Colombia This Week -- July 25, 2005

Fri 15 – Colombia to try soldiers for deaths of unionists; FARC releases soldier in new move.

• Colombian authorities report that they will try four soldiers accused of killing three unarmed union members last year, a   move that may help persuade sceptics the country is serious about defending   human rights. The union members were shot in August in the town of Saravena ( Arauca). Investigators say three army soldiers and one officer lied when they said the men were armed members of the National Liberation Army, (ELN). Human rights groups have long said Colombia is not doing enough to protect its people from rogue security forces guilty of abusing civilians believed to sympathise with leftist rebels, Reuters reports.
• The FARC group frees a soldier captured a month ago in what they call a peace gesture, aimed to pave the way toward an exchange of about 70 hostages for guerrillas held in jail. In an e-mailed communique dated July 15, the FARC said they had released Duverney Orozco, captured during an assault in Teteye ( Putumayo) on June 25, when rebels killed 21 soldiers. The army confirmed it had received Orozco, and said it had sent him for medical and psychological assessment. The FARC force said it acted after meeting a French government emissary to discuss a possible exchange of jailed rebels for about 70 hostages including former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three Americans. ‘In response to the work by the French government, with the mediation of the International Committee of the Red Cross, we are freeing the soldier Duverney Orozco, safe and sound’," the statement says, Reuters reports.

Sat 16 – Army kills 15 ELN members near Cali; feared paramilitary group demobilises in Sucre.

• Commander of the III Brigade, General Perez Molina reports the Army has killed 15 ELN members near Jamundi, (Valle del Cauca). According to the reports the ELN members were stopped in a checkpoint in a place called La Laguna where they were shot dead. Authorities said they belonged to the Jose Maria Becerra front and they consider that this military strike has virtually dismantled this ELN front, El Colombiano reports.
• Giving up 339 arms, the 594 members of the paramilitary group Montes de Maria from the Self-defence Forces of Colombia (AUC), commanded by ‘Diego Vecino’ entered the re-insertion programme of the Colombian government. By saying: ‘I apologise to all the victims’, front Commander Hugo Enrique Martin (alias Juancho), acknowledged all the crimes committed by this group in the region. Victims and relatives of the victims in the area have reported hundreds of killings, disappearances and forced displacement of entire communities in the San Onofre area, Colprensa reports.  
• President Uribe has an approval rating of 69 percent, according to the telephone survey of 1,000 residents in Bogota, Medellin, Cali and Barranquilla. "The middle and upper class, which is represented in these polls, is happy with the drop in crime and increase in economic activity under Uribe," Francisco Leal, political analyst at Bogota's University of the Andes reports. He said poor Colombians who live without electricity or telephones are left out of such surveys. "This is also a result of the President's very effective media strategy, in which he appears every day on radio and television holding town meetings and speaking to the press," Leal added. Gallup's survey was conducted June 5-6 and had a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points, Reuters reports.

Sun 17 – Relatives of victims reject Government apology; Colombia protests re TeleSur trailer.

• Relatives of the 19 people disappeared by paramilitaries and members of the Colombian armed forces near Puerto Boyaca back in October 1989 reject an official act of apology organised by the Colombian government. With the apology, the Colombian authorities hoped to comply with the sentence of the Inter American Court of Human Rights which condemned the Colombian state for the disappearances. Relatives of the victims said the date of the ceremony had not been agreed with them, El Colombiano reports.
• Colombian Foreign Minister Camilo Reyes complains to the Venezuelan authorities about the appearance of the FARC leader, Manuel Marulanda Velez (aka ‘sure shot’) in the promotional video aired by new TV station ‘Tele Sur’. Formed by the governments of Venezuela, Argentina, Cuba and Uruguay with cooperation from Brazil, ‘Tele Sur’ hopes to balance what it considers to be biased coverage by European and US channels on Latin American issues. TeleSur Managing Director Aram Aharonian, a Uruguayan journalist, blasted the Colombian criticism as "ridiculous."   "Do they think 'Sureshot' doesn't exist? I don't know whether this is censure or denial," he told Reuters, adding: "We've never had so much free publicity."
• Colombian Inspector General calls on the Colombian Constitutional Court to declare article 192 of Law 906 from 2004 unconstitutional. The article of this law, passed by the Uribe administration, limits the time of revision for sentences on human rights cases against the Colombian state. The Inspector’s report argues that the procedure has been useful in detecting failures in sentencing and reparation during the investigation, El Colombiano reports.

Mon 18 – Colombia to seek long-term US drugs role; FARC group continue to target indigenous.

• President Uribe is to seek support from US President George W. Bush for long-term commitment to a programme aimed at curbing illicit drugs cultivation in Colombia. The US has already spent some $3bn under Plan Colombia. The area of illegal drugs cultivation has dropped from 180,000 hectares when Uribe took office in 2002 to 80,000 at the end of last year. Asked why the street prices of drugs in the US and Europe were reportedly still so low in spite of the eradications, Mr Uribe said: I don't want to enter into this debate. What we want to achieve is a Colombia without drugs and we are doing our best to fulfil our ambition’, Financial Times reports.  
• Since the beginning of the year the FARC group has launched several attacks against vulnerable indigenous communities in Valle del Cauca, where the Colombian armed forces are now maintaining a presence as part of the democratic security programme.   In Caldono, a Paez Indian farming community atop a mountain ridge that was recently targeted again by the FARC group, many residents complain that the police station is a magnet for FARC attacks, and some even demanded the officers get out of town altogether. ‘ Uribe has made little effort to win hearts and minds in rebel-infested areas, and getting the population on your side is key, and that's the weakness of the government’s strategy," said Sergio Jaramillo, director of Ideas For Peace, a Bogota think tank, Houston Chronicle reports.

Tues 19 – Colombia names vice-minister as Attorney General ; Spanish rights activist threatened.

• One of the authors of Colombia’s ‘Justice and Peace’ law granting concessions to disarming paramilitary warlords has been named as the country’s new Attorney General. Deputy Justice Minister Mario Iguaran replaces Luis Camilo Osorio, whose four-year tenure has been criticised for a failure to prosecute military commanders accused of human rights abuses and a spate of scandals involving corrupt officials. The attorney general is appointed by the Supreme Court on the recommendation of the president, Associated Press reports.
• Spanish NGO European Network of Brotherhood and Solidarity with Colombia (Red de Hermandad) denounces that Spanish citizen Estibaliz Madariaga has received death threats via email prior to her trip to Colombia. The message is signed by well-known active paramilitary bloc Martin Llanos from the AUC structure that operates in Casanare. Estibaliz was planning to run a workshop for adult education at the invitation of a Colombian NGO, the press office of the Lawyer’s Collective Jose Alvear Restrepo reports.
• UK-based SABMiller announces they have finally bought Bavaria, a Colombian-based brewer controlled by the Santo Domingo’s family. Bavaria's chairman, Julio Mario Santo Domingo, is one of South America's richest men. "Value was important but we were looking for something deeper than that," said Mr Santo Domingo's nephew, Carlos Perez, Guardian reports.

Weds 20- VP Santos in new outburst against NGOs; nine people killed (three children) by FARC.  

• While defending the new Justice and Peace law in the US, Vice-President Francisco Santos claims that the human rights NGO community and particularly US-based Human Rights Watch are making his mission to the US much harder. The outburst, in which the Vice President also claimed that human rights defenders were on some kind of ‘jihadic crusade’ against the bill, came after some US Congressmen refused to meet with him, as they consider the law gives impunity to paramilitary commanders accused of crimes against humanity, Efe reports.
• Authorities report that nine people have been killed (including three minors) on the road between La Guajira and Rioacha, near the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. According to reports, they were travelling in a truck when a roadside bomb exploded. Police blame the 59 th front of the FARC for the attack, El Tiempo reports.
• Americas Director for Human Rights Watch, Jose Manuel Vivanco recommends transparency to the newly appointed Colombian Attorney General. ‘He has a big job ahead to re-establish the credibility of the attorney general's office," said Vivanco. Last year HRW called for an investigation of then Attorney General Osorio for dropping the case against former army general Rito Alejo del Rio, suspected of supporting far-right paramilitary gunmen.   "Our main recommendation for Mr. Iguaran would be to make sure that criminals from the left and the right be put under the rule of law equally and without exceptions," said Vivanco, Reuters reports.

Thurs 21 – French envoy meets FARC re Betancourt; Baez announces AUC political movement.

• A French government official meets FARC spokesman Raul Reyes in the Colombian jungle, after getting the okay from President Uribe Velez. The official is appealing for the release of Ms Betancourt, a popular figure in France, who was kidnapped as she campaigned for the Colombian presidency in February 2002. She is one of 60 political hostages the FARC have kidnapped over the last seven years; among them, three US intelligence operatives. The FARC has said the hostages will not be released until hundreds of their comrades currently serving prison sentences are set free. President Uribe has ruled out any such exchange, BBC reports.
• Nearly 5,900 members of the outlawed United Self-defence Forces of Colombia, or AUC, have laid down their arms during two years of peace talks with the government, a step toward joining Colombia’s legal political system, said AUC political chief Ivan Roberto Duque, better known by his alias Ernesto Baez de la Serna. "This organisation is not going to disappear at all," said Duque in an interview near the town of Puerto Berrio in mountainous central Colombia. "Our goal is to outlive the war and transform ourselves into a democratic movement that will offer voters an alternative." Sometimes working with renegade members of the armed forces, the AUC have killed thousands of civilians they accused of cooperating with Marxist rebels, with weapons including stones and hammers. It was the first time the AUC publicly voiced democratic ambitions, following the example set by the heads of right-wing death squads in Central America who joined politics after that region's civil wars late last century, Reuters reports.
• Eight different projects are ready to be signed for approval by the Colombian government as part of the EU-funded Peace laboratory in Norte de Santander. The municipalities included are Ocaña, Abrego, La Playa, Cacota, Chitaga, Mutiscua, Silos, Pamplona, Bochalema, Chinacota, Toledo, Herran, Ragonvalia, Cucuta y Sardinata. This new Peace laboratory, run by Consornoc, an organisation established by the Diocese of Pamplona, Cucuta and Ocaña, has been criticised by NGOs, local mayors and the indigenous communities for failing to tackle the problems they previously identified in the area, Colprensa reports.

Colombia This Week is a news summary produced and distributed by ABColombia Group. Sources include daily Colombian, US, European and Latin American newspapers, and reports from non-governmental organisations and the UN System. The content does not necessarily reflect the views of the ABColombia Group.

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