Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #492 | July 4 1999Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York
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Weekly News Update on the AmericasIssue #492 | July 4 1999Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York CSN Home | WNU Home | This Month's News |
2. US Military to Maintain "Strong Presence" in Latin America
4. Colombia: Oil Workers Acquitted, Judge Abducted
5. Colombia: Fallout from Failed Army Assault on Rebels
6. Colombian Rebels Reportedly Executed by Comrades
7. Colombian Legislator Killed
8. Colombia: Peso Devalues, Bank Shuts
The Honduran government announced on July 1 that it has authorized the US to reactivate a powerful radar system in Honduras which would be used to fight illegal drug trafficking in Central America. Vice President Gladys Caballero said at a press conference that "the radar will serve to detect drugs in Honduran air space and to help in the struggle against drug trafficking in the region." The radar, which the US used in the 1980s to detect the movements of leftist guerrillas and illegal arms trafficking in Nicaragua and El Salvador, will be reinstalled on Hule hill, 15 kilometers south of Tegucigalpa. Caballero, who heads the National Council Against Drug Trafficking, said that Washington will give Honduras $2 million for an anti-drug program in 1999, compared with $250,000 in 1998. [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 7/2/99 from AP]
On June 25, Colombian judge Carlos Bautista acquitted 14 unionists charged with terrorism. The unionists--leaders of the Workers Trade Union (USO), which represents workers of the state oil company Ecopetrol--had been arrested in December 1996 in connection with the blowing up of an oil pipeline by National Liberation Army (ELN) rebels. On June 27, two days after acquitting the USO leaders, Judge Bautista was abducted in Cucuta by several armed men, believed to be members of a paramilitary group which had threatened him during the trial. His abduction is believed to be linked to his acquittal of the USO leaders. One of the defense lawyers for the USO leaders, Jose Eduardo Umana Mendoza, was murdered on Apr. 18, 1998, after receiving threats which referred to the case [see Update #430]. [Miami Herald 6/29/99; El Diario-La Prensa 6/29/99 from EFE]
On July 2, ELN rebels blew up Colombia's main oil pipeline for the 30th time this year, the army reported. [MH 7/3/99]
Colombian army commander Gen. Jorge Mora has dismissed one colonel and relieved two others of their commands after reading a report by Army Inspector Gen. Mario Roa on a military operation in which 36 soldiers were killed by rebels, the Bogota daily El Tiempo reported on June 30. Col. Hudson Lopez, who commanded the operation, was fired for failing to provide air cover for some 50 soldiers as they disembarked from two civilian helicopters into an area of Cordoba department where they were surrounded by more than 300 rebels from the FARC and the ELN [see Update #491]. The rebels had been engaging in combat with rightwing paramilitary groups in the area of Tierralta, where the paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) is headquartered. According to El Tiempo, Roa's report says the army operation failed because the soldiers lacked the support of an artilleried helicopter to repel enemy fire. [AFP 6/30/99; La Republica (Peru) 7/1/99 from AFP]
At least 15 paramilitaries, 30 rebels and five civilians died in the clashes between rebels and paramilitaries that preceded the failed army operation. Rebels from the ELN have announced in flyers distributed in Tierralta that they consider the town's mayor, Hector Acosta, to be a military target. Also on the ELN's hit list is a former mayor of the town, a councilperson, and several other local politicians. The rebels have accused Tierralta politicians of collaborating with the paramilitary groups. [LR 7/1/99 from EFE]
Television reports in Colombia are charging that 21 members of a unit of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have been executed in recent weeks by their comrades for alleged spying. The bodies of the rebels have been found along several rivers in Arauca department on the border with Venezuela, NTC television network reported on June 27, quoting Gen. Luis Eduardo Barbosa, commander of the 18th Army Brigade. NTC said the execution of these guerrillas was attributed to an internal purging in a rebel unit headed by German Briceno Suarez ("Grannobles"), the brother of the FARC's top military commander, Jorge Briceno Suarez ("Mono Jojoy"). [MH 6/29/99] [The FARC's 10th Front, the unit headed by Grannobles, is said to be responsible for the Feb. 25 abduction and subsequent murder of Ingrid Washinawatok, Lahe'ena'e Gay and Terence Freitas, US activists who were visiting the U'wa indigenous community. An order was issued on Mar. 25 for Grannobles' arrest; the government has accused him of ordering the murder of the three US activists. See Updates #475, 476, 479.]
On June 30, Liberal Party congressperson Jose Arnoldo Parra was shot to death by unidentified assailants on motorcycles at a resort hotel he owned outside the town of Jamundi in southwest Colombia. Jamundi is a considered to be a support base for leftist rebels, and close to the area where the ELN is believed to still be holding at least 38 hostages kidnapped from a church mass a month ago [see Updates #489, 491]. Police are investigating possible motives and have so far declined to assign blame for the murder of Parra, a wealthy businessperson who was elected to the Chamber of Representatives last July. Parra had backed the election campaign of Gustavo Alvarez, governor of Valle del Cauca department; Alvarez was arrested in May on charges of taking kickbacks from the Cali drug cartel, and Parra had planned to run for the vacant governor's post. He was the second congressperson to be killed in nine months: Jorge Gonzalez, also of the Liberal Party, was murdered in Medellin last September; his killers have not been traced. [Reuters 6/30/99]
Colombia in effect devalued the peso by about 10% with an emergency decree on June 28 that widened the band in which the currency trades. The move came after the government spent $275 million of its $8.5 billion in foreign exchange reserves on June 24 and 25 to defend the currency against speculative attacks. As of June 25, the peso's rate against the US dollar was down 26% from the year before. [Wall Street Journal 6/28/99; New York Times 6/29/99]
Colombia's largest state-owned bank, Caja Agraria, will shut down on July 4, according to Banking Superintendent Sara Ordonez, who said it will be replaced by Banco Agraria de Colombia. The bank's collapse is expected to cost the government $1.724 billion. The Colombian banking system has lost more than $1.1 billion over the past 16 months, during which four banks have failed. Controller General Carlos Ossa Escobar told a June 27 press conference that the Caja Agraria collapse was the result of looting of the bank by politicians and private business. "Corruption is killing the nation's resources much more than the guerrillas or the paramilitaries," he said. [Hoy (NY) 6/28/99 from AP]