From: Pakito Arriaran <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Weekly News Update on Colombia #606, 9/9/01
WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS
ISSUE #606, SEPTEMBER 9, 2001
NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK
339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012
(212) 674-9499 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
*6. COLOMBIA: US PILOTS IN MILITARY ASSAULT?
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) charge that US
pilots are participating in a military air offensive against them
in the jungles of southeastern Guaviare department. "We want to
say that this massive presence of aircraft in Guaviare has been
accompanied by the presence, also massive, of US pilots," said
spokesperson Andres Paris, a FARC delegate in peace negotiations
with the government. "The US pilots are a majority of those
flying the war planes in these operations in Guaviare."
Paris said the FARC is observing with "much concern" the "growing
presence" of US military troops in Colombia, which he categorized
as an "open violation of national sovereignty." Despite the help
from the US, he added, the military offensive in the southeast
"was another fiasco" on the part of the Colombian military.
Paris also condemned the visit that US Secretary of State Colin
Powell will make to Colombia on Sept. 11 and 12; he said the trip
seeks to consolidate a militaristic plan for the region in order
to pave the way for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA, or
ALCA in Spanish). "We reject this visit because it is precisely
Mr. Powell who is the representative of the most militaristic
sector of the US administration," said Paris. [El Tiempo (Bogota)
9/6/01]
*7. COLOMBIA: LEGISLATOR, PROSECUTOR KILLED
Colombian congressperson Jairo Rojas, president of the Peace
Commission of the House of Representatives, was assassinated by
hired killers on the night of Sept. 5 (or very early on Sept. 6)
in Bogota as he returned home from a social evening with friends.
He had given his bodyguard the night off. In addition to heading
the Peace Commission, Rojas was on the congressional commission
that handles issues related to the national budget, and headed
the Tracking Commission on Illegal Crops. Police sources said it
appeared that he was killed "by the extreme right," in reference
to the paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC).
Alberto Almonacid, one of Rojas' aides, said the congressperson
"had received threats." According to the Bogota daily El Tiempo,
Rojas had told police he was on a list of people targeted by an
extreme rightwing group--apparently the same group linked to the
Dec. 18 assassination attempt against union leader Wilson Borja
[see Update #568].
The previous president of the congressional peace commission was
Diego Turbay Cote, assassinated with six other people on Dec. 29
of last year in an attack attributed to the leftist Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) [see Update #570]. [El Nuevo
Herald (Miami) 9/7/01; Clarin (Buenos Aires) 9/7/01 from EFE, AP,
DPA; El Tiempo 9/7/01]
Prosecutor Yolanda del Carmen Paternina Negrete was killed on
Aug. 29 in Sincelejo, Sucre department, by an unidentified
assailant as she got out of a taxi in front of her house.
Paternina was investigating a paramilitary massacre that took
place last Jan. 17 in Chengue municipality, Sucre [see Update
#573]; she had been receiving death threats for some time. Two
other investigators working on the case disappeared in June and
are feared dead. [El Rescate Colombia Weekly Update 9/4/01]
*8. COLOMBIA: DID FARC USE CHEMICAL WEAPONS?
According to a forensic report issued in Bogota, three police
agents killed in a Sept. 2 attack by the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia (FARC) on a police station in San Adolfo,
Huila department, died from exposure to some kind of chemical
irritant. A fourth agent was abducted during the attack and was
later found dead from bullet wounds. [El Tiempo (Bogota) 9/5/01;
Clarin 9/5/01] Another six police agents present during the
attack were hospitalized with respiratory problems. [El Nuevo
Herald 9/5/01 from AFP]
Witnesses said the rebels deployed the chemical agent by throwing
small cans into the police station. The cans produced white smoke
when they exploded, said the witnesses. The FARC then destroyed
the San Adolfo police station with homemade mortars, made from
filling empty cooking gas containers with explosives.
Gen. Luis Ernesto Gilibert, director of the National Police, said
the agents on duty only fought the rebels briefly before giving
up. Initially the surviving police agents were to face trial for
cowardice, said Gilibert, but this idea was abandoned after
police doctors confirmed that the agents had suffered respiratory
distress due to airborne poisons.
Armed Forces commander Gen. Fernando Tapias suggested the FARC
might have begun using chemical weapons with the help of foreign
terrorists, such as the three Irish citizens--alleged members of
the Irish Republican Army--who were arrested in Bogota on Aug. 11
after meeting with the FARC [see Update #603]. FARC spokesperson
Ivan Rios told the Buenos Aires daily Clarin that the reports
about chemical weapons were false. [ET 9/5/01; Clarin 9/5/01]
=======================================================================
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