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http://sg.news.yahoo.com/020425/1/2om50.html Thursday April 25, 4:44 PM Links between IRA and Colombian rebels unsubstantiated: lawmakers Irate US lawmakers branded a congressional staff report alleging links between the Irish Republican Army and leftist Colombian rebels as not credible, while Colombian witnesses insisted they had proof. "I don't believe that report was very credible," said Republican Representative Peter King at a hearing Wednesday billed as a peek into global terrorism as "illustrated by the IRA in Colombia." "There is no evidence whatsoever the IRA had any involvement at all" with three Irish nationals held and charged in Colombia last year with training leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels in the use of explosives. Particularly disturbing, added another lawmaker, was the underlying suggestion that such connections should galvanize Washington into beefing up its military aid to help Bogota battle the guerrillas. The report by the House International Relations staff seemed to do nothing more than "rubber stamp a preordained conclusion to fit a particular agenda," said Representative William Delahunt. President George W. Bush, who recently met with his Colombian counterpart Andres Pastrana, has pledged support for Bogota's battle with leftist insurgents and right-wing paramilitaries. The investigative report that served as the basis of the hearing prepared by the committee's Republican majority staff and officially released Wednesday, stated the "IRA has had well-established links with the FARC narco-terrorists in Colombia since at least 1998." It also noted that "explosives management training for the FARC by the IRA, and possibly by other foreign-based terrorists ... has markedly improved the FARC's proficiency in urban terrorism in the last few years." King, however, was unimpressed. "It was an investigation with an agenda from the start," he said. Delahunt, a Democrat, agreed. "We have been presented with a report short on facts and replete with surmise and opinion," he said. Hearing witness Asa Hutchinson, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) admitted that despite the report, there was no hard evidence linking the IRA to terrorist organizations such as the FARC. "We do not know if they were acting on their own or at the direction of someone else," Hutchinson told the panel. But Colombia armed forces chief General Fernando Tapias insisted that of the 15 Irish men arrested and suspected of having IRA links, firm evidence exists in the cases of seven of them. Tapias told the hearing that the Irish men trained FARC in unconventional weapons making, explosives production, and in fighting as well as intelligence gathering techniques. He testified that the rebels' operations became more effective after they had received the training. "But I cannot say if their presence was there with the approval of the (IRA) leadership because I have no evidence," he admitted. Later Wednesday, in Bogota, Colombia Attorney General Luis Camilo Osorio insisted there was proof that three of the men actually belonged to the IRA. "These people were in no way just passing through, or here for a holiday, they were engaged in criminal activity, and this is the proof we have brought and presented before the judges so they can be tried," Osorio said. "Terrorism in Colombia is not a local situation but comes under the sign of having international links," he added. In Washington, US Representative Donald Payne, a Democrat, had concluded, however, there was "nothing" in the report that could "point a finger at anything other than three rogue men who happen to be Irish." Lawmakers objected that linking the IRA to the FARC -- designated a terrorist organization by the United States -- could undermine the delicate peace process in Northern Ireland. "I'm very disturbed and annoyed," Payne went on, "because of the tenuousness of the peace process in the north (of Ireland) and that something like this can put some lumps in the road." "To have a public hearing now is wrong," agreed King, adding that the way the hearing had been presented sent "a very false signal to the world." Payne also dismissed European media reports implying that Gerry Adams, leader of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA, had snubbed Congress by turning down a request to appear at the hearing. "What is there for him to say?" Payne asked. Adams wrote House International Relations committee chairman Henry Hyde saying he was concerned his attendance "may impact on due legal process in Colombia." Adams later said of the hearing that it "vindicated Sinn Fein's position that we have no case to answer in respect of the allegations levelled against our party." James Monaghan, Niall Connolly and Martin McCauley were detained on August 11, 2001, at Bogota's international airport. The three, who are now awaiting trial, have denied charges of having trained FARC rebels in the use of explosives, and the IRA has denied that any of them are IRA members. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! 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