InfoBrief is a weekly news summary of events in the U.S. and Colombia produced and distributed by the U.S. Office on Colombia. Colombia This Week is reproduced with the kind permission of the ABColombia Group in London. Other sources include U.S. and Latin American newspapers, and reports from non-profit and grassroots groups. The content does not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Office on Colombia. If you would like to receive InfoBrief please contact jess_hunter@usofficeoncolombia.org indicating why you would be interested in this weekly news service. Past editions of the InfoBrief can be found at www.usofficeoncolombia.org
U.S. Current Affairs and Media
United States Certifies Colombia Has Met Human Rights Conditions On Friday U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell concluded his evaluation of Colombia’s human rights record, certifying the country met the congressionally-mandated standards necessary to release $32.5 million in military funding to the South American country. Issues under review were the prosecution of military officers guilty of human rights violations, the elimination of military ties to right-wing paramilitary groups, and Armed Forces cooperation with Colombia’s civilian judicial authorities. State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said that “ the Secretary's determination was based on a thorough, careful evaluation of the conditions in U.S. law and the relevant actions and policies of the Government,” as well as discussions with “Colombia's Armed Forces, consultations with non-governmental human rights organizations, and input from [the] Embassy in Bogotá.” Many non-governmental organizations criticized the move. The Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) questioned the commitment of the Bush administration to ensuring real human rights progress in Colombia saying, “this certification amounts to a false stamp of approval for a government that has failed to make the protection and promotion of human rights a priority.” This is the first of two evaluations necessary for Colombia to receive the entirety of more than $250 million in military aid from the United States; the recent approval represents 12.5 percent of the total.
Senate Passes Foreign Aid Bill On Thursday, the United States Senate passed the Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act of 2005 that included $731 million in aid for Colombia and the Andean region. The House of Representatives passed a similar version of this bill on July 15. The House and Senate versions will now be reconciled in a conference committee. The Senate version includes new conditions on U.S. funding for the demobilization of illegal armed groups. The conditions state that before U.S. funds are disbursed to support a demobilization, the Secretary of State must certify that the Colombian government is prosecuting and punishing any members of actively demobilizing groups who are involved in human rights violations or drug trafficking, dismantling the structures of such groups including seizing their financial assets, not drafting legislation contrary to the United States-Colombian treaty on extradition, and taking actions to enable the return of individuals “forcibly displaced” by the armed actors. The Senate version of the bill also states that prior to human rights certification, in addition to the process that has been in place in past legislation which requires consultation with international and Colombian human rights organizations, the Secretary of State is required to “request the opinion of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Colombia and consult with the International Committee of the Red Cross.” It is unclear when the conference committee will reconcile the bill and send it to President Bush to be signed into law. The text of the bill can be found at
International Crisis Group Reports That Security Along Colombia’s Borders is Weak International Crisis Group’s (ICG) latest report entitled “Colombia’s Borders: The Weak Link in Uribe’s Security Policy,” raises concerns over the possibility that Colombia’s war could spill over into bordering countries such as Ecuador and Venezuela. "Uribe's tough strategy is trying to push the FARC up against the wall", said Alain Deletroz, Vice President of ICG. "But the 'wall' here is a weak and porous border, through which the rebels escape, resupply and ship drugs." The report suggests that illegal armed actors are prone to cross borders into Ecuador and Venezuela in order to escape Colombian Armed Forces, restock their supplies, or even raise money through extortion and kidnappings. Markus Schultze-Kraft, ICG’s Andes Project Director said that "more fighting alone will not be enough to win the war," and that "the deep-seated problems at the root of the conflict -- poverty, violence and chronic insecurity -- are most obvious in the rural regions bordering Ecuador and Venezuela, and there is still no national rural development strategy to deal with them.” ICG suggests that the Colombian, Ecuadorian, and Venezuelan governments collaborate in order to limit these growing problems. To read the report in its entirety, go to
U.S. Secret Service Raids Counterfeit Operation in Colombia After eight months of investigation, the United States Secret Service, with the cooperation of the Colombian National Police, raided three locations in the early morning of September 23 and successfully put an end to a number of counterfeit operations in Medellín, Bogotá, Barranquilla, and Bucaramanga. The raids produced 29 arrests and the confiscation of printed counterfeit bills valuing US $200,000, $5 billion Colombian pesos, and $80 million Bolivian bolívares, as well as two kilos of cocaine, 33 printing plates, and 19 film negatives from which the counterfeit bills were produced. The false bills were said to be intended for circulation in Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, as well as parts of Central America and the United States.
Fri 17 – Thousands march in Bogotá against re-election; Alfredo Correa killed in Barranquilla.
Tens of thousands of people march in Bogotá, launching a campaign against a proposed constitutional amendment allowing President Uribe Velez to run for re-election in 2006. Organised by the country’s main union federations and the two major leftist parties—the Independent Democratic Pole (PDI) and the Democratic Alternative—the march also protested against US Andean trade talks and Uribe’s proposals to increase sales taxes and cut pension benefits. The organisers said they are building a broad coalition against Uribe’s re-election. “We’ll continue the struggle against President Uribe’s neoliberal model,” said Liberal Party co-director Sen. Piedad Cordoba Ruiz, quoted by the Bogotá daily El Tiempo.
The Barranquilla media reports commotion in this northern city as police confirm that gunmen kill sociologist and social leader Alfredo Correa and his bodyguard. Relatives angrily report that this is a political assassination, as he was targeted weeks ago by Colombian security forces after being accused by an informant of being an ideologue of the FARC group, El Tiempo reports.
Colombia's Supreme Court approves the extradition of a leader of the country's paramilitary to the United States, El Tiempo daily reports. Juan Carlos Sierra, a leader of the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia, or AUC, faces charges of drug trafficking by US authorities.
Prior to the visit of the Spanish Ministry of Defence to Colombia, Amnesty International warns the Spanish government that some of the measures taken by the Colombian government have worsened Colombia’s human rights situation, making arms sales a ‘risk’ for civilians, El Colombiano reports.
Sat 18 - Seven Venezuelan soldiers killed on border; government seizes drug cartel’s assets.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez challenges Colombia to improve security along its borders after seven people were killed near the line between the two countries. Six Venezuelan soldiers and an engineer working for the state oil company were slain in Apure state by armed Colombians. `We don't know if it was guerrillas or paramilitary groups,' Chavez said during his weekly radio and television show in Caracas, “The Colombian State must assume more responsibility for these acts,'' AP reports.
Backed by 4,000 police officers, the Colombian government seizes control of the nation's largest pharmacy chain Drogas La Rebaja, saying cocaine trafficking had funded its creation and expansion. Prosecutors and police took over more than 400 stores in 28 cities in Colombia's largest-ever seizure of properties linked to drug traffickers. The value of the seized properties was estimated at $216 million, authorities said, Newsday reports.
According to a report from El Tiempo, some 70 communities in nine different departments are not getting enough food due to blockades, as paramilitaries and guerrillas are increasing pressure on civilians.
Former Bogotá Mayor Enrique Peñalosa says in an interview that he’ll mount an independent presidential campaign for the next elections, El Espectador reports.
Sun 19 – 60,000 indigenous finish march peacefully; Army blames FARC for border killings.
In the largest Colombian indigenous gathering in memory, El Tiempo reports that about 60,000 people march peacefully for 60 miles along a south-western highway between 14-16 September, demanding respect for their autonomy and opposing President Uribe’s economic and security policies. “We demand that President Uribe demilitarise peasant and indigenous territories and that all armed actors respect the autonomy and sovereignty of our peoples,” the march organisers said in a statement published in daily El Tiempo. The chief organisers were the Colombian National Indigenous Organisation (ONIC), the Cauca Regional Indigenous Council (CRIC) and the Northern Cauca Indigenous Councils Association (ACIN). Most of the participants were Nasa (also known as Paez) or Guambiano. Non indigenous marchers included Afro-Colombians, peasant farmers, union members and students, Colombia Week reports.
Colombian authorities blame FARC rebels for killing at least six Venezuelan soldiers and an oil engineer in one of the deadliest attacks in recent years on the two countries’ jungle border. Colombian Defence Minister Jorge Alberto Uribe said military intelligence showed the attack was carried out by rebels. "The narco-terrorist FARC was responsible for the murders of six soldiers and an engineer," he said in a statement, Reuters reports.
In an interview in El Colombiano, Antonio Garcia, member of the Central Command of the National Liberation Army (ELN), proposes a national dialogue on drug trafficking, saying that this armed group has never been involved in narcotrafficking incidents and recommending manual eradication of coca crops instead of aerial fumigation, El Espectador reports.
Three years after the killing of Yolanda Ceron in the city of Tumaco, friends and relatives celebrate a remembrance day for the director of Pastoral Social in the department of Nariño, highlighting her rights-based work with the victims of the Colombian conflict and her denunciation of the human rights crisis that has affected the region since Plan Colombia started the Inter-ecclesiastical Commission for Justice and Peace reports.
Mon 20 - DANE chief quits over ‘immoral order’; concerns over new decree for demobilisation.
A report from DANE, the National Statistics Department, has led to the resignation of its director, Cesar Caballero. The report says that in both Bogotá and Cali, fewer than 30 percent of survey respondents feel safe, whilst in Medellín the figure was 58 percent. In all three cities, more than two-thirds of victims of thefts and robberies said they didn’t report the crimes because they believed the authorities would not do anything. Government media relations chief Ricardo Galan ordered Caballero to cancel a news conference in which the findings were to be released, and Caballero then tendered his resignation stating that the government was putting him in an unacceptable moral position, Semana magazine reports.
In a press release, the Brussels-based International Office on Human Rights, Action Colombia (OIDHACO) highlights concerns on the new presidential decree 2767 of 31 August 2004. The decree “lays out the benefits for demobilised and reinserted people” who voluntarily abandon armed groups in order to be reincorporated into civilian life. The decree favours the conversion of demobilised combatants into informers or co-operatives of the security forces in exchange for rewards. According to the decree, the government “can offer demobilised people certain mechanisms which provide them with an opportunity to participate in a livelihood project in a way that is safe and proper”. OIDHACO considers that this new decree, far from being part of a peace policy, contributes to the involvement of the civilian population in the war, and to the re-cycling of demobilised combatants into State security bodies in such a way that they continue to participate in the conflict and are not reincorporated into civilian life.
In an interview with magazine Semana, PDI presidential candidate and Senator Antonio Navarro Wolf says about President Uribe’s popularity that the government has increased the presence of the President in public life like never before in Colombia. A recent study from the University of the Savanna showed that President Uribe appeared on television for 1,240 hours last year, Semana magazine reports.
An attack blamed on members of the FARC kills 4 peasants and injures 17 in the north-western province of Antioquia. According to the authorities, the civilians were displaced people returned days before the killing from the city of Medellín, El Colombiano reports.
Tues 21 – Paramilitary leader killed outside Ralito; 4 peasants killed by FARC in Antioquia.
Miguel Arroyave, a top leader of Colombia's paramilitaries, is assassinated, throwing into further doubt the ongoing peace process with the government. The bodies of Arroyave and his bodyguards were found in remote parts of the eastern province of Meta. One of the theories being put forward by police is that he was killed by some of his own men, opposed to peace talks with the government, BBC reports.
The Colombian Prosecutor’s Office (Procuraduria) present charges against three officials of the Colombian air force for bombing a building in the municipality of El Carmen (Norte de Santander). A ten-year-old boy was killed and two more injured in the attack that happened in February 2003, Vanguardia Liberal reports.
Colombia's Central Bank reports it will sell $138 million in foreign reserves to the government. The International Monetary Fund expects Colombia's public debt to fall to 51 percent of gross domestic product in 2005 from 60 percent in 2002, Boomerang reports.
Weds 22 – Police accuse AUC leaders of Arroyave’s killings; Attorney Gen. frees Alcibiades.
Col. Oscar Naranjo, head of Colombia's judicial police reports that intelligence indicates other paramilitary leaders ordered the killing of Miguel Arroyave because they felt ‘he was becoming too bloodthirsty in his attempt to consolidate power in his region’. He is suspected of ordering the recent murders in northern Bogotá of three politicians from the province of Meta, where the Centauros Bloc operates. "Everything indicates that the death of Arroyave comes from the very heart of paramilitarism and that he was executed by paramilitaries,’ Naranjo said in an interview with Associated Press.
At the same time that 400 unarmed indigenous guards were arriving in Bogotá from the southwestern province of Cauca, the Attorney General’s office frees Alcibiades Escue, one of the indigenous leaders detained two weeks ago prior to the indigenous ‘Minga’ march that has mobilised more than 60,000 people and that the government has tried to boycott, El Colombiano reports.
AUC Commander Salvatore Mancuso reports they will return to peace talks, despite the death of one of their chief negotiators, who police say was gunned down by his own men. “We ask the authorities to seriously investigate in order to clarify these unfortunate events," said a statement issued by the AUC leadership. "At the same time, we publicly express our willingness to continue exploring the path to peace”.
Columnist Fabio Velasquez writes in the Cali newspaper El Pais that the communities that participated in the indigenous march last week have built a civil resistance movement ‘like few others in the country, and they can show with pride that the war is not a core feature of the structures of their lives’, criticising President Uribe's opposition to the march and the efforts made by the government to undermine the importance of the march.
Thurs 23 – Peace building programme awarded by UNESCO; transport strike disrupts economy.
The United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) have selected a Plan International project ‘Conflict Resolution for Adolescents’ in Colombia as ‘best practice’ in education. The project was selected based on its quality and innovation, ability to be replicated, potential for growth and its success to date. UK-based Plan International and local partner International Centre of Education and Human Development (CINDE) are implementing the three-year project, funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Reuters reports.
Truck drivers, owners and government officials meet before a Congressional committee to discuss how to end a 10-day-old transport strike. According to El Tiempo, the strike has seriously disrupted the regional economies, generating shortages in some products.
Workers take over the Cali hospital ‘San Juan de Dios’, demanding six months of pay and the removal of the director, Dra. Beatriz Hoyos, accusing her of working towards the future closure of the institution, El Pais 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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