So what level is that? More $, less, or the same? :munchin

Clinton visited Colombia while Pastrana was President. I don't think 41 visited Colombia

Paramilitary Fighters Disarm in Colombia

Friday, November 26, 2004


TURBO, Colombia — Some 450 right-wing paramilitary fighters left Colombia's (search) crowded battlefields, turning in their weapons and asking society to let them back into its fold.

Wearing camouflage uniforms and rubber boots, the members of the "Banana Bloc" of the outlawed United Self-Defense Forces (search), or AUC, sang the national anthem Thursday, then laid down hundreds of rifles, grenade-launchers and mortars on a long table.

"We have been given hope again," government Peace Commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo (search) told the disarmament ceremony at a soccer stadium in Turbo, 310 miles northwest of the capital, Bogota.

The ceremony completes the disbandment of the Banana Bloc, which for more than a decade held sway over much of Colombia's main banana-growing region in Antioquia state.

AUC leader Salvatore Mancuso said in a speech at that the paramilitaries were ready to "forgive our enemies and ask society to receive us in its bosom and believe in our decision to liberate ourselves from the war."

The fighters will now head to a nearby country estate where authorities will review their individual legal status, health, education and job prospects. Once deemed fit to return to civil society, they will be allowed to leave as free men.

Critics of the process, however, warn there is nothing to prevent them from regrouping under a different name and continuing to commit crimes and traffic drugs. The United States considers the AUC a "terrorist organization" and is seeking the extradition of several of its leaders, including Mancuso, on drug-related charges.

Villagers have also expressed concern that Marxist rebels driven away by the paramilitaries could return to fill the void left by the demobilization. The army says it has sent 500 additional troops to secure the region.

Peace talks between the government and the AUC began in July in a safe haven in northwest Colombia and aim to demobilize the AUC's 15,000 right-wing fighters by 2006. Hundreds have already demobilized, though the fate of commanders and fighters accused of gross human rights abuses has yet to be decided.

Colombia's paramilitary groups were created two decades ago to combat leftist guerrillas. The paramilitaries, like their rebel foes, finance themselves through drug trafficking and extortion.

While the paramilitaries press forward with the demobilizations, two leftist rebel groups that have been battling the government for 40 years have shunned appeals by the government to declare a cease-fire and start talks.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,139643,00.html

"Banana Block" - LOL

Its Bananero, not Banano.

This is a bad AO, up there. Very hard core people.

Festive avatar!

True, you think? :munchin

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/americ...lot/index.html

Colombian official: Rebels planned to kill Bush
Saturday, November 27, 2004 Posted: 3:38 PM EST (2038 GMT)

(CNN) -- U.S. President George W. Bush was targeted for assassination by Marxist rebels this week when he visited the city of Cartagena, a Colombian official said Saturday.

"We found out through informers and various sources that groups within the [Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia] had been instructed from its leadership to make an assassination attempt on President Bush," Colombian Defense Secretary Jorge Alberto Uribe told Caracol TV, a Bogota-based satellite network.

Uribe said no evidence of the alleged plot by the group -- Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia or FARC -- has been recovered.

The U.S. Secret Service declined to comment on the alleged plot.

"The Secret Service does not comment or release information regarding our protective intelligence and protective methods," said spokesman Jonathan Cherry. "Secret Service does not discuss any alleged threats to our protectees."

Security was heavy during Bush's visit, and no incidents occurred.

FARC has frequently been accused of targeting visiting international leaders for assassination.

"The administration of George W. Bush is everything that Marxist rebels hate in a U.S. government," journalist Toby Muse in Bogota, Colombia, told CNN.

"The plots against the president's life don't seem to have advanced very far," Muse said.

The president stopped briefly in Colombia on November 22 on his way back to Washington after attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Santiago, Chile. (Full story)

Established in 1964 as the military wing of the Colombian Communist Party, FARC is Colombia's oldest, largest, most capable and best-equipped Marxist rebel group, according to the U.S. Department of State. The group, which has about 13,500 members, conducts bombings, murders, kidnappings and hijackings, the State Department said.

The State Department has classified FARC as a terrorist group.

Colombia has seen decades of civil warfare, involving government troops, leftist rebels and right-wing paramilitary groups.

CNN's Suzanne Malveaux contributed to this report.

Government BS to stay on the radar screen. Muse is an asshole.

Forgive their enemies? That for damn sure -


COLOMBIA


Paramilitaries ally with rebels for drug trade

Formerly archenemies, Colombian right-wing paramilitaries and left-wing guerrillas have put their differences aside, working together in the illicit-drug trade.
BOGOTA - In Colombia, drug trafficking and war can make for strange bedfellows.

In recent months, U.S. and Colombian authorities have noticed an alarming amount of direct contact between right-wing paramilitary groups and left-wing guerrillas from the country's largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. They are not fighting, authorities say, but working or doing business together.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald...t/10268889.htm

Alfredo Rangel has forgotten more about the Colombian conflict than most people will ever know. I consider him to be one of the few worth listening to and read his column religiously.

There will be those on both the US and Colombian sides that try to make many connections all over, as it will keep the money flowing. It doesn't do them any good to have a local problem. It all needs to be part of a big conspiracy and a threat to the US.

What Rangel says makes sense to me. The Paras, with narco money, are the one thing the FARC truly fear. it only makes sense they would try to divide and conquer. Also, many of the paras are former Gs. Not hard to believe they would work out some local arrangements for good business.

Told you so

LOL :lifter

"Rebellion," now that's a sweet crime! LOL

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,142559,00.html


Colombian Marxist Rebels Kidnap 10 Tourists

Sunday, December 26, 2004

BOGOTA, Colombia — Marxist rebels have abducted up to 10 tourists celebrating Christmas at a lakeside spa in northwestern Colombia (search), officials said.

Fighters of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (search), or FARC, raided a cluster of bungalows late Friday near San Rafael, 230 kilometers (140 miles) northwest of Bogota, and herded between 8 to 10 vacationers into vehicles, Jorge Mejia, deputy governor of Antioquia state, told The Associated Press.

"Unfortunately, witnesses did not report the kidnapping to authorities until late today, so the guerrillas have had plenty of time to reach their hideouts deep in the mountains," Mejia said Saturday.

He said army troops and counterinsurgency police forces, supported by helicopters, have launched a large-scale search and rescue operation.

"This is a criminal action, in no way justifiable. The victims were middle-class families enjoying a Christmas break," Mejia said. He said the FARC probably seized the group for ransom.

The abductions came despite the deployment of more than 100,000 security forces to safeguard highways and popular tourist spots during the busy holiday season.

A security crackdown ordered by President Alvaro Uribe (search) has sharply reduced the number of kidnappings and killings in the past two years, making Colombians feel it was safe to venture into what used to be effectively no-go areas.

"It's a specially hard blow because San Rafael had been very peaceful recently," Mejia said.

The FARC kidnaps hundreds of people every year, mainly for ransom, to help fund its 40-year-old war to topple the government and establish a Marxist state in Colombia. The conflict involving leftist guerrillas, government troops and right-wing paramilitary militias kills more than 3,000 people every year.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/americ....ap/index.html

16 peasants massacred in Colombia
Saturday, January 1, 2005 Posted: 7:54 PM EST (0054 GMT)

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- Suspected Marxist rebels massacred 16 peasants, including women and children, in a remote area in lawless Arauca province, police said Saturday.

The attack came last Friday less than an hour before the New Year arrived in the village of Puerto San Salvador, 230 miles northeast of Bogota, Arauca police chief Col. Rodrigo Palacio told The Associated Press.

He said the killers, believed to be members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, accused the peasants of collaborating with right-wing paramilitary militias. The dead included six men, six women and four children.

Leftist rebels have long battled the outlawed paramilitary fighters of the United Self-Defense Forces, or AUC, for control of Arauca, one of Colombia's most violent provinces that is a strategic corridor for smuggling drugs and arms across the border to Venezuela.

The AUC is involved in a peace process with the government and has demobilized more than 3,000 fighters this year. The FARC has shunned government offers to start negotiations.

The massacre came the same day that President Alvaro Uribe took the unprecedented step of extraditing a top FARC commander to the United States on drug trafficking and terrorism charges, raising fears of reprisal attacks.

Colombia's armed forces chief put his troops on high alert after Ricardo Palmera, a former FARC peace negotiator believed to have been heavily involved in the group's financial operations, became the first FARC leader to be sent for trial in a U.S. federal court.

The extradition came after the FARC failed to comply with an ultimatum from Uribe to free 63 hostages, including three Americans.

Colombia's 40-year-old conflict kills more than 3,000 people every year.

______________________________________________

Photo caption:

Ricardo Palmera, a former FARC peace negotiator, is escorted by special forces after his arrest in Ecuador, January 3, 2004.

I used to work in Arauca. Law of the Gun applies in ever sense of the term.