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20090325

Hillary Clinton

Barack Obama

Mexico

Illegal

Drug

Enforcement

Military

Health

Brazil

Colombia

"Clinton: U.S. Drug Policies Failed, Fueled Mexico's Drug War." ... "Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton traveled to Mexico on Wednesday with a blunt mea culpa, saying that decades of U.S. anti-narcotics policies have been a failure and have contributed to the explosion of drug violence south of the border." ... ""Clearly what we've been doing has not worked," Clinton told reporters on her plane at the start of her two-day trip, saying that [United States] U.S. policies on curbing drug use, narcotics shipments and the flow of guns have been ineffective." ... ""Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade," she added. "Our inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals causes the deaths of police, of soldiers and civilians."" ... "More than 7,000 Mexicans have been killed in the bloodletting since January 2008, with the gangs battling authorities and one another for supremacy." ... "The [Democratic President] Obama administration announced Tuesday that it is sending hundreds more agents and extra high-tech gear to the border to intercept weapons and drug proceeds heading south." ... "Last month, former presidents of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico called on the United States in a report to consider legalizing marijuana use and focusing more on treatment for drug users. Obama has emphasized his support for expanded treatment facilities, although not for allowing marijuana use. " (1, 2) -By Mary Beth Sheridan

-WashingtonPost

20090212

Criminal

Drug

War

Government

Law

Politics

Health

Brazil

Mexico

Colombia

World

"Latin American Panel Calls U.S. Drug War a Failure." ... "As drug violence spirals out of control in Mexico, a commission led by three former Latin American heads of state blasted the [United States] U.S.-led drug war as a failure that is pushing Latin American societies to the breaking point." ... ""The available evidence indicates that the war on drugs is a failed war," said former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, in a conference call with reporters from Rio de Janeiro [Brazil]. "We have to move from this approach to another one."" ... "The commission, headed by Mr. Cardoso and former presidents Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico and César Gaviria of Colombia, says Latin American governments as well as the U.S. must break what they say is a policy "taboo" and re-examine U.S.-inspired antidrugs efforts. The panel recommends that governments consider measures including decriminalizing the use of marijuana." ... "The report, by the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy, is the latest to question the U.S.'s emphasis on punitive measures to deal with illegal drug use and the criminal violence that accompanies it. A recent Brookings Institution study concluded that despite interdiction and eradication efforts, the world's governments haven't been able to significantly decrease the supply of drugs, while punitive methods haven't succeeded in lowering drug use." ... "The three former presidents who head the commission are political conservatives who have confronted in their home countries the violence and corruption that accompany drug trafficking." ... "The report warned that the U.S.-style antidrug strategy was putting the region's fragile democratic institutions at risk and corrupting "judicial systems, governments, the political system and especially the police forces."" ... "Latin America, he [former President of Colombia César Gaviria] said, should adapt a more European approach, based on treating drug addiction as a health problem." -By José de Córdoba with contributions by David Luhnow, Louise Radnofsky and Evan Perez

-WSJ.com

20080702

John McCain

Carl H Lindner Jr

Terrorism

Money

Illegal

Military

Politics

Federal

Investigation

International

Food

Colombia

Arizona

Ohio

2008 Election

"McCain Backer's Firm Pleaded Guilty To Funding Terrorist Group In Colombia." ... "The co-host of a recent top-dollar fundraiser for [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate and Arizona Senator] Sen. John McCain oversaw the payment of roughly $1.7 million to a Colombian paramilitary group that is today designated a terrorist organization by the United States." ... "Carl H. Lindner Jr., the billionaire Cincinnati [Ohio] businessman, was CEO [Chief Executive Officer] of Chiquita Brands International from 1984 to 2001, and remained on the company's board of directors until May 2002. Beginning under his tenure, Chiquita executives paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (known by the Spanish acronym AUC), which is described by George Washington University's National Security Archive as an "illegal right-wing anti-guerrilla group tied to many of the country's most notorious civilian massacres."" ... "Following a Justice Department indictment [pdf] last year, Chiquita admitted to illegally funding the paramilitaries and agreed to pay a $25 million fine. Chiquita's payments to the AUC began in 1997 and lasted seven years; roughly half of the funds came after the group was designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. State Department in 2001." ... "According to the Justice Department, the payments "were reviewed and approved by senior executives" of Chiquita, who knew by no later than September 2000 "that the AUC was a violent, paramilitary organization."" ... "Late last week, Lindner co-hosted a $25,000-per-person fundraiser for McCain and the Republican Party in the wealthy Indian Hills neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio. The event raised about $2 million; Lindner also serves on McCain's Ohio Victory Team." ... "While Lindner was CEO of Chiquita, the company began sending money to the AUC through its shipping subsidiary Banadex. A report by the Organization of American States states that Banadex also engaged in arms trafficking, helping to deliver 3,000 Nicaraguan AK-47 rifles and millions of rounds of ammunition to the AUC in 2001. According to federal prosecutors, when company officials realized the arrangement was illegal, they switched to making the payments in cash." -By Nico Pitney

-HuffingtonPost.com

20070802

US - Colombia - International - Government - Military - Terrorism - Law - Enforcement - Money - Politics - Food - Agriculture - Workers - "In Terrorism-Law Case, Chiquita Points to U.S.: Firm Says It Awaited Justice Dept. Advice." ... "On April 24, 2003, a board member of Chiquita International Brands disclosed to a top official at the Justice Department that the king of the banana trade was evidently breaking the nation's anti-terrorism laws." ... "Roderick M. Hills, who had sought the meeting with former law firm colleague Michael Chertoff, explained that Chiquita was paying "protection money" to a Colombian paramilitary group on the U.S. government's list of terrorist organizations. Hills said he knew that such payments were illegal, according to sources and court records, but said that he needed Chertoff's advice." ... "Chiquita, Hills said, would have to pull out of the country if it could not continue to pay the violent right-wing group to secure its Colombian banana plantations. Chertoff, then assistant attorney general and now secretary of homeland security [under Republican President Bush], affirmed that the payments were illegal but said to wait for more feedback, according to five sources familiar with the meeting." ... "Sources close to Chiquita say that Chertoff never did get back to the company or its lawyers. Neither did Larry D. Thompson, the deputy attorney general, whom Chiquita officials sought out after Chertoff left his job for a federal judgeship in June 2003. And Chiquita kept making payments for nearly another year." ... "What transpired at the Justice Department meeting is now a central issue in a criminal probe. According to these sources' account, the Bush administration was pulled in competing directions, perhaps because its desire to avoid undermining a newly elected, friendly Colombian government conflicted with its frequent public assertions that supporting a terrorist group anywhere constitutes a criminal offense and a foreign policy mistake." ... "An Organization of American States report in 2003 said that Chiquita participated in smuggling thousands of arms for paramilitaries into the Northern Uraba region, using docks operated by the company to unload thousands of Central American assault rifles and ammunition." ... "[Colombia's attorney general, Mario] Iguaran, whose office has been investigating Chiquita's operations, said the company knew AUC was using payoffs and arms to fund operations against peasants, union workers and rivals." (1, 2, 3) -By Carol D. Leonnig with contributions by Spencer S. Hsu and Juan Forero -WashingtonPost
US - Colombia - Florida - School - Kids - US Immigration - Law - "Can Two Kids Alter Immigration Law?" ... "When teenage brothers Juan and Alex Gomez were awakened at dawn on July 25 and arrested by U.S. immigration officials, they simply became two more among the thousands of kids who get snared in deportation dragnets along with their parents. But this week Juan's Internet-savvy high school friends in Miami [Florida] have turned his case into a cause celebre in Washington — and even if the brothers eventually do get deported, the publicity they've garnered may well boost the passage of a federal immigration bill that would keep other young people like them from suffering the same fate in the future." ... "Juan, 18, and Alex, 19, were toddlers when their Colombian parents brought them on a visit to the U.S. in 1990. Despite having only a six-month visa, the family did not return to their war-torn country and remained in Florida. They started a modest business, sidestepping federal immigration authorities for almost two decades. The boys, meanwhile, grew up as Americans and excelled at school — especially Juan, who mastered 15 advanced-placement courses at Miami's Killian Senior High School and almost aced the SAT before graduating this past spring. Because the law denies benefits such as in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants, the Gomezes could only afford community college for their sons — but both were determined to earn college degrees." ... "Each year some 65,000 kids graduate from high school in the U.S. under similar circumstances." -By Tim Padgett -TIME.com

20070314

Colombia - US - Ohio - Food - Company - Law - "Chiquita Charged With Terrorist Dealings: Banana Company Admits Former Subsidiary Paid Right-Wing Group In Colombia To Protect Employees." ... "Banana company Chiquita Brands International Inc. was charged Wednesday with doing business with a terrorist organization." ... "Court documents filed Wednesday are an indication the company has settled a lengthy Justice Department investigation into its financial dealings with terrorist groups in Colombia." ... "Federal prosecutors said the [Ohio] Cincinnati-based company and several unnamed high-ranking corporate officers did business with the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia. The group is described in court documents as a violent right-wing organization that the U.S. has designated as a terrorist group." -AP via -CBSNews

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Colombia Websites

CIA World Factbook:
"Colombia."

LOC.gov /rr /FRD /CS

"Colombia - A Country Study."

Travel-State.gov:

"Consular Information Sheet."

"Colombia - Travel Warning."

"U.S. Embassy in Bogota, Colombia."

"Colombia Country Information."

"Colombia Background Information."

USaid.gov

"Colombia."

"Building Democracy in Colombia."

""OTI Colombia Program Information."

Colombia Maps.

"Languages of Colombia." -Ethnologue

<Colombia> in:

<Bartleby.com>

<Britannica.com>

<Encyclopedia.com>

<Infoplease.com>

"Destination Colombia." -Lonely Planet

Plus:

UN.int

"Permanent Mission of Colombia to the United Nations."

UTexas.edu /LANIC

Colombia Links

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Colombia News sources:

Economist.com

Guardian

PBSNewsHour

WashingtonPost

>Colombia's Civil War

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CNN.com /Special

"Colombia: War Without End." -2000

Colombia
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20060529

Colombia - Military - Drugs - Employment - Economy - Poverty - History - "Victorious Colombian Uribe faces high expectations." ... "Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe on Sunday scored a landslide re-election victory that handed him a solid mandate for four more years as Washington's closest ally in Latin America." ... "One of Colombia's most popular presidents, Uribe won 62 percent of the ballots as conflict-weary voters rewarded him for his campaign to curb warring left-wing rebels and militia and the cocaine trade that fuels a long-running insurgency." ... "But even as the first incumbent president to be re-elected in Colombia's modern history, Uribe must sustain his security crackdown on FARC rebels and control disbanded right-wing militia while tackling social issues such as unemployment and poverty." ... "While Colombia's economy has grown solidly under Uribe's guidance and foreign investment has expanded, half of the country's 41 million people still live in poverty." (1, 2) -By Patrick Markey -Reuters

20060528

Noteworthy - Cheney - Terrorism - Libby - US - Colombia - Military - Science - Politics - "Cheney aide is screening legislation: Adviser seeks to protect Bush power." ... "The office of Vice President Dick Cheney routinely reviews pieces of legislation before they reach the president's desk, searching for provisions that Cheney believes would infringe on presidential power, according to former White House and Justice Department officials." ... "The officials said Cheney's legal adviser and chief of staff, David Addington, is the Bush administration's leading architect of the ``signing statements" the president has appended to more than 750 laws. The statements assert the president's right to ignore the laws because they conflict with his interpretation of the Constitution." ... "The Bush-Cheney administration has used such statements to claim for itself the option of bypassing a ban on torture, oversight provisions in the USA Patriot Act, and numerous requirements that they provide certain information to Congress, among other laws." ... "Using signing statements, the administration has challenged more laws than all previous administrations combined." ... "Addington played a major role in shaping the administration's legal policies in the war on terrorism, including a 2002 memo arguing that Bush could authorize interrogators to bypass anti torture laws. In October, when Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis ``Scooter" Libby, was indicted for perjury and resigned, Cheney replaced Libby with Addington." ... "In addition to the torture ban and oversight provisions of the Patriot Act, the laws Bush has claimed the authority to disobey include restrictions against US troops engaging in combat in Colombia, whistle-blower protections for government employees, and safeguards against political interference in taxpayer-funded research." ... "Mainstream legal scholars across the political spectrum reject Cheney's expansive view of presidential authority, saying the Constitution gives Congress the power to make all rules and regulations for the military and the executive branch and the Supreme Court has consistently upheld laws giving bureaucrats and certain prosecutors the power to act independently of the president." -By Charlie Savage -Boston/Globe

20031130

- - - - - "Two U.S. Soldiers Among 12 Killed in Iraq This Weekend: Deadly Weekend Ends Deadliest Month Since March." ... "Guerrillas killed a dozen people from four nations helping the U.S. military in Iraq in weekend ambushes, sparking new concern among Washington's allies about the risks of getting involved in stabilizing the country." ... "Two South Koreans died on Sunday when their car was sprayed with bullets near Saddam Hussein's hometown, a day after ambushes killed seven Spanish intelligence agents, two Japanese diplomats and their Iraqi driver, and a Colombian contractor." (1, 2) -By Andrew Marshall-Reuters via -WashingtonPost

20031127

- "Bullet-riddled body that of missing exec in Colombia." ... "A bullet-riddled body found outside Bogota was positively identified Tuesday as 55-year-old Chikao Muramatsu, kidnapped in February 2001 and held by leftist guerrillas." ... "Muramatsu served as vice president of Yazaki-Ciemel Ltd., a joint venture of auto parts maker Yazaki Corp., based in Tokyo's Minato Ward." -By Satoshi Izumi -Asahi Shimbun>English

20031018

"Colombia rebel zone a world apart: Tour reveals force’s growing isolation." ... "The southern stretch of Meta province, a lush jungle broken by arid plains, is a crossroads for the guns, drugs and social resentment that sustain Colombia’s war. In 1998, the government, recognizing the guerrillas’ presence, turned much of the province of 740,000 people over to the FARC as an enticement to begin peace talks, which collapsed last year, beginning a period of guerrilla retrenchment." ... "Now the Colombian military, remade since 2000 with nearly $2 billion in U.S. military training and equipment, is using mobile columns, night raids and aerial bombardment in an attempt to cut off FARC financing from Meta’s coca fields. The offensive is deepening a sense of siege and persecution among mid-level FARC commanders that has become the dominant theme of the rebels’ public administration." -By Scott Wilson -WashingtonPost via -MSNBC

20031008

"Six killed, 12 injured by bomb in Colombia capital (Updates with government reaction)." ... "At least six people, including two police officers, were killed and 12 civilians injured when a car bomb exploded on Wednesday in a grimy commercial district known for selling smuggled goods in Colombia's capital." ... "No group fighting in the country's four-decade guerrilla war immediately claimed responsibility for the blast -- the worst car bombing in Bogota since 36 people were killed and 160 wounded at the exclusive Nogal Club in February." -By Ibon Villelabeitia-Reuters via -AlertNet.org/Newsdesk

20030807

- "Colombian leader has strong grip - and yen for yoga." ... "In the year since he has taken office, President Álvaro Uribe has come to mean many things to the Colombian people: Commander in chief, poncho-clad populist, yoga enthusiast. But mostly, observers say, he has gained stature as the strong leader many feel this nation has lacked for decades." ... "But questions remain whether the president's first-year gains stem more from his charisma than from broad reform. Even if they do represent tangible progress, some wonder if Uribe can sustain the momentum." -By Rachel Van Dongen -CSMonitor

20030507

- - - "Failed hostage rescue raises worries: 'I fear for my son's life,' mom says of man held in Colombia." ... "Rosano, whose son, Marc Gonsalves, of Big Pine Key [Florida], is one of three Americans kidnapped by Colombian rebels three months ago, said in a telephone interview with The Herald that she feared for her son's life because hostages have been told that attempts to free them will be fatal -- just as it was for the victims of the botched operation." ... "Gonsalves and the two other American defense contractors taken Feb. 13 are apparently alive. But the body count from Monday's rescue operation for other captives -- 10 hostages dead, including a governor -- has mothers around Colombia clamoring for the government to approve prisoner swaps that could free dozens of captives held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia." -By France Robles with contributions by Tim Johnson-Miami/Herald

20030408

- - - - "Proud to be an American: Immigrant Soldier May Achieve American Citizenship in Death." ... "More than 31,000 members of the U.S. armed forces are not American citizens, but some of them have already given their lives in Iraq. Army Pfc. Diego Rincon, 19, was one of them." ... "Rincon died March 29 while manning an Army roadblock near Najaf when a suicide bomber posing as a taxi driver detonated a bomb." ... "Officially, Rincon was a permanent U.S. resident, not a U.S. citizen, but his family said the events of Sept. 11, 2001, inspired him to join the military and defend his adopted home. The Rincon family fled Colombia for the suburbs of Atlanta when Diego was 5 years old." -Contributions by Janice Johnston and Bill Redeker -ABCNEWS.com

20030223

- - "Colombia Rebels Admit Kidnapping 3 Americans After Crash." ... "Marxist rebels confirmed today that they had kidnapped three American government employees after their plane crash-landed in a jungle thicket, and described them as C.I.A. employees." ... "American officials have refused to divulge details about the mission the men were on, but they have said the plane was used in counternarcotics operations and that the Americans were working for the Pentagon." -By Juan Forero -NYTimes via -Google-News

20030208

"Colombia Blames Rebels, 32 Dead After Bogota Bomb." ... "Colombian and U.S. officials blamed the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a Marxist rebel army known by the Spanish initials FARC that has vowed to make the country's urban upper classes suffer the effects of a largely rural war." ... "If the bomb was the work of the FARC, it would throw down the gauntlet to hard-line President Alvaro Uribe. He has told rebels to forget peace talks without a cease-fire and embarked on a military build-up." -By Jason Webb -Reuters
"Car Bomb in Colombia Kills at Least 25." ... "A car bomb tore through an elite social club in the capital, killing at least 25 people, wounding more than 150 and raising fears that Colombia's leftist rebels were making good on threats to attack the country's wealthy ruling class." ... "The explosion Friday night rocked the 11-story El Nogal Club in north Bogota, blowing brick and mortar onto a busy avenue, collapsing floors and starting a fire that burned for about two hours before fire crews brought it under control." -Guardian.co.uk

20030102

- "19 Journalists Killed [Worldwide] For Their Work In 2002: Lowest number on record; Russia, Colombia, and the West Bank top list." ... "A total of 19 journalists were killed worldwide for their work in 2002, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). This number marks a sharp decrease from 2001 when 37 journalists were killed, eight of them while covering the war in Afghanistan. Of the 19 journalists killed in 2002, most were targeted in direct reprisal for their work, and their killers had not been brought to justice at year's end." ... "This is the lowest number of journalists killed in the line of duty that CPJ has recorded since it began tracking the deaths in 1985." ... "Still, in 2002, journalists remained at great risk. In countries such as Russia, Colombia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and the Philippines, local journalists were murdered in direct reprisal for their reporting on crime and corruption, most of them with impunity. Cameramen and photographers were especially vulnerable to cross fire and targeting by military forces—five were killed in 2002, including two who were covering conflict in the West Bank." ... "Some statistics fluctuate from year to year, but others remain constant in such countries as Russia and Colombia, where journalists die virtually every year because of their work." -CPJ.org

20021016

U.S. Sniper - "Secret Military Spy Planes Enlisted in Hunt for Sniper." ... "The Pentagon agreed today to patrol the skies over the nation's capital with secret surveillance planes — now used to combat drug lords in Colombia and track military movements in North Korea — as part of a broadening effort to catch the sniper in the Washington area." ... "While senior Pentagon officials considered a range of aircraft, including unmanned drones like the Predators used in Afghanistan and Navy P-3 Orion surveillance planes, military officials settled on the unusual Army plane because of its technical capabilities and because it blends in with civilian aircraft flying in the Washington airspace." ... "The aircraft is a four-engine turbo-prop DeHavilland DHC-7 equipped with an array of special sensors that can provide high-resolution imagery as well as other detection capabilities." (1, 2) -By Eric Lichtblau and Eric Schmitt -NYTimes via -Google-News

Google Search: Airborne Reconnaissance Low - ARL

20020904

"U.S. Is Stepping Up Drive to Destroy Coca [plants, used to create cocaine,] in Colombia." ... "With the full support of the Colombian president, the United States has begun what American officials say will be the biggest and most aggressive effort yet to wipe out coca growing [through aeiral spraying]." ... "But despite the rosy predictions, drug policy analysts and some lawmakers in Washington warn that the intensified program could just cause coca planting to spread to a wider area." ... Also, "the spraying has raised the concerns of some environmental groups." 20020829 -By Juan Forero -NYTimes via -AltaVista-News

20020903

"Colombia President to Visit U.S.." ... "President Bush will open the White House to Colombian President Alvaro Uribe on Sept. 25." -AP via -Miami/Herald

20020902

"Colombian informants could fuel vigilantism: Human rights group wary of Uribe's plan." ... "... Colombia's new president, Alvaro Uribe, is turning his attention to the country's ungoverned reaches with a plan to create a secret network of civilians who would feed tips to security forces on rebels and far-right paramilitary outlaws." ... "The idea might sound reasonable on paper, critics say, but fails to take account of the shadowy alliances that many towns have formed with one or the other of the illegal forces, alliances that have restored civic life and brought a degree of security to residents." -Reuters via -CNN

20020829

"Colombia Turns to Citizen Spies as Newest Weapon of War." ... "Unveiled here by Uribe the day after his inauguration, Colombia's emerging informant network is a key component of the new president's "democratic security" initiative, which in a civil war with many players seeks more specifically than ever to enlist civilians on the government's side." ... "The informant network, 3,000 volunteers in Colombia's three northeastern provinces, is part of a security strategy that includes arming 15,000 peasant recruits as rural auxiliaries to the army. How those soldiers will be trained, monitored and protected, as well as how the civilian informants' identities will be kept secret, are questions that have preoccupied human rights advocates here." -By Scott Wilson -WashingtonPost

20020808

"Explosions rock Colombia as new president takes office." ... "Huge explosions rocked the area around Colombia's parliament and presidential palace Wednesday as hard-liner Alvaro Uribe was sworn in as president of this troubled country. At least 14 people were killed and 69 wounded, police said." ... "Bogota Mayor Antanas Mockus said intercepted radio messages among members of the country's largest rebel group the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC showed the FARC was behind the attack." -AP via -USATODAY

20020711

"Colombia's civil war drifts south into Ecuador: More than 100 people in an Amazonian province have died as FARC and rival paramilitaries move in." -By Arie Farnam -CSMonitor/subscribe

20020710

"Rebels' brazen bid to paralyze Colombia." ... "In the past month, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, has explicitly warned local officials – including mayors, councilors, and judges – in 200 towns that they would be declared "military targets" if they fail to step down." ... "Now, the 17,000-strong guerrilla faction is systematically extending the death threat to every one of the country's 1,098 municipalities, in a concerted attempt to destroy the Colombian state from the ground up. It's an open challenge to President-elect Alvaro Uribe, who won a land- slide election victory in May by promising to crack down on FARC." -By Martin Hodgson -CSMonitor/subscribe

200207__

"The Technology Secrets of Cocaine Inc.: Colombian cartels have spent billions of dollars to build one of the world's most sophisticated IT infrastructures. It's helping them smuggle more dope than ever before." (1, 2, 3, 4) -By Paul Kaihla -Business2.0

20020528

"After win, Colombian faces harsh Latin pattern." ... "To win a first-round victory in a presidential election here is an accomplishment in itself. Colombia's president-elect Alvaro Uribe Vélez is the first candidate to do that under the country's 1991 Constitution." ... "But if he's been at all mindful of the trajectories of other Latin American presidents of late, he should beware of the Latin letdown." -By Howard LaFranchi -CSMonitor/subscribe
"A fearful legacy: Alvaro Uribe Velez, a dissident Liberal, has won Sunday's presidential election in Colombia. In his campaign, he promised to reconquer the large swathes of his country under the control of illegal armed groups. But a faltering economy means he will have few resources to contain, let alone defeat, the guerrillas and paramilitaries."

...

"Over the past decade, Colombia s complex mosaic of political violence has clarified into a brutal and self-sustaining war for territory and plunder. On the one hand stand the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the main guerrilla group, originally Stalinist, and the smaller National Liberation Army (ELN), which was once inspired by the Cuban revolution. Opposing them are the right-wing paramilitary vigilantes of the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC), whose origins lie in landlord militias, and the private armies of drug barons. All three, but especially the FARC and the AUC, are financed by drugs and extortion, and the ELN and the FARC by kidnapping. This intensifying war is calling into question Colombia s economic viability and democratic stability."

-Economist

20020527

"Colombia Elects A Hard-Liner on Fighting Rebels." ... "Colombian voters today chose Alvaro Uribe Velez, a bookish former provincial governor who has promised a more intensive military campaign to end the nation's agonizing civil war, as their next president in an election that was carried out largely free of violence." ... "But Uribe, whose résumé includes graduate studies at Harvard and Oxford, has alarmed human rights groups, which predicted that his administration would pay less attention to military abuses in prosecuting a larger war. His tenure as governor of Antioquia province, Colombia's most populous, was marked by successes in carrying out public works projects and new social spending, but also a significant widening of the conflict due to a rise in paramilitary activity." -By Scott Wilson -WashingtonPost

20020527

"Colombia elects new president: Colombian presidential candidate Alvaro Uribe claimed victory in a somber speech to supporters at a Bogota hotel, after election returns showed him with a solid majority in Sunday's vote." ... "Uribe, a former provincial governor who campaigned as an independent, won about 53 percent of the vote, averting a runoff with his closest rival, Liberal Party candidate Horacio Serpa" -CNN

20020526

Colombians elect Alvaro Uribe as President of Colombia, Sunday, 2002 May 26th.

20020526

"Uribe Elected President of War-Torn Colombia: Voters in Colombia, weary after years of fighting with leftist guerillas, overwhelmingly elected hard-line, anti-rebel candidate Alvaro Uribe Velez as the war-torn country’s 38th president Sunday." -PBS /NewsHour
"Colombian Vote's Sinister Side: Rebels Opposed to Front-Runner [Uribe] Threaten Rural Residents." ... ""For every Uribe vote, there will be a grave," town council member Victor Hugo Useche said residents have been told for the past month at roadblocks erected by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, as the 18,000-member insurgency is known." ... While most threats have been made by FARC guerillas, the AUC "paramilitaries have told would-be voters that they expect a big turnout for Uribe or else residents should expect a post-election punishment." -By Scott Wilson -WashingtonPost

20020524

"Hardliner winning in Colombia: Front-runner Uribe set to win Sunday's presidential election." ... "... under the Clinton administration, Colombia – by far the leading supplier of illicit drugs to the US – became the third-largest recipient of US aid after Israel and Egypt. Now the Bush administration is proposing new aid, and a change in legislation to allow US military aid to be used not just in counternarcotics operations but against Colombia's subversive groups as well." -By Howard LaFranchi -CSMonitor/subscribe

20020521

"Colombia elections: Key contenders." ... "Horacio Serpa, Noemi Sanin, and Luis ["Lucho"] Eduardo Garzón are challenging the lead of Alvaro Uribe Velez in the race to become Colombia's next president." -By Jeremy McDermott -BBC /News

Colombia Notes:

From the World Factbook:

Country name:

conventional long form: Republic of Colombia
conventional short form: Colombia
local short form: Colombia
local long form: Republica de Colombia

Government type: republic; executive branch dominates government structure
Capital: Bogota

rebel military group:
National Liberation Army, "ELN"

Colombia, Colombian, news, sources, search, sourceBogotá, Bogota, Republic of Colombia, Republica de Colombia, Colombianews, Colombiannews
sometimes misspelled: Columbia, Columbian

Auf Deutsch: Kolumbien. En Français: La Colombie. In Italiano: La Colombia. Em Português: Colômbia

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