>the Colombia Action Network > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > 1. Report: 140 Unionists Vanished > 2. Rightists Claim Colombian's Killing > 3. U.S.-Colombian Drug Fight Underway > 4. Re-militarizing El Salvador > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >September 13, 2000, Associated Press >Report: 140 Unionists Vanished > >GENEVA (AP) -- At least half of the 140-plus union members who >disappeared or were killed last year came from Colombia, making it the >world' s most dangerous place for organized labor, a labor group said in >a report released Wednesday. > >In its annual survey of violations of union rights, the International >Confederation of Free Trade Unions found that 676 death threats were >issued against Colombian unionists last year. At least 69 union members >were killed, down from 91 the previous year, and 22 were kidnapped. > >In the report, ICFTU general secretary Bill Jordan cited " ruthless >repression in Latin America, attacks and interference in Asia, arrests >and imprisonment in Africa, severe restrictions and nonpayment of wages >in Eastern Europe and a growing trend to union-busting activities in >industrialized countries." > >The 189-page report said 90 unionists died in Latin America last year. >The continent also accounted for some 70 percent of the 3, 000 people >arrested for carrying out union activities worldwide. > >More than 1, 500 unionists worldwide were injured, beaten or tortured, >while at least 5, 800 were harassed because of " legitimate trade union >activities, " the report said. It added that 12, 000 people were >unfairly dismissed or refused reinstatement because they were active >union members. > >The survey said 37 unionists died during strikes in Asia and the >Pacific, and authorities around the region " frequently intervened in >trade union affairs." > >It also found high levels of government interference in Eastern Europe. >Across the continent, seven unionists were killed, four of them in >Russia, it said. > >The ICFTU says it has affiliates in 145 countries representing more than >123 million workers. > >Copyright 2000 Associated Press. > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >Tuesday, September 12, 2000, Associated Press >Rightists Claim Colombian's Killing > >BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- Rightist paramilitary gunmen have assassinated >a leftist community activist who was planning a run for local office in >Colombia, police said Tuesday. > >The body of Carlos Restrepo was found in a barren lot outside San Luis, >hours after armed men dragged him out of a community meeting Saturday in >the small town, 78 miles west of the capital, Bogota. > >Restrepo, 44, had been shot several times in the head. > >The assailants, who arrived in a group of about 20, identified >themselves as members of the nationwide paramilitary umbrella group, >United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, police in the state capital, >Ibague, told The Associated Press. > >Pamphlets found next to Restrepo' s body Saturday accused him of >collaborating with the South American country' s largest rebel movement, >the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. > >A one-time candidate for local office backed by former members of the >Marxist M-19 guerrilla movement, Restrepo had announced his candidacy >for October elections for the town council in San Luis. > >He was also the publisher of Tangente, a small monthly circular >containing local news about San Luis, a town of some 8, 000 residents. > >Colombia' s paramilitary militias, who are backed by landowners, are >waging a " scorched earth" campaign against suspected leftists, >committing massacres and executions. The government claims it has no >ties to the groups, although human rights groups charge the militias >enjoy tacit and sometimes direct support from the military. > >Also on Tuesday, leftist National Liberation Army rebels, Colombia' s >second-largest insurgent group, freed a congressman, 17 months after >kidnapping him in the hijacking of a domestic airliner. > >The rebels handed over lawmaker Juan Manuel Corzo to the Red Cross in >mountains near the northeastern town of San Pablo. > >He was then flown by helicopter to the nearby city of Bucaramanga, where >he reported being in good health except for a knee injury sustained in >captivity. > >With Corzo' s release, only three of the 41 passengers and crew aboard >the Avianca flight forced down in rebel territory remain in ELN hands. > >Copyright 2000 Associated Press. > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >Wednesday, September 13, 2000, Associated Press > >U.S.-Colombian Drug Fight Underway >By MARGARITA MARTINEZ > >TUMACO, Colombia (AP) -- Arriving aboard a U.S.-made combat helicopter, >the head of Colombia's national police and the top U.S. drug official in >the country watched as heavily armed officers torched a drug lab and >dumped coca leaves into a river. > >Other helicopters swept back and forth overhead, keeping an eye out for >gunmen, and police stood guard over four people they caught at the site >-- allegedly workers at the drug lab. > >The daylong operation Tuesday underscored Washington' s deepening >involvement in the drug war in this South American nation. The offensive >is to get fully under way when 60 additional combat helicopters arrive >from the United States next year and U.S. special forces troops finish >training two Colombian army battalions. > >About 75 rifle-toting Colombian police officers swept through a section >of jungle in southwest Colombia on Tuesday as part of "Operation >Mangrove." Police say 26 drug labs and 12, 500 acres of >cocaine-producing crops have been destroyed by aerial fumigation in the >month-long regional operation. > >Nationwide, 91, 400 acres have been sprayed this year, police said. > >"We're fumigating all over the country, so the drug traffickers know >there is no safe place for them," national police chief Gen. Luis >Gilibert told journalists during Tuesday's mission. > >Gilibert and Leo Arreguin, chief of the U.S. Drug Enforcement >Administration in Colombia, watched as a plane swooped down and dumped a >load of herbicide on a coca plantation. > >Three combat Black Hawk helicopters flew overhead, ready to fire back at >rebels who have been protecting drug crops and earning millions of >dollars a week by taxing drug producers. There was no resistance to the >raid, which was observed by about 30 journalists flown in from the >capital, Bogota, 370 miles to the northeast. > >Later, anti-narcotics police clad in combat fatigues found three bags >bulging with coca leaf, from which cocaine is made, in a canoe. They >dumped the contents into a river. > >The officers then torched a rudimentary coca-processing lab and arrested >three boys and a man who allegedly had picked the coca crop and worked >in the lab. > >The growing joint U.S.-Colombian effort, which will be financed by $1.3 >billion from Washington, is expected to level off coca production by the >end of 2001 and bring a "dramatic reduction" a year later, the State >Department said last week. > >For now, though, the early operations have barely dented overall drug >production in Colombia, which supplies more than 80 percent of the >world' s cocaine. > >According to the DEA, there were almost 300, 000 acres of coca in >Colombia at the end of last year. Evidence suggests there will be an >increase this year over the estimated 520 metric tons of cocaine that >Colombia produced in 1999, Barry McCaffrey, director of the White House >drug control office, said last week. > >The anti-drug effort has won support in Washington, but local coca >farmers often feel abandoned by Colombia's government and say the crop >is the only one from which they can turn a profit. Many locals also fear >the widespread fumigation will cause irreversible ecological damage. > >The U.S. State Department says the herbicide, called glyphosate, is only >being sprayed on illicit drug crops and that it causes no long-lasting >damage. > >But a DEA agent said drug producers often replant the hardy coca bushes >in the same area after the herbicide washes away. Half the sprayed areas >are replanted with coca, said the agent, who did not want to give his >name. > >Copyright 2000 Associated Press. > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >AlterNet September 11, 2000 > >Re-militarizing El Salvador >by George Thurlow > >It's midnight on the tarmac at Los Angeles Airport. Four Salvadoran men >are being unloaded from an Immigration and Naturalization Service van. >The men, who have the tough look of survivors, join the crush of >passengers pushing anxiously onto United flight 865 to San Salvador. >These four Salvadorans didn't have to wait for their row to be called. >They are being deported under the bored, governmental gaze of two armed >INS agents. > >Twenty years ago the United States shipped billions in war materials to >El Salvador, and in return that tiny nation sent its best youths out of >harm's way to America. This year those youths, their families, and a >flood of newcomers will return more than $1.6 billion in American wages >to their homeland -- propping up one of Latin America's poorest >countries. > >Some of those youths, members of transnational Salvadoran gangs like >Salvatrucha, M18, will be deported by the INS when they commit street >crimes, only to get caught up in El Salvador's gang scene. They are also >caught in the middle of tenuous post-cold war U.S.-Salvadoran relations. > >As crime plagues postwar El Salvador, South American drugs have replaced >communism as the U.S. government's new bogeyman in Latin America. >Seeking a Central American beachhead in the drug war, the United States >is planning a new round of military buildup in this war-shattered >country. Meanwhile, President Bill Clinton headed to Colombia last month >to deliver $1.3 billion in mostly military aid to fight drugs and >Colombian insurgents. > >--- Just Watching? >At the height of the Reagan war in El Salvador in the 1980s there were >55 "official" U.S. military advisers in El Salvador, although the number >was usually larger, as troops flew in from Honduras, wore civilian >clothes at the Sheraton Hotel, or just plain lied about what they were >doing in the country. > >Fierce opposition among liberal Democrats in Congress and a vocal >antiwar movement in the United States kept that number from growing, so >instead, the conservative administration relied on training elite >battalions of Salvadoran soldiers for the harshest anti-insurgency >campaigns. > >Today the United States wants to build a new military garrison in El >Salvador -- this one larger, more complex, and more out in the open. A >complex of hangars at the international airport outside of San Salvador >would be taken over by U.S. pilots, support soldiers, and military >hardware. > >In late June, in yet another ironic twist in the aftermath of U.S. >intervention in El Salvador, former FMLN guerrilla commanders faced off >with then-U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson in the "Culture of Peace" >conference room of the National Assembly building. Patterson told the >fledgling democrats, some of whom were commanding guerrilla groups only >a decade earlier, that the U.S. needs an antidrug listening post in >Central America -- and that El Salvador is the perfect location. > >In a hallway outside the closed-door meeting, a U.S. government official >who would only speak anonymously explained, "We need to monitor airspace >and sea lanes, and our only role under these agreements is to monitor >suspected drug flights. There would be no interdiction. There is no >offensive strategy." > >U.S. officials insist the Americans would fly only two P-3 Orion >reconnaissance planes, set up an array of radar, and have only 60 >American soldiers and their families based in El Salvador. But the >official accord, handed out to reporters and waved in the air by >opposition leaders, has no limit on the total number of soldiers, >planes, or buildings. > >Leaders of the FMLN are wary: why build a new base in El Salvador? Is it >a coincidence that this plan has been raised just as the FMLN appears >poised to take power in the country? With the United States kicked out >of Panama, shunned by Costa Rica and Mexico, and mired in a guerrilla >war in Colombia, is El Salvador the new American station house for >Central American "police actions"? > >This past March, to the surprise of both Salvadorans and Americans, the >former guerrilla party FMLN won the most seats in the National Assembly >and, more important, won the top administrative posts in most of the >nation's major cities. Presidential elections are not until 2004, but >current trends indicate that the FMLN will take over in that year. > >Eugenio Chicas, an FMLN member of the National Assembly, was a key >leader in the war against the U.S.-backed Salvadoran government. He was > _______________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki - Finland +358-40-7177941, fax +358-9-7591081 e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kominf.pp.fi _______________________________________________________ Kominform list for general information. 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