2006
Communiqué Mélanie en Lorenzo Delloye BetancourtDe kinderen van Ingrid Betancourt, Mélanie et Lorenzo, hebben op woensdag 20 december 2006 een open brief gestuurd aan de commandanten van de Farc en een persconferentie gehouden in hun woonplaats Parijs om dit kenbaar te maken.
Deze brief is in het Frans, Spaans en Engels toegevoegd aan dit bericht als pdf bestand. |  Communiqué_Mélanie_et_Lorenzo_dec_2006.pdf
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Colombia authorizes contact over prisoner exchangeColombia authorizes European diplomats to contact leftist rebels over prisoner exchange
22/12/2006 - El Tiempo, Reuters, Bluewin, International Herald Tribune
President Alvaro Uribe has reauthorized three European peace facilitators to reach out to leftist rebels in the hope of reviving a planned swap of hostages for imprisoned rebels, authorities said.
Uribe angrily broke off contacts with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, on Oct. 20, after blaming the leftist rebels for a car bombing a day earlier at a military university in Bogota that injured 23 people.
Calling the FARC "scoundrels," he also said the three European peace facilitators — France, Spain and Switzerland — should provide military instead of diplomatic assistance to guarantee the release of 60 political prisoners being held by the rebels.
"The only option left is a military rescue," said Uribe at the time in a fiery speech at the Nueva Granada military school, a bounded copy of which he personally handed out days later in an interview with foreign journalists.
The law and order president, perhaps bending to the anger his comments sparked among many of the family members of those being held, now seems to have softened his hard line.
"I have instructions from President Uribe to advance in a discrete manner and evaluate the possibility of making important progress without major public announcements," said Restrepo.
In the weeks before the blast, it seemed a deal was imminent for the government to free some 500 jailed rebels in exchange for 60 political prisoners held by the FARC — including three U.S. defense contractors who were kidnapped in February 2003 and former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, who has French citizenship and has become a cause celebre in France.
Uribe, better known for his hardline security policies, had even agreed to set aside two towns in southern Colombia for eventual talks.
Family members of those being held by the FARC downplayed the significance of the government's reversal, saying there was still a long way to go before they were reunited with loved ones.
"It's a good first step, but we need concrete actions that demonstrate the government is willing to sit down and negotiate," said Marleny Orjuela, president of an association grouping family members of FARC-held prisoners.
Yolanda Pulecio, Betancourt's mother, said she was unconvinced Uribe "really wants a humanitarian exchange."
She said the president's decision might be a "smoke screen" designed to divert public attention away from a damaging scandal affecting the government over alleged links between Uribe's close allies — including the former head of his intelligence agency — and right-wing paramilitary groups.
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Paramilitairen trekken zich terug uit vredesprocesBOGOTA – 7 december 2006
De rechtse paramilitaire AUC heeft zich woensdag teruggetrokken uit het vredesproces dat in 2003 met de Colombiaanse regering in gang werd gezet. Aanleiding vormt de overplaatsing, afgelopen vrijdag, van 59 gedetineerde commandanten van de groep naar een maximaal beveiligde gevangenis. De regering besloot hiertoe omdat het gerucht ging dat de AUC-gevangenen een uitbraakpoging hadden voorbereid.
De paramilitairen maakten hun terugtrekking uit het vredesproces bekend na een gesprek van drie uur met de hoofdonderhandelaar van de regering. AUC-woordvoerder Ernesto Baez beschuldigde de regering van bedrog en zei dat er geen reden meer is om nog vertrouwen te hebben in het vredesproces.
Sinds 2003 hebben meer dan dertigduizend AUC-strijders hun wapens ingeleverd. De nu overgeplaatste commandanten gaven zichzelf over als onderdeel van het vredesproces. President Alvaro Uribe heeft hen ervan beschuldigd vanuit de gevangenis moorden te gelasten.
De AUC (Verenigde Zelfverdedigingstroepen van Colombia) werd in de jaren '80 door landeigenaren en drugsbaronnen opgericht om de linkse rebellen te bestrijden die een groot deel van het land buiten de steden beheersten. Het duurde niet lang of de AUC was uitgegroeid tot een van de grootste cocaïnekartels van het land. Ook worden de rechtse paramilitairen verantwoordelijk gehouden voor een aantal van de ernstigste wreedheden die in de reeds tientallen jaren durende Colombiaanse burgeroorlog zijn begaan. LLC (AP) |
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Scandal edges closer to Colombia's president19/11/2006 - International Herald Tribune
A widening scandal in which three federal lawmakers have been jailed for allegedly organizing and benefiting from murderous right-wing militias is now implicating one of President Alvaro Uribe's closest political allies.Sen. Alvaro Araujo, brother of Uribe's foreign minister, acknowledged in a radio interview Friday that he attended a 2004 party at which one of the country's most feared paramilitary leaders was present.Araujo denied that his "marginal contact" with Rodrigo Tovar Pupo, better known as Jorge 40, implied he had any political dealings with the paramilitary commander, who is wanted in the United States for being among Colombia's biggest drug traffickers.Uribe sought Friday to defuse what many Colombians think could become more damaging than the scandal involving drug cartel-financing of politicians in the mid-1990s that nearly toppled then-President Ernesto Samper.He said any member of Congress found to be conspiring with illegal armed groups should be jailed and "punished with extra severity."Uribe called upon "all congressmen to tell the country the truth and reveal whatever contacts they had with the paramilitaries."Evidence is mounting that politicians across Colombia's Caribbean coast funneled public funds to the paramilitaries in exchange for election wins aided by paramilitary intimidation.Despite having disarmed as part of a 2004 peace deal, paramilitaries are still believed to hold sway over huge parts of the country after killing hundreds and forcibly displacing tens of thousand of mostly poor Colombians in a nearly decade-long reign of terror.Evidence of a long-running paramilitary-political mafia appeared to be confirmed last week when the Supreme Court ordered the arrest of four former and current members of Congress.All four are all solid supporters of Uribe from the Caribbean state of Sucre and have either been arrested or turned themselves in. Sen. Jairo Merlano surrendered to police in Zipaquira, a town just north of Bogota, on Friday evening. A US$30,000 (€23,500) reward had been issued for information leading to his capture.Araujo, whose powerful political family hails from the Caribbean state of Cesar, said he had spoken with Tovar on at least two occasions since 2002, including at the birthday party for an ex-congresswoman long suspected of paramilitary ties. But he denied any improper dealings."I've never made any political agreement with the paramilitaries," said Araujo, who vowed to cooperate fully with the Supreme Court investigation.Although no charges have been filed against Araujo, opposition politicians have long tried to dig up evidence linking his fledgling Alas Equipo Colombia movement to the paramilitary groups.In the epicenter of the scandal, Sucre, more than 2,000 friends and relatives buried on Friday lawyer Carmelo Berrios who had denounced fraud in local elections. He was shot Wednesday night by unknown gunmen in his hometown of Betulia.Leaving the cemetery with weeping relatives, Rep. Jesus Berrios, the lone state assemblyman from the opposition Democratic Pole party, said his brother's murder shows how a dark alliance of paramilitary fighters and politicians continues to rule by terror across Colombia.Many Sucrenos believe members of the political-paramilitary mafia running the state for the last decade killed 50-year-old Berrios to try to silence a public finally beginning to shed its fear of denouncing the state's discredited political class."And this mafia power quiets the voices of those who are against it," said Jesus Berrios, who was assigned a police bodyguard after his brother's killing. "Here in Colombia to think differently means a death penalty."Uribe's administration has been conducting a peace process with the far-right paramilitaries that has seen more than 30,000 fighters disarm. Most of the leaders, including Tovar, are now in a specially created jail awaiting trial in which they face a maximum of eight years in prison for their role in some of the country's worst civilian massacres.The paramilitaries surged in the 1980s as landowners created private armies to fight leftist rebels and extend their control across much of Colombia's countryside, but they quickly became corrupted by the nation's lucrative cocaine trade.The U.S. government lists the paramilitaries as a "foreign terrorist organization" and is trying to extradite several of its leaders on drug trafficking charges.
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Colombian rebels call on American filmmakersColombian rebels want Denzel Washington, Oliver Stone, Michael Moore to help negotiate with government
9/11/2006 - El Nuevo Herald, Terra, Radio Caracol, Cyberpresse, AnnCol, Intnl Herald Tribune
Colombia's largest rebel group is calling on actor Denzel Washington and filmmakers Oliver Stone and Michael Moore to help it reach a deal with the government on exchanging imprisoned guerrillas for rebel-held hostages, including three U.S. citizens.
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, better known as the FARC, issued a letter made public Thursday asking the celebrities to advocate the swap to the American people.
"To the people of the United States, we ask for your always generous solidarity to pressure President Bush and his government to support a prisoner exchange in Colombia," said Raul Reyes, the chief spokesman for the FARC.
The letter was also addressed to leftist academics Noam Chomsky, James Petras and Angela Davis, as well as Democratic activist Jesse Jackson.
The three American defense contractors, Thomas Howes, Keith Stansell and Marc Gonsalves, were on an intelligence-collecting mission when their small aircraft went down in February 2003 in Southern Colombia. They were quickly captured by the rebels. In the letter, Latin America's largest rebel group confirmed the three were well.
"Howes, Stansell and Gonsalves are alive in our custody, treated with respect and dignity in the jungle," said Reyes. "They are the only North American prisoners alive in the world."
The FARC, listed by the U.S. government as a "foreign terrorist organization," is holding some 60 prominent hostages, including the three defense contractors, former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, politicians and military officers. It says it will only release them in exchange for nearly 600 imprisoned rebels.
President Alvaro Uribe recently broke off preliminary negotiations after blaming the rebel group for a car-bomb in a military installation that injured more than 20 people, insisting that the hostages would be freed by military operations. The families of the kidnapped are united in opposing such rescues, fearing their loved ones will be killed in the crossfire.
Uribe later relented and said that he would be open to potential talks if the rebels gave a sign of good faith.
The guerrilla group said the Colombian government's offensive in its strongholds was jeopardizing the lives of the three hostages.
The rebel leader also promised that the group would soon send evidence the three were alive. Since being kidnapped nearly four years ago, the families have received one so-called proof of life.
The FARC's latest missive comes as one of the most famous rebels stands trial in a Washington D.C. courtroom for the kidnapping of the three.
Ricardo Palmera, better known by his nom de guerre Simon Trinidad, was captured in Ecuador in 2004 and later extradited to the United States. Another guerrilla, known as Sonia, is preparing to stand trial in Washington on charges of drug-trafficking.
The FARC insists that any exchange must include Trinidad and Sonia.
In the past six years, the U.S. government has provided $4 billion in mostly military aid to Colombia to fight the more than five-decades old insurgency and the country's enormous drugs trade.
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Colombian rebels kill 17 officers, a civilian
3/11/2006 - Yahoo, Le Monde, Terra, Houston Chronicle
Just days after the government rejected peace talks, rebels attacked an isolated mountain hamlet in northern Colombia on Wednesday and killed 17 police officers and a civilian.
An independent analyst in the Colombian capital of Bogota said the attack should serve as a wake-up call for the government of President Alvaro Uribe. The rebels have carried out relatively few operations in northern Colombia in recent years.
In the pre-dawn attack, the rebels, said to have numbered about 150, fired a homemade rocket that destroyed the police headquarters in Tierradentro and killed a police officer.
When police reinforcements arrived an hour later the rebels killed 15 more officers in an ambush.
A woman civilian also was slain, and a police officer later died of his wounds.
Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos blamed the bloodshed on the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, a 12,000-member guerrilla army that has been fighting the Bogota government since 1964 and is deeply involved in illegal drug trafficking.
National police commander Jorge Daniel Castro said the officers were sent to Tierralta to help eradicate its crop of coca, the main ingredient of cocaine.
The attack came 12 days after Uribe ruled out a prisoner exchange and peace talks with the rebels, whom he blamed for a car bombing in the capital last month that injured 23 people.
Security experts said the FARC operation reveals the holes in the security strategy of Uribe, who was re-elected by a landslide in May and has often pledged to defeat or disarm the guerrillas.
Until recently, the area around Tierradentro was controlled by right-wing paramilitary gunmen.
The illegal militiamen often worked in cahoots with Colombian troops to drive the FARC out of many key regions of the country.
Since 2003, however, more than 30,000 paramilitary forces have disarmed under government peace negotiations that took place in Santa Fe de Ralito, a hamlet in Cordoba state not far from Tierradentro.
Colombian authorities have vowed to step in and provide security in areas abandoned by the paramilitaries, and they opened the police station in Tierradentro four months ago.
Now, the FARC is attempting to reclaim some of this territory, said Gustavo Duncan, an analyst at the Security and Democracy Foundation, a Bogota research center.
"Both the number of dead and the location of the attack should make this a wake-up call," Duncan said. "It shows that the government can't control these areas without the help of the paramilitaries."
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Seventh journalist forced to fleeSeventh journalist forced to flee since start of the year, two others threatened by suspected paramilitaries
30/10/2006 - Reporters without borders
Reporters Without Borders today said it was devastated to learn that Otoniel Sánchez, a journalist working for local TV station CNC in the southwestern city of Cartago, was forced to flee the city after an attack on his home on 19 October.
The press freedom organisation also condemned repeated attempts by a group of suspected paramilitaries known as the “Black Eagles” to intimidate journalists Vanny Johann Sierra Mójica of the Hoy Diario de Magdalena newspaper and Camilo Munive of Radio Galeón in the northern Santa Marta area in the past month.
“The situation of these journalists unfortunately reflects that of all the local press in Colombia, which has to censor itself if it wants to survive and keep on working,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We voice our full support for these three journalists and we urge the authorities to protect them.”
The organisation added: “Those who investigate the threats against Sánchez should take a look at the Cartago municipal government. As for the ‘Black Eagles,’ they must be quickly dismantled and their members must be punished. And the demobilisation of Colombia’s paramilitaries must be accompanied by effective disarmament.”
According to the Foundation for Press Freedom (FLIP), gunmen fired on Sánchez’s home in Cartago at 2 a.m. on 19 October after he reported mismanagement at the municipal ice rink. Sánchez told the FLIP he had repeatedly received threatening phone calls. “We are tired of your comments,” a caller said on one occasion.
The night before the shooting attack, Sánchez received an anonymous phone call in which he was asked if he had received the package sent to his office. In fact, Sánchez’s colleagues returned the package to the delivery company fearing it might be a parcel bomb. It was finally opened by police bomb disposal experts, who found three 9 mm bullets inside, the same calibre as those fired at his home.
There was also a message inside the package that said: “You journalists think the bullet won’t hit you but you are completely wrong. Or have you forgotten what happened to Polanco, of the same TV station?” CNC news director Oscar Polanco was murdered in Cartago on 4 February 2004. Cartago-based radio journalist Candela Estéreo meanwhile received a parcel bomb on 3 October which fortunately did not go off.
Sánchez is the seventh journalist to have to flee the region where they work in Colombia since the start of the year. Exactly when he left Cartago and where he has gone is being kept secret.
In Ciénaga, 30 km outside Santa Marta, Sierra has received four letters and Munive has received 10 phone calls in the past month telling them to shut up and leave the town where they both work as local correspondents. They told Reporters Without Borders the harassment began after they reported an increase in the local murder rate a month ago. The messages are signed “Black Eagles,” who are assumed to be a local paramilitary group.
Several demobilised paramilitaries were arrested and questioned by the police as part of their initial investigation into the threats. Ciénaga is currently home to about 180 former members of the right-wing paramilitary groups that used to combat the left-wing guerrillas. These groups have been demobilised and are now the recipients of government-run social reintegration programmes.
The local police chief told Reporters Without Borders he checked the activities of the demobilised paramilitaries every month but acknowledged that some of them had “not followed the path they were supposed to take in the reintegration process.” At the same time, the threats against the two journalists could also have come from ordinary criminals.
Munive has been given police protection after filing a complaint, but Sierra did not follow suit, fearing that it might only expose him to greater danger.
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Colombia kidnap families urge Uribe to hold talks26/10/2006 - La Tribune, El Nuevo Diario, Washington Post
Chanting "no to rescue by blood and fire," families of people kidnapped by Colombian rebels rallied on Tuesday to demand the government hold talks on their release rather than send in troops to rescue them.
The protest followed a decision by President Alvaro Uribe to suspend efforts to reach out to Marxist guerrillas after he blamed them for scuttling a possible accord on hostages by setting off a car bomb in Bogota last week.
Hundreds of hostages have been held by the guerrillas for as long as eight years, including a French-Colombian national and three U.S. contract workers who were captured after their aircraft crashed on a drug eradication mission.
Families fear any rescue attempt by the military will prompt the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia or FARC rebels to kill hostages. They want Uribe to hold talks on exchanging 62 key kidnap victims for rebels in prison, including two leaders imprisoned in the United States.
"We are terrified by the words of the president, terrified by the lack of humanity and consideration," Yolanda Pulecio, mother of hostage Ingrid Betancourt -- a dual French national and former Colombian presidential candidate -- told Reuters at the rally in Bogota's historical city center.
Uribe, a key Washington ally in Latin America, has reduced violence from Colombia's four-decade conflict though a U.S.-backed security crackdown on leftist FARC rebels and a peace deal to disarm thousands of illegal paramilitaries.
But the conflict still ravages parts of rural Colombia where thousands are driven from their homes by the violence every year.
Uribe had been considering a proposal to pull back troops from two municipalities in southern Colombia in an effort to facilitate talks with the FARC, the largest left-wing rebel group.
The conservative president, whose own father was killed by the FARC in a botched kidnapping, had taken a more flexible tone since his re-election in May after Colombians rewarded him for reducing violence. But Thursday's car bomb changed that.
Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos on Tuesday warned of renewed FARC attacks after Uribe's decision to pull back from talks. The car bomb wounded 10 people at a heavily guarded military base where top generals were attending a ceremony.
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Colombia prisoner swap off after blastAljazeera.net Saturday 21 October 2006
Colombia's president has called off a planned prisoner exchange with guerrilla fighters and ordered the military to rescue hostages held in the jungle after a bombing in Bogota.
President Alvaro Uribe made the decision after a car bombing at the military university on Thursday injured 23 people. The government has blamed the attack on the Revolutionary Armed Force of Colombia (FARC) but it has denied any involvement."The only path that remains is a military rescue," Uribe said on Friday, adding that the government had intercepted phone calls from a rebel leader which proved that FARC had planted the bomb.
"We cannot continue the farce of a humanitarian exchange [of prisoners] with the FARC."FARC issued a statement on its website suggesting that the bomb was planted by the US in an attempt to destroy the possibility of ending Colombia's four-decade-old guerrilla war.
Hostages
Sixty-two hostages - including three American defence contractors and former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt - were to be swapped for guerrillas being held in government jails.Families of the hostages have condemned Uribe's decision as dangerous.French-Colombian citizen Ingrid Betancourt was kidnapped while campaigning in 2002 and the Americans, Marc Gonsalves, Thomas Howes and Keith Stansell, were taken while trying to locate crops used to make cocaine in 2003.
Mariana Howes, Thomas Howes' wife, called the idea of a military rescue "crazy".
"He's going to get my husband killed," she told Reuters news agency.
Executed
The group executed a group of hostages, including a former defence minister, during a failed military rescue in 2003.The decision came less than a month after Uribe said he was willing to discuss a FARC proposal to withdraw government troops from a rural area almost the size of New York City to negotiate the exchange.The president has started peace talks with a smaller rebel group, the National Liberation Army, or ELN, and disbanded right-wing paramilitaries but peace with the 17,000-strong FARC remains elusive.FARC still control large rural areas of Colombia, funding their operations through the country's multibillion-dollar cocaine industry. |
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Finalists Sakharov prize for freedom of thoughtHuman rights 10/10/2006
Sakharov finalist No 1:
Those who campaign for hostages in Colombia
Ahead of the awarding of the Sakharov prize for freedom of thought in December, Parliament's website is running profiles of the 3 finalists. Today we look at the nomination of "All those fighting for the release of kidnapped hostages in Colombia". As nominees, this group is represented by former Colombian Presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt (herself a hostage), and the "País Libre" (free country) foundation which campaigns on behalf of those held hostage and their families. Colombia is one of the most dangerous places in the world. Decades of civil war between government forces, leftist guerrillas and right-wing paramilitaries have left tens of thousands dead and thousands held hostage. It is estimated that there are currently 3000 people held hostage in Colombia, 80% of the world's total. Added to this is the carnage caused by Colombia being one of the world's largest producers of cocaine, a lucrative trade that has fuelled the violence and instability.
Ingrid Betancourt: campaigner for peace in Colombia
Ingrid Betancourt was someone who advocated a negotiated settlement to Colombia's problems. She stood as a Presidential candidate in the 2002 Presidential election on a platform of anti-drug trafficking, anti-corruption and the need to negotiate with the FARC guerrilla movement, (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) - something the government started in October. Mrs Betancourt was abducted on 23 February 2002, and is believed to be held by FARC.
She was a former Colombian MP, Senator and founder of the "Oxygen" political party whose aim was to secure an end to the civil war through dialogue. Her campaigns against drug-trafficking, corruption in public life and violence made her many enemies. She received numerous death threats and survived an assassination attempt.
"País Libre" foundation: supporter of hostages and their families
This independent Colombian foundation campaigns not only for the release of hostages, but also for the welfare of those whose loved ones may have been abducted. It also helps victims of extortion.
País Libre aims to raise awareness of the problem in Colombia and the wider world and provides support and advice to those who have been affected by kidnapping. They also campaign for changes on the law in Colombia. The foundation offers psychological advice and advises people how to negotiate with kidnappers who are demanding ransoms. The organization does not participate in negotiations, support families financially or denounce crimes to the authorities. All of its services are free to victims.
There are two other finalists for the 2006 Sakharov prize. They are:
Alexander Milinkevich - Belarus opposition leader, to be profiled on 17 October:
Ghassan Tueni - journalist and representative of leading figures assassinated in Lebanon - 24 October |
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