombia army suffers deadly blows

[mom cat]

Colombia army suffers deadly blows


Sunday 26 June 2005, 2:27 Makka Time, 23:27 GMT


The government is fighting a leftist insurgency led by FARC



Related:
Attack on Colombia town raises fears
Country profile: Colombia
US soldiers held in Colombia arms plot
EU official missing in Colombia
Many killed in Colombian fighting



Leftist rebels have killed at least 25 soldiers in separate clashes in Colombia, with another 18 soldiers reported missing, according to the country's military.


The heaviest fighting took place on Saturday in the southwestern Putumayo state, one of Colombia's main cocaine-producing regions, where 19 soldiers were killed, an army spokesman said on condition of anonymity in line with government policy.

The fighting erupted after the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, attacked an army convoy near Puerto Asis, some 530km southwest of Bogota, the spokesman said.

Separately, government troops backed by warplanes clashed with leftist rebels blocking a road in northeast Colombia, killing at least six soldiers, General Edgar Ceballos, the local army commander, said.

[Say_What]

1. Here's the link to the BBC article

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4623327.stm

Meanwhile, the paras, who are respsonsible for most of the atrocities in Colombia get a "Do not go to jail." pass by Uribe.

[mom cat]

5. Thanks for giving the link..I forgot to this time.

[Say_What]

2. Colombia passes controversial peace bill

<clips>

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- Congress passed a bill granting reduced punishments to right-wing warlords who disarm, a key step in President Alvaro Uribe's strategy to wind down Colombia's decades-long conflict. Opponents said it will let killers off the hook.

The legislation demands paramilitary leaders confess their crimes, return stolen goods and compensate victims. In exchange, prison terms are limited to eight years.

A congressional panel on Wednesday began hammering out a compromise measure after slightly different versions were approved by the lower chamber late Tuesday and by the Senate a day earlier. Uribe was expected to enact the legislation yet this week.

Passage came after Uribe toughened the proposal under pressure from rights groups and U.S. lawmakers who warned it was overly lenient toward leaders of the brutal far-right paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces, or AUC.

Uribe has been in peace talks with the 13,000-strong AUC for more than two years. The paramilitaries, blamed for some of the worst atrocities in the war, were formed as private militias in the 1980s by landowners and cocaine dealers to guard against Marxist rebels. The rebels, who enjoy little popular support, have been battling for social revolution since 1964.

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/americas/06/22/colombia.paramilitaries.ap/

[mom cat]

4. Check this out for more info...(sorry, reg required.nyt)

http://www.nytimes.com/auth/login?URI=http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/23/international/americas/23colombia.html&OP=177ef9faQ2FQ2F!RyQ2FQ5DXOQ7CeXXZ2Q2F2xxaQ2FxQ2AQ2F2Q24Q2FQ7EQ5EZReQ5EdZQ7EXQ5EdQ7DQ2FdLReQ7EOdQ7CQ2F2Q24OXQ7DXLyQ7EdhuZLQ7D

New Colombia Law Grants Concessions to Paramilitaries

[Say_What]

7. The interesting (revealing) thing about the "Pass go do not go to jail" is

Uribe's connections with the narcos--including his own father who was wanted by the USA--is the key to this thing, IMO. Uribe grew up with the heads of the Medellín Cartel and was later mayor. He's known for these free pass things.

<clips>

President Uribe’s Hidden Past

by Tom Feiling

...President Uribe’s credentials are impeccable. He was educated at Harvard and Oxford, is as sharp as a tack, and a very able bureaucrat. At the tender age of 26 he was elected mayor of Medellín, the second-largest city of Colombia. The city’s elite in the 1980s was rich, corrupt and nepotistic, and they loved the young Uribe. But the new mayor was removed from office after only three months by a central government embarrassed by his public ties to the drug mafia. Uribe was then made Director of Civil Aviation, where he used his mandate to issue pilots’ licenses to Pablo Escobar’s fleet of light aircraft, which routinely flew cocaine to the United States.

In 1995, Uribe became governor of the Antioquia department, of which Medellín is the capital. The region became the testing ground for the institutionalization of paramilitary forces that he has now made a key plank of his presidency. Government-sponsored peasant associations called Convivir’s were “special private security and vigilance services, designed to group the civilian population alongside the Armed Forces.”

Security forces and paramilitary groups enjoyed immunity from prosecution under Governor Uribe, and they used this immunity to launch a campaign of terror in Antioquia. Thousands of people were murdered, “disappeared,” detained and driven out of the region. In the town of San Jose de Apartadó for example, three of the Convivir leaders were well-known paramilitaries and had been trained by the Colombian Army’s 17th Brigade. In 1998, representatives of more than 200 Convivir associations announced that they would unite with the paramilitary organization, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), under its murderous leader Carlos Castaño.

When Uribe launched his campaign for president, the candidate’s paramilitary connections appeared to deter many journalists from examining the ties between drug gangs and the Uribe family. An exception was Noticias Uno, a current affairs program on the TV station Canal Uno. In April 2002, the program ran a series on alleged links between Uribe and the Medellín drug cartel. After the reports aired, unidentified men began calling the news station, threatening to kill the show’s producer Ignacio Gómez, director Daniel Coronell, and Coronell’s 3-year-old daughter, who was flown out of the country soon thereafter. Gómez was also forced to flee Colombia and is currently living in exile.

http://www.colombiajournal.org/colombia185.htm

[mom cat]

11. Thanks for the article on Columbia. It explains a lot!

I had no idea how extensive Uribe's drug ties were. I am sure that Bush aspires to have the same degree of brutal control here. He must be green with envy.

[LiberalAndProud]

3. Do they want to nationalize oil or water?

Marxist?

Because they oppose US-backed puppet perhaps?

[Say_What]

6. From FARC's website....

A bit of history from their perspective. This has been going on for more than 40 years. Colombia has a very violent and extremely complex history. You can search the names for more info.

You might want to search La Violencia, a 10 year civil war between liberal and conservative that started after the assasination of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, leader of the Liberal Party. http://colhrnet.igc.org/timeline.htm

Check the photo--a very young Fidel Castro sans beard on the left in Bogota during the riots of April 1948 after Gaitán's assasination.

<clips>

36 Years for Peace and National Sovereignty

On May 27, 1964, the Armed Forces of Colombia, directly advised and oriented by the United States of America, initiated the largest military operation of encirclement and extermination known up to that time. The objective: to eradicate the subversive centre that was putting their "national security" and "western democracy" in danger.

This "subversive centre" was composed of peasants who had settled in the region of Marquetalia, Tolima Department after surviving the calamities of the war between the traditional political parties. Poor liberals had fought against poor conservatives, inspired by the leaders of those parties in their power struggle. These peasants of Marquetalia were dedicated to agricultural labour for their own well being and that of the community they constituted. Of the state, they only demanded roads to transport their products, schools for the education of their children and guarantees against the activities of the "pajaros", the paramilitary gangs of that time.

This occurred during the presidency of Guillermo Leon Valencia. The institutions of state, starting with the executive, were in the hands of the liberal-conservative elite, equally shared as a result of the so-called "National Front". The parliament was composed of liberal and conservatives, under the baton of Alvaro Gomez Hurtado, the person charged with generating the conditions in the national and international environment to justify this outrage imposed by a foreign power. He declared Marquetalia to be an "Independent Republic" and described its inhabitants in McCarthyite style (bandits, extortionists, agents of international communism, etc.), and argued that they were another state within the state.

Faced with the evidence of the coming aggression, and in order to find another way out, the inhabitants made every effort to approach all institutions and organizations susceptible to being motivated, including the parliament, the church and the international community, and have them come to that region and know its situation first hand. The only response was a declaration of solidarity by French intellectuals and Father Camilo Torres' attempt to come to the zone, which was prevented by the army.

The President, representing the liberals and conservatives and following the guidance of the yankees, gave the military command a free hand. Operation Marquetalia began: 16,000 men supported by the most modern techniques, advised by Pentagon officials and supported by the big print media, initiated the "patriotic mission" to wipe out that group of Colombians in three weeks. They used every means at their disposal: aerial bombardment, strafing, parachute assaults, encirclements of extermination, bacteriological warfare, torture, summary executions, the buying of consciences and payment of bribes, as well as the jailing and abuse of those who were in solidarity with the "Resistance of Marquetalia".

http://www.farcep.org/pagina_ingles/

[LiberalAndProud]

8. Wow. I always get educated here. I still don't get the Marxist ref though

[mom cat]

12. You may want to check this out too: Colombia Peace Action

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x134987

[Say_What]

13. Thanks!! So good to have someone who knows about Colombia. There are so

few of us. :hi:

[mom cat]

14. I'm just in the process of learning about Columbia myself. Most of

what I know I learned on DU.

[Say_What]

15. For sure you won't learn much in the USSA press

but there's a few resources out there. I'll post some here for folks who might be interested.

http://www.ciponline.org/colombia/index.htm

http://www.coha.org/search_site.php

http://www.nacla.org/index.php

http://www.colombiasupport.net/

http://www.colombiajournal.org/index.htm

http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/americas/colombia/

http://www.colombiasolidarity.org.uk/Links.html

http://www.colombiasolidarity.org.uk/index.shtml

http://www.prensarural.org/ww20050519.htm

[mom cat]

16. Thanks for the links!

[bemildred]

9. Rebel clashes kill 25 soldiers

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- Leftist rebels killed at least 25 soldiers during separate clashes in Colombia on Saturday, the military said. Another 18 soldiers were reported missing.

The heaviest fighting took place in remote southwestern Putumayo state, one of Colombia's main cocaine-producing regions, where 19 soldiers were killed, an army spokesman said on condition of anonymity, according to government policy.

The fighting erupted after the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, attacked an army convoy near Puerto Asis, 330 miles southwest of Bogota, the spokesman said.

Warplanes and attack helicopters were called in to strafe rebel positions, said Gen. Edgar Lesmez, Colombia's air force commander.\

Corporate News Network

[IndianaGreen]

10. This war has been going on for 40 years

At one time FARC laid down arms and decided to go through the political process. The rightwing murdered hundreds of FARC supporters and dozens of their leaders.

For those that believe the Washington propaganda that FARC are terrorists, the real terrorists is the US-backed Colombian government, the rightwing private armies, the Colombian military, and the School of Assassins at Fort Benning.

[ninkasi]

17. Time after time, IG

with a few exceptions, the oppression and misery is caused by the rightwingers in Central and South America. Because the US has supported the rightwing, and gotten hysterical at any group that appeared to be Socialist or Communist, people in this country have a vast misconception of reality there.

I do not claim much knowledge myself; the only thing I can be sure of, is that any time the rich are pitted against the poor, the US can be counted on to be on the side of the rich oppressors. Every single time. The poor have been represented, if at all, by the leftwingers.