Colombian Rebels Move to Retake Lost Territory  6/30/02 Washington Post: "The result has been relatively large confrontations between the irregular armed groups, a departure from the hit-and-run tactics and terrorism that have characterized the country's 38-year civil war. The offensive is the most significant military development since the guerrillas lost their government-sanctioned demilitarized zone four months ago. "Why are we in all of these places? Because the paramilitaries are," the commander of a FARC mobile unit who identified himself as Pinchon said last week, while his men stopped traffic on a highway leading into one of the new battle zones. "We have received a number of new troops, and every day we're getting stronger."

Rebels Push Colombia Toward Anarchy  6/29/02 LA Times

US SPECIAL FORCES TRAINER: WHY I SUPPORT THE GUERRILLAS  6/28/02 ANNCOL: "The problem with that story in Colombia is that guerrilla revenues from taxing coca were miniscule compared to the revenues from actual trafficking by army officers and paramilitaries. Not only did the US government not put any pressure on this aspect of the drug trade, the Department of Defense and the CIA assisted the army and paramilitaries in integrating their staffs in 1991, which effectively means that the paramilitaries are an actual, if unacknowledged, component of the Colombian armed forces. Where is the logic in attacking the guerrillas, whose hypothetical subtraction from the drug production and trafficking would not change the volume of production or trafficking one iota? They simply levied a tax between production and process. And the peasants who produce the leaf, well they are making a little money, but the profit hikes from processing to distribution go up exponentially, especially when they get to the United States. Unfortunately, Americans are not trained to ask these simple kinds of questions, and they are not trained to employ logic in their thought processes, and so they never ask these questions. Our society is arguably the most indoctrinated in the world, and the most attached to official pronouncements that amount to denial of reality."

Mayors flee Colombian towns  6/28/02 Washington Times: "A massive effort by Colombian rebels to eliminate local governments and tighten their grip on the country has dozens of Colombian mayors resigning and fleeing their towns — sometimes seeking shelter in the United States."

Colombian Rebels Tell Mayors to Resign Now, or Face Death  6/27/02 NYT: "Colombia's largest rebel army is threatening to kill or kidnap the country's mayors and municipal judges if they do not resign, in its biggest offensive against civilian authorities in 38 years of guerrilla war. In an interview atop a mountain outside the capital, Bogotá, late Tuesday, a commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia said the rebels aimed to destroy the state from the bottom up. He said the elimination of mayors and all municipal authorities was the first step, and he demanded that the mayors resign by midnight tonight… The American ambassador to Colombia, Anne Patterson, said Washington would give mayors financial support under a protection program already earmarked under the Plan Colombia antidrug offensive." The American "drug war" pretext for Plan Colombia finally dropped.

98 UNIONISTS KILLED SO FAR THIS YEAR  6/24/02 ANNCOL: "According to the CUT national trade union federation in Colombia, so far this year 98 of their activists have been either assassinated or 'disappeared' by rightwing death squad units. The federation, along with individual unions and human rights organisations in Colombia are placing the blame for the murders firmly at the door of the Colombian government whom, they say, are guilty of promoting the violence against the union movement."

Los servidores públicos del Estado Colombiano  6/24/02 ANNCOL: "“Contribuyen a crear un clima en el que los criminales sienten que pueden amenazar y atacar a los defensores de derechos humanos con impunidad” dijo en Ginebra la Alta Comisionada de las Naciones Unidas para los Derechos Humanos la señora Robinson."

Robert Novak - Who runs Colombia?  6/24/02 Town Hall: "Colombia's avowedly hard-line President-elect Alvaro Uribe paid a low-profile visit to Washington last week that seemed successful but actually sowed suspicion. Meeting with Republican House members who will influence the flow of U.S. aid to Colombia, Uribe was asked two key questions. He responded with two disquieting non-answers. The questions: Would Uribe have a place in his administration for Gen. Jose Serrano, the heroic former national police chief? Would he appoint to high office Pedro Juan Moreno, a shadowy figure who had run-ins with U.S. and Colombian authorities over importing precursor chemicals of a kind that produce illegal narcotics? Although the president-elect was non-committal on both scores, he implied there was no place for Serrano but there would be a prominent post for Moreno."

Colombian mayors resign en masse  6/23/02 BBC: "Scores of mayors and other local officials have resigned en masse across Colombia after rebels said they would kill them if they stayed in office. State control in several provinces has been thrown into disarray after the threats to officials by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to quit or be designated "military targets".

Colombia: FORMER PEACE BROKER CRITICIZES EU  6/21/02 ANNCOL

Colombia: Miles de pobres en el sur de Bogota se rebelan contra política neoliberal y el hambre.  6/21/02 Rebelion

Colombian guerrilla leader sent to U.S. to face charges  6/20/02 Washington Times

FAREWELL TO A HOPE - An interview with Comandante Ramiro Vargas and the opinions of leaders of Colombia's Army of National Liberation  6/19/02 Radio Progresso, Miami

Congressional Black Caucus challenges Colombian armed forces on Black massacre in Chocó  6/19/02 SF Bay View: "Many Blacks in the U.S. are unaware that people who look just like them are the majority or a significant portion of the populations of such Latin American nations as Cuba, Brazil, Mexico, Panama, and Colombia. That racial discrimination and worse exists in Central and South America is also little known in North America. Nowhere in the Western Hemisphere do Black-skinned people predominate in conspicuous high-level government positions."

"My Friend, Langley" in Brazil, Perú and Colombia Changes Unnoticed in the United States  6/16/02 NarcoNews: On recently elected Colombian president Uribe - "Uribe, says Langley, was being told in clear terms that while the US would see that he was elected, he is expected not to simply go along with the US agenda in Colombia, but with the US agenda everywhere. For the duration of his term, says Langley, Uribe will mouth agreement with every major political decision the US makes everywhere in South America." One the assassination of Archbishop Duarte in Colombia, perhaps by the Church - "When Duarte's response was to order a boycott of Colombia's March 10 Congressional elections, he sealed his fate. "Political opinion flows from Rome in the Catholic church, not to Rome," explained Langley. "And this was a clear message to all Catholic hierarchy that that remains as true today as it was five hundred years ago." On Israeli arms merchants' sale of 3,000 AK-47 to the paramilitaries in Colombia - "What is almost an afterthought in the story is that the US State Department, through Wes Carrington, spokesman for the Department's Western Hemisphere section, admitted that it knew of the shipment but hilariously claims it thought the weapons were collectors' items intended for the US collectibles' market. No one needed Langley to explain this one, but he did nonetheless. The arms were always intended for the AUC, he said, to insure continued mayhem in Colombia during the period when the election was heating up and Horatio Serpa, the candiate calling for continued peace talks with the FARC, was in the lead. Continued mayhem, much of it caused by the AUC but blamed on the FARC, was what eventually cost Serpa the lead and subsequently, the election." More interesting items on Peru, Brazil.

ECUADORIAN INDIANS TO SUE DYNCORP CORPORATION IN US COURT OVER RECKLESS SPRAYING OF TOXIC CHEMICALS NEAR THE COLOMBIAN BORDER  6/15/02 US Fumigation: and the US prattles on about biological warfare.

Los colores del Chocó  6/14/02 El Colombia: "El reportero gráfico Donaldo Zuluaga captó con su lente los colores del Chocó, aquellos que van más allá del negro."

Colombia: Mystery deepens over diverted AK-47s  6/14/02 Miami Herald: "Officials still do not know who diverted the weapons to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, known as the AUC, an 11,000-member paramilitary force on the U.S. State Department's list of terrorist groups. The guns significantly boosted the AUC's ability to wage war against Colombia's leftist guerrillas and protect the cocaine and heroin industries at a time when the Bush administration is trying to increase and broaden military assistance to Bogotá… In exchange for the old weapons, ammunition and bayonets, GIRSA would deliver to the Nicaraguan police 100 Mini-Uzi submachine guns and 467 Jerico pistols, all made in Israel."

Las FARC desmienten la autoría del atentado contra el acueducto de Chingaza  6/14/02 Rebelion: "En febrero de 2002, la práctica totalidad de los medios de comunicación colombianos (Tiempo, El Espectador) y muchos internacionales (Reuters, Terra) publicaban que las FARC habían atentado contra el acueducto de Chingaza, principal vía de suministro de agua potable de Bogotá. El carácter de este atentado fue uno de los argumentos esgrimidos por el entonces Andrés Pastrana para calificar a las FARC de terroristas y suspender los diálogos. Sin embargo las FARC nunca anunciaron su autoría. Es más, en una transmisión de la emisora colombiana RadioNet, el comandante guerrillero de las FARC, Alfonso Cano, conocido como responsable político del Secretariado de la organización insurgente, rechaza la acusación oficial de que la guerrilla tuviera algo que ver con el atentado dinamitero del acueducto de Chingaza, que suministra el agua potable para la capital colombiana."

With their backs to the wall, African Colombians are fighting back and need our help  6/14/02 SF Bay View: "African Colombians note that in 1997 the paramilitaries auspiciously arrived in Medio Atrato, a zone in the municipality of Bojaya, with Alvaro Uribe Velez, then the governor of Antioquia, a neighboring municipality. Antioquia neighbors Choco, the ancestral home of African Colombians, which has become virtually uninhabitable. “Twenty-five days after the May 2 church massacre, the Colombian National Army and paramilitaries are in the urban wastelands of Vigia del Fuerte and Bellavista, where there isn’t a soul remaining,” the correspondent writes. Antioquia, a predominantly white municipality, has been an area of great violence since the beginning of hostilities in the mid 1940s. “They are killing us for no reason,” the writer from Bojaya says. “They kill us while we seek protection in the church. They kill us because we don’t agree with all the things the government, the paramilitaries and the guerrillas are doing. For me,” he continues in an e-mail dated May 27, “it is better to die standing than to live on my knees. There’s no way out of the crisis. I have decided to die speaking out, not as my countrymen died on May 2 and as thousands of African Colombians have died during the last 10 years.” The massacre and displacement of African Colombians by an indifferent Colombian government and a national military of 60,000 aligned with a paramilitary force of 10,000 fighters involves us, the people of the United States, as citizens, voters and tax payers. Our Congress approved in 2000 a $1.1 billion mostly military aid package called Plan Colombia and is debating a $35 million supplementary emergency fund to help Colombia fight terrorism, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Bush wants $494 million more in military and police aid plus $164 million in economic aid. He has also proposed spending $98 million next year to protect the Colombian oil export pipeline operated by Occidental of Los Angeles. Congress has also approved $363 million in economic and social programs since 2000. The U.S. is now involved in a counterinsurgency operation, not an anti-narcotics program in Colombia. The U.S. government, the Colombian government and the Colombian paramilitary forces are now pitted against the 22,000 member leftist rebel groups. The African Colombians want ownership of their ancestral lands. They want economic assistance to create jobs, education and health programs and fund business development."

Colombia: More Cooperation Between Rebel Groups Possible  6/14/02 Stratfor: "Despite their historic differences, the collapse of peace talks in Colombia last month could lead the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the National Liberation Army to join together for future attacks. Such cooperation would be a troubling development for Colombia's army and paramilitary forces." Poor paramilitaries.

El fracaso de la campana de Pax Christi en Europa  6/13/02 ANNCOL: "La campana ha sido un estruendoso fracaso. En varios de los actos de presentación ha sido cuestionada, porque en lugar de ofrecer espacios de solución de este drama humanitario, uno de los tantos del conflicto, se presta para atizar la confrontación y estimula la ofensiva ultraderechista."

The Congressional Black Caucus Weighs In On The Plight Of Afro-Colombians  6/12/02 Black Electorate: "It is always illuminating and at times disappointing when we encounter instances where Black people in the United States of America express ignorance of the fact that people who look just like them are the majority or are significant members of the populations of nations in the Western Hemisphere like Cuba, Brazil, Mexico, Panama etc...Unfortunately, the physical appearance of the most prominent leaders in these nations and others, particularly in the lower half of The Americas, only supports ignorant attachments to racial stereotypes, as the lack of Black-skinned individuals in leading government positions is obvious to just about anyone."

Top officers investigated over missing U.S. funds  6/12/02 Dallas Fort Worth Star Telegram: "Sixty police officers, including top commanders of anti-narcotics police, are being investigated in the disappearance of more than $2 million in U.S. funds, Colombian authorities announced Tuesday."

TEXAS CONGRESSMAN SPEAKS OUT AGAINST WAR  6/11/02 ANNCOL: "Ron Paul, a Republican member of Congress representing Texas, has spoken out against US involvement in Colombia and says that the real objective behind the Pentagon's plans are related to oil."

The Colombian Contras  6/11/02 Khilafah: "Otto Reich, assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, wasted little time before traveling to Bogotá to congratulate president-elect Alvaro Uribe. Reich followed the example set by the U.S. ambassador to Colombia, Anne Patterson, who violated protocol by visiting Uribe's campaign headquarters on election night to congratulate him on his triumph before he had even been officially declared the winner."

SOA Grad Arrested for Murder of Colombian Archbishop  6/11/02 SOA Watch: "Police arrested the presumed murderer of Archbishop Isaías Duarte. John Fredy Jiménez, a graduate of the School of the Americas (SOA), was arrested on Saturday in Cali, Colombia. Jiménez graduated from the SOA in 1992, having completed a cadet combat course. Archbishop Isaías Duarte was shot and killed on March 17. Colombia has sent over 10,000 soldiers to the SOA, more than any other country. Colombia has the worst human rights record to date in the Western Hemisphere."

US INDICTS COLOMBIAN GUERRILLA LEADERS  6/10/02 ANNCOL

Genocide of African-Colombians - Report from Black Colombians at ground zero  6/8/02 SF Bay View: published 5/22, this is an important article - "On May 2, 302 people, 32 percent of the population of Bellavista, a town in Choco of more than 800 people, were killed, wounded or disappeared. Four other massacres have been committed against these small internally displaced African Colombians - at La Mejor Esquina, Machuca, El Naya and Baudo. These massacres reaffirm the charges by African Colombians that they have been targeted for physical and cultural genocide."

THE COLOMBIAN STATE HAS TURNED TO TERROR  6/7/02 ANNCOL: "Chomsky: Colombia has had the worst human rights record in the hemisphere in the last decade while it has been the leading recipient of US arms and training for the Western Hemisphere and now ranks behind only Israel and Egypt worldwide. There exists a very close correlation that holds over a long period of time between human rights violations and US military aid and training. It's not that the US likes to torture people; it's that it basically doesn't care. For the US government, human rights violations are a secondary consequence. In Colombia, as elsewhere, human rights violations tend to increase as the state tries to violently repress opposition to inequality, oppression, corruption, and other state crimes for which there is no political outlet. The state turns to terror-that's what's been happening in Colombia for a long time, since before there was a Colombian drug trade. Counterinsurgency has been going on there for 40 years; President Kennedy sent a Special Forces mission to Colombia in the early 1960s. Their proposal to the Colombian government was recently declassified, and it called for "paramilitary terror" - those are their words-against what it called 'known communist proponents.' In Colombia, that meant labor leaders, priests, human rights activists, and so on. Colombian military manuals in the 1960s began to reflect this advice. In the last 15 years, as the US has become more deeply involved, human rights violations are up considerably."

Perception management of the US's terror war  6/7/02 Narco News: "The US has instructed the Colombian military to concentrate its war against the leftist FARC rebel insurgents in the South of Colombia (what the US has termed a Southern Push). These "narco-guerrillas" and "narco-terrorists" are to be targeted, presumably because these are the primary "terrorists" and drug-traffickers. In 1997, James Milford, the former Deputy Administrator with the U.S.'s central drug eradication body the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), stated that Carlos Castaño, the chief of the paramilitary AUC is a "major cocaine trafficker in his own right" and has close links to the North Valle drug syndicate which is "among the most powerful drug trafficking groups in Colombia". Milford went on that to say "there is little to indicate the insurgent groups are trafficking in cocaine themselves, either by producing cocaine…and selling it to Mexican syndicates, or by establishing their own distribution networks in the United States".

SECURITY FORCES ON DEFENSIVE  6/6/02 ANNCOL: "Actions undertaken by the Western Block of the FARC-EP, including by the 6th, 29th, 50th and 60th fronts: 1) In Nariño department combat in the towns of Ipiales, Policarpa, Coscorron and Tumaco killed 30 paramilitaries, 1 police and damaged four helicopters. 2) In Quindío department combat near the town of Cordoba killed 17 soldiers and wounded 7 others. 3) In Valle department combat in the towns of Llanito and Pance killed 21 soldiers and injured 2 others. 4) In Cauca department combat in the towns of Argelia, Belalcazar and Inza left an unknown number of soldiers and police dead and injured."

URIBE SENATOR ORGANISED MASSACRE  6/6/02 ANNCOL: "A senior member of the Colombian congress, and vocal supporter of extremist president-elect Álvaro Uribe Vélez, directly organised the massacre of 12 civilians by a paramilitary force in the village of Macayepo in October 2000. In a telephone conversation with a local landowner the Senator discussed the planning and preparation for the massacre and appeared to have actually appointed the exact date on which the crime was to take place."

PARAMILITARIES TERRORISE INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES  6/4/02 ANNCOL: "A 250-strong paramilitary death squad that is believed to include many serving soldiers in its ranks has recently arrived in the predominantly indigenous municipality of Florida in the southern Colombian department of Valle del Cauca. According to reports from the area the paramilitaries presence become clear on May 31st when they set up a camp and roadblock in a place known as 'Los Kingos' near the community of La Diana. The following day the paramilitaries kidnapped over 20 local residents, including indigenous town councillor Wilson Lulico Ramos, who they accused of being guerrilla sympathisers. It is now known that at least some of these people have been murdered whilst others are being held, and possibly tortured, at the paramilitary base."

US poised to take terror war to Colombia  5/31/02 CSM

Stay Out of Colombia's Civil War  5/27/02 AntiWar: "I want to make this as personal as I can. I think it is insane for this Nation to spend $98 million to protect a pipeline that Occidental Petroleum owns with American lives. I am going to make this as personal as humanly possible. President Bush, I will send my kids to guard that pipeline when you send your kids to guard that pipeline."

Hard-liner wins Colombian presidential election  5/27/02 AP: "Before Uribe was even declared the winner, US Ambassador Anne Patterson went to a hotel where he was based with campaign workers to congratulate him."

Colombians vote in presidential election; front-runner supports crackdown on rebels  5/26/02 AP: leading candidate Uribe is a narcoterrorist associated with the paramilitaries, see Narconews article. The paramilitaries are white oriented, many of their victims are black and indian.

UN CONFIRMS: COLOMBIAN ARMY IMPLICATED IN BOJAYA TRAGEDY  5/25/02 ANNCOL: "The UN blames the right-wing paramilitary gunmen for seeking refuge amongst the civilians in the village provoking the battle that eventually led to the civilian deaths. According to the UN the death squad members belonging to the main paramilitary umbrella organization AUC placed their main defensive positions outside the front of the village church."

Colombia Primer - Q & A on the conflict and US Role  5/24/02 Z Mag

Colombian War Zone Spreads to Cities  5/23/02 AP: "We're looking for control of the cities because whoever has that is one step ahead in the war," said a man who called himself Gomelo, a paramilitary leader in a Medellin barrio who guided an Associated Press team around his territory during a recent trip. His fighters, dressed in the camouflage uniforms of the illegal United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, openly roam some neighborhoods. "

War in Colombia  5/23/02 National Security Archives: "Guerrillas, Drugs and Human Rights in U.S.-Colombia Policy, 1988-2002"

Plan Colombia, la guerra sin límites  5/23/02 Rebelion

9 Killed in Colombian Raid  5/22/02 AP: "Police denied charges from Medellin human rights groups that police helicopters had strafed the neighborhood. At least 37 people -- including troops, police, civilians and guerrilla members -- were wounded, said Alejandro Usuga, Medellin's civil defense chief."

Violencia urbana en Colombia  5/22/02 BBC

The Life and Crimes of General Montoya Uribe  5/22/02 Z Mag: why the US supports the Colombian narcoterrorists - “After Mexico and Venezuela, Colombia is the most important oil country in the region. After what happened on September 11th, the traditional oil sources for the United States (the Middle East) are less secure . . . Latin America could not cover a shortage, it could not supply (us) in a crisis, but it allows a small margin to work with and avoid price speculation . . . Colombia has great potential for exporting more oil to the United States, and now more than ever it is important for us to diversify our oil sources.”

Rebels taking aim at bomb squads  5/21/02 Miami Herald

Profile: Alvaro Uribe Velez  5/20/02 BBC: "They have tried to paint him as the candidate of the right-wing paramilitaries that were responsible for killing more than 1,000 unarmed people last year through their policy of massacres and assassinations of suspected guerrillas, trade unionists, left-wing intellectuals, human rights workers and journalists. Most of the raw material for such accusations comes from Mr Uribe's term as governor of his home province of Antioquia from 1995-1998. During this time he set up a network of rural security cooperatives, known as Convivirs. At least two of these later became fronts for the paramilitaries. Not only is Mr Uribe unapologetic, but plans to create a national militia of some one million citizens to help bring state presence to the half of the country under the control of the warring factions."

Colombian Frontrunner Looks To War  5/19/02 Washington Post: "Uribe has become the most popular politician in the country by promising to double defense spending, give the military a freer hand, enlist civilians deeply in the war effort and perhaps call up as many as 30,000 reservists." More paramilitaries, more massacres, more race war.

War in Colombia: Guerrillas, Drugs and Human Rights in U.S.-Colombia Policy, 1988-2002  5/16/02 National Security Archive: ". But recently declassified U.S. documents show that despite the legal limits and repeated public assurances by government officials, U.S. aid has blurred the lines between counterdrug and counterinsurgency to the point that the U.S. is on the brink of direct confrontation with the guerrillas and ever deeper involvement in Colombia’s seemingly intractable civil conflict. The Bush administration’s proposed aid figure for Colombia in fiscal year 2003 includes nearly $500 million in military and police aid alone." And some of that will wind up in the hands of paramilitary organizations engaged in drug trafficking and terrorism.

Bush in Colombia: An Old War Gets a New Boost  5/14/02 Common Dreams: "Probably few Americans know that by the end of this week the United States may be even more deeply entrenched in the Colombian war. The Bush administration wants to escalate the conflict there, with U.S. soldiers digging in on the new Latin American front in the "war on terrorism."

COLOMBIAN ARMY AGAIN ACCUSED OF SHARING BED WITH RIGHT-WING PARAMILITARIES  5/14/02 Radio Havana: "Last Sunday, several Colombian newspapers published an open letter from residents of one of the towns denouncing the armed forces-paramilitary connection. Leftist rebels accepted partial responsibility for the civilian casualties, but affirmed that the paramilitaries used them as human shields at gunpoint. The guerrillas also charged that the army and government have allowed the paramilitaries to control the region, noting that the first Colombian soldiers didn't even reach the two towns until five days after the fighting was over." The EU has declared the paramilitaries to be terrorist organizations.

Turbulent Colombian Panorama  5/13/02 Z Mag

Families flee their war-torn villages  5/12/02 Boston Globe: "FARC is blamed for the 117 deaths at the church in Bojaya. But many of Choco's inhabitants appear to feel the killings in Bojaya are just another consequence of a long history of state neglect of this region of 500,000 people, the majority of whom are descendants of African slaves. Their average per capita income is lower than Haiti's, according to government estimates."

Israeli arms dealers differ over responsibility for shipment to Colombian paramilitaries  5/7/02 AP: Venezuela, Columbia, Panama - there is a pattern of Israeli intervention in Latin America on the side of right wing extremists.

UN condemns Colombia massacre as war crime  5/7/02 Scotsman, UK: "The UN have categorised the attack as a war crime and a UN representative in Colombia, Anders Kompass, also had some harsh words for the government, insisting that his office and that of the Colombian People’s Defence organisation had long ago warned the government that the community was in grave danger and needed security force protection. He said the government was at the very least "guilty of omission".

Colombia's Paramilitary - Profile of an Entrenched Terror Network  5/7/02 Z Mag: posted Apr 22, remains topical

Colombian Tribe Topples Mighty Oil Giant  5/6/02 Alternet: "Staking its own territorial claim in the war, the Bush Administration is pushing the U.S. Congress to authorize $98 million in military aid to defend another Occidental venture, the Caño-Limon pipeline, a private enterprise which runs through U'wa land." Are paramilitaries far behind?

Pastrana: "Fue una masacre"  5/6/02 BBC: a casual glance through the pics show aspects of Columbia's identity not much seen in the US media. While Venezuela has a higher percentage of Afrolatinos and Indians, in Columbia too, it is the wealthy whites against everyone else.

38 Children Among Victims in Colombia  5/5/02 LA Times

Rebel War Leaks Beyond Colombia's Borders  5/4/02 LA Times

La Unión Europea califica a los Paramilitares de las Fuerzas Militares de Colombia Como una organización terrorista  5/3/02 ANNCOL: The EU classifies the US supported paramilitaries in Columbia as terrorist groups.

RECENTLY DECLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS REVEAL DEEPER U.S. INVOLVEMENT IN COLOMBIA'S CIVIL WAR THAN OFFICIALLY RECOGNIZED  5/3/02 Radio Havana: "Recently declassified documents show that US aid to Colombia has blurred the lines between counter-narcotics and counterinsurgency to the point that the United States is on the brink of direct confrontation with leftist guerrillas, according to the National Security Archive. In documents acquired through the Freedom of Information Act, this non-profit organization based at the George Washington University found that - despite the legal limits and repeated public assurances by government officials - as early as the first Bush administration the US "Andean Strategy" was developed as a "deal" struck with Andean governments to provide them with counter-narcotics aid that could also be used against leftist rebels."

Reacciones al apoyo de EE.UU. a Colombia  5/2/02 BBC

Switzerland: FARC not "Terrorist Org"  4/1/02 NarcoNews: "Refuses U.S. Order to Freeze Colombian Rebel Bank Accounts"

US DRUGGED POLICY  3/28/02 Boston Phoenix

US troops join invasion of Colombian rebel zone  3/26/02 Centre for Research on Globalisation

Alvaro Uribe vs. the Press  3/25/02 Narco News: "Facts Reported by Narco News & Newsweek Explode in Colombian Presidential Debate - Colombian Journalist Who Reported Uribe's Narco-History Threatened with Assassination"

Narco-Candidate In Colombia  3/24/02 NarcoNews: originally published 3/19: "According to a document signed by then-DEA chief Donnie R. Marshall on August 3, 2001, the ships were each destined for Medellín, Colombia, to a company called GMP Productos Quimicos, S. A. (GMP Chemical Products). The 50,000 kilos of the precursor chemical destined for GMP were enough to make half-a-million kilos of cocaine hydrochloride, with a street value of $15 billion U.S. dollars. The owner of GMP Chemical Products, according to the 2001 DEA chief's report, is Pedro Juan Moreno Villa, the campaign manager, former chief of staff, and longtime right-hand-man for front-running Colombian presidential candidate Alvaro Uribe Vélez."

US says coca production up 25 percent in Colombia  3/8/02 Boston Globe: The results of the billion dollar Plan Columbia are in. Is the US really trying to reduce trafficking? Or are there other aims?

Where Is the Press in Colombian War? - FARC: The State, not the Rebels, Killed the Senator  3/5/02 NarcoNews: "The FARC's Marco León Calarcá was available yesterday, all day, at the Mexico City Business and Commerce Center. That none of these news organizations bothered to seek the other side of their March 4th reports, speaks volumes about how the Colombian war, in addition to being a civil war inside Colombia, is, internationally, an information war, a "netwar," as it is defined by think-tanks like the RAND Corporation. For Latin Americans, the recent controversy over Pentagon plans to start a "disinformation office" was laughable. That office has had many names, and existed for years, South of the Border."

US Congress questions efficiency of Colombian anti-drug program  2/26/02 Yahoo

Colombian presidential hopeful abducted by rebels: spokeswoman, photographer  2/25/02 Yahoo

Rebels Flee Colombian Troops  2/23/02 AP

Elite Colombian troops pour into Farc stronghold  2/23/02 Independent, UK

Colombian Army Attacks Rebel Posts  2/22/02 LA Times

Drug War Goes Boom in Colombia  2/21/02 NarcoNews

The FARC Speaks  2/21/02 NarcoNews

PARAMILITARIES ARE MOVING IN ON AFROCOLOMBIAN COMMUNITIES OF THE COLOMBIAN PACIFIC COAST  2/16/02 AfroCubaWeb

Colombia’s ‘dirty war’  2/16/02 Boston Phoenix: "Right-wing terror squads torture and kill union workers and activists"

Herbicide Problems [in Columbia]  1/14/02 60 Minutes: genocide. The victims are largely poor farmers, many of them of Indian and African heritage.

Colombia prepares for war against FARC rebels  1/10/02 Jane's

Colombia says IRA sent 25 to train rebels  1/8/02 Times, UK

Colombia: Logging and violence against Afro-Colombian communities in the Chocó  1/1/02 World Rain Forest: "This forestry exploitation they are complaining about implies a disregard for the Afro-Colombian communities’ rights, set out in Law 70, officially recognising their territories. The artificial channels opened up by the logging company have further exposed the communities to the para-military forces by making access and fast offensive and monitoring movements possible from military locations."

Colombians cheer for a dark beauty  12/2/01 Boston Globe: in the midst of Plan Columbia, a billion dollar effort where the paramilitary right oppresses the poor, the AfroColumbianos, the Indians: "''In Latin America blondes have always been seen as the ideal,'' said Arlene Davila, author of ''Latino Inc.,'' a new book that analyzes how products are marketed to Latinos in the United States and Latin America. Programs filmed in Latin America often show more light-skinned blondes than dark-haired people - a skewed reality considering natural blondes are a tiny minority. Colombia's ''black'' population, by contrast, hovers around 40 percent, which includes people of mixed race. Several other Latin American countries have large black populations: Brazil, the Dominican Republic, and Panama. Many others, including Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and Peru, have huge indigeneous populations which, critics say, are similarly underrepresented in pop culture - including the world of beauty pageants like the Miss Columbia contest."

El Choco: The African Heart of Colombia  2/23/01 ISLA: "Colombia's Black minority comprises 36-40% of the national population, but is officially recognized at 26%. This means our population is about 11 million of the 42 million people in Colombia… Some historians view the Choco as a very big palenque with a large population of cimarrones, especially in the areas of the Baudo River. There were very popular cimarron leaders like Benkos Biojo and Barule who fought for freedom. Black people played a key role in the independence struggle against Spain. Historians say that there were three African soldiers for every five soldiers in Bolivar's army. Not only that, we participated at all levels of the political and military structure."

Hernan Cortés, National Coordination, Proceso de Comunidades Negras (PCN)  2/1/01 Colombia's Invisible Popular Struggles: "The Black Peoples Process resists becoming symbols of an active and peaceful struggle facing a devastating process that has turned them into the main victims of genocide. As of May 2000, military and paramilitary violence against the Afro Colombian communities increased dramatically. Over 76 lives have been lost from May to December 2000."

CANADA-COLOMBIA SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN  12/2/00 Colombia Forum

MESSAGE OF UNITY FOR ALL THE AFROCOLOMBIANS  1/21/00 Radaza

Colombia: violence and deforestation in the Choco region  11/1/99 World Rain Forest: "The Pacific Region of the country, known for its abundance of natural resources and cultural richness, as well as for the constant process of depredation that it has suffered since colonial times (see WRM Bulletin 27 ) is victim of this type of activities. The Forcibly Displaced Afro-Colombian Communities of the Cacarica Basin of the Choco, provisionally settled in Turbo, Bocas del Atrato and Bahia Cupica have denounced the illegal and indiscriminate deforestation of their lands by the YIREH cooperative. This company is apparently operating in connection with the logging corporation Darien Woods Company (Maderas de El Darien)."

Colombia in the News
Archive: to 6/02

Contacting AfroCubaWeb

Copyright © 1997 AfroCubaWeb, S.A.

Colombia in the News Archive: to 6/02

Contacting AfroCubaWeb

Copyright © 1997 AfroCubaWeb, S.A.

Colombia in the News
Archive: to 6/02