Colombia defends hitting 'terror' camp in Ecuador

[Joanne98]

Source: Reuters

BOGOTA, March 23 (Reuters) - Colombia sought to ease rising tensions with Ecuador on Sunday by saying its March 1 military raid into its neighbor's territory was carried out against a rebel camp used to launch terrorist strikes.

The statement from conservative President Alvaro Uribe came after Ecuadorean complaints that one of its citizens may have been killed in the raid that targeted No. 2 FARC rebel leader Raul Reyes.

"The government (of Colombia) reminds the world that the camp of Raul Reyes was used by terrorists to act against the security of the Colombian people," the statement said.

Fears of war in the Andean region were raised this month when Ecuador and Venezuela ordered troops to their borders with Colombia after the raid. But tempers cooled at a regional summit that led to handshakes among the three countries' leaders.



Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN23298114

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Things must be getting too hot for him. This won't work..

[Peace Patriot]

1. That is a damned lie--that the FARC camp was used to launch attacks on Colombia.

1. There is no evidence to support this.

2. Raul Reyes, an experienced FARC commander, would never have made himself so vulnerable, as to launch attacks from this Ecuador camp.

3. Every evidence points to it being a temporary camp set up for the SAFETY OF HOSTAGES, that the presidents of France and Ecuador said were about to be released.

4. This is the initial lie that Uribe (Colombia) told Rafael Correa (Ecuador) that the Ecuadoran military has exposed. Uribe said it was "hot pursuit." It was not. They found peoples' bodies in their pajamas and underwear, some of them shot in the back. They were all asleep when the U.S. military/DynCorp targeted and bombed the camp. They could well have been bombing HOSTAGES. As it is, they murdered the chief FARC hostage negotiator (Reyes), several visiting Mexican students (apparently there to take part in the humanitarian mission), and, now we find out, an Ecuadoran citizen as well. It was indiscriminate, unnecessary, cold-blooded murder.


And I agree, this lying little Bushite tool, Uribe, must be feeling the heat for this lawless act. It was utterly disgraceful--as is his entire murderous regime, notorious for killing union leaders, peasant farmers, human rights workers and journalists, and for big time drug trafficking.

[NutmegYankee]

2. The way you make it sound...

It was almost as if they didn't take hostages now and then. What were the hostages for, if not an act of terror?

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Zorro]

6. How old are you?

I'm reckoning you're pretty young, because you certainly don't sound like you know much about the situation. Dude.

[Peace Patriot]

5. FORTY-PLUS years of this civil war! How do you END it? That is the queston.

You end it the way the presidents of Ecuador, Venezuela, Argentina and France were trying to end it--by trying to create sufficient safety for the release of hostages, and getting peace talks started for a political settlement. FARC released six hostages to President Chavez, without conditions--in the negotiations that Chavez undertook at Uribe's invitation. When Chavez was about to get the first two hostages released, Uribe abruptly withdrew the invitation as the hostages were in transit through the jungle to a pickup point and BOMBED the hostages' location! The hostages were driven back into the jungle, on a 20-mile hike back into captivity, because of the intense, focused bombing by the Colombian military--by the hostages' own report. What kind of shit is this? What kind of dirty tricks and bad faith? What kind of utter callousness and disregard for the lives of the hostages?

Once again, it's a civil war. There are wrongs on both sides. How do you end it? By more killing?

The truth of the matter is that the Colombian military and closely tied paramilitary death squads, and Uribe and his political associates, are addicted to that $5.5 billions of our money in military aid, and are so tied by that umbilical cord to the Bush junta that they are used as the violent tool of Bush junta policy in the region, which aims to destroy the elected governments of Venezuela and Ecuador, and take over the oil fields that belong to the Venezuelan and Ecuadoran people. Uribe & co. don't want peace. War is their gravy train--along with the dope they are trafficking in.

[hack89]

27. Since the FARC obviously has freedom of movement

why don't they move the hostages secretly to a neighboring country and simply free them? Are hostages and the threat of their deaths the only way to bring peace to the world? Should the UN make hostage taking a integral part of their peace keeping procedures?

[Sweet Pea]

7. And don't tell me......

there was a baby nursery at the FARC camp, too.

You are right about one thing - it is bullshit, but the bullshit is this beauitiful glowing blanket of goodness and wonderfullness that you are throwing over these terrorists and murders called FARC.

[AlphaCentauri]

24. wouldn't be easy to just call Ecuador president and have them attack the camp

instead of invade their country and murder civilians.

[Bacchus39]

8. launching violent attacks is what the FARC does!!

unbelievable.

[bemildred]

9. It's what Colombia does too!!! Totally believable.

Colombia is the most violent country in Latin America!!!

[Bacchus39]

10. yeah, because they have an insurgency

n/t

[bemildred]

11. Because they are right-wing assholes who kill anyone that opposes them. nt

[Bacchus39]

12. no you're missing several parts of the equation including the FARC

and narco traffickers in addition to paramilitaries.

[bemildred]

13. I'm not missing a damn thing.

I'm not defending FARC, I'm saying the government of Colombia is a bunch of vicious, drug-running, right-wing killers. FARC has nothing to do with it, other than that they sometimes copy the methods of their enemies.

[Bacchus39]

14. murder rate is below that of Venezuela

who is doing it there?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homicide_rate#2000s

[bemildred]

15. Look! Over there! It's Hugo Chavez! nt

[Bacchus39]

16. yeah, Hugo has made Venezuela #1, how about that?

are you going to answer my question? if its right wing thugs in Colombia that are responsible for making it the "most violent" country in Latin America then what is it in Venezuela???


p.s. you may want to look at El Salvador and Guatemala too.

[bemildred]

17. No, answer your own question.

I don't have to do a survey of social and political conditions in all of Latin America in order to criticize the Colombian government and the right-wing death squads and drug runners that infest it. Why don't you bring up Zimbabwe or Osama Bin Laden while you are at it?

[Bacchus39]

19. oh but you can say Colombia is the "most violent" without evidence

you can criticize the Colombian government and paramilitaries all you like. the elimination of the paramilitaries and the FARC would only be good for Colombia. got that? AND the FARC.

[bemildred]

20. I can say any damn thing I want without evidence, just like you, or Cheney, or Uribe, or Chavez.

So what? Opinions are like assholes, everybody has one. You can have name-calling or you can have academic debate, you don't get both. You seem fond of name-calling, so that is what you get.

[Bacchus39]

21. well good for you, then I can easily dismiss anything you post

as being not credible.

[bemildred]

22. Please do, ignore everything I say. We'll both be happier. nt

[AlphaCentauri]

25. maybe they have more freedom than expected

compare the same number with that of previous Venezuelan administrations, you'll see where all that started.

[Bacchus39]

26. I believe the crime rate has actually increased dramtically

over the years. see the link that I posted to see for yourself.

[AlphaCentauri]

28. I see is been a progressive increase over the years in previous administrations

from Perez, Lusinchi, Caldera, Perez, crime is not a spontaneous phenomenon it build ups with time. Might be that much of that crime occurs around the border with colombia.

[bemildred]

4. I must say I look forward to Ecuador's attacks on "terror" camps in Colombia.

Given the prevalence of right-wing death squads in Colombia, it should be no problem to find places to bomb. I am sure the government of Colombia will fully approve of such assertive anti-terror operations.

[bemildred]

18. Colombia admits Ecuadorean's death

Colombia's defence minister has announced that an Ecuadorean was killed when Colombia raided a rebel camp in Ecuador's jungle earlier this month.

Juan Manuel Santos said on Sunday that one of two bodies brought to Colombia after the attack belonged to the Ecuadorean he identified only by the nom de guerre "Lucho".

Ecuador briefly mobilised troops to its border with Colombia in the wake of the attack in which Raul Reyes, a commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or Farc, died.

Confirmation of the Ecuadorean's death could stoke tensions between the neighbours, with diplomatic relations between the countries suspended.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/0BE8BEE2-3185-440E-846D-3B705DD19277.htm

[treestar]

23. Where have we heard this before?

:banghead: