WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS
             ISSUE #443, JULY 26, 1998
  NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK
339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499

2. COLOMBIANS PROTEST US SUPPORT FOR PARAMILITARIES

On July 23, dozens of campesinos and miners from northern
Colombia began camping out near the gates of the US embassy in
Bogota to protest US support for paramilitary violence, which
they say is protecting the interests of multinational mining
companies. 
 
"We demand that the US government withdraw its advisers, its
dirty money with which the paramilitaries are financed, its army
and its marines, so that our zone can be free from all
aggression," said the protesters in a communique. The campesinos
and miners came from several different municipalities of the
Magdalena Medio region, where the southern part of Bolivar
department meets the departments of Antioquia and Santander, in
northern Colombia. "We're not leaving here until our problems are
resolved," campesino Alberto Carvajal told Associated Press.
 
"It's the same thing if we die here or die there," said Carvajal.
He called on the Colombian government to provide "guarantees for
the campesinos who have been displaced by paramilitary threats."
Some 7,000 campesinos from Magdalena Medio have been forced off
their land by paramilitary groups and have fled to the
municipalities of San Pablo (Bolivar) and Barrancabermeja
(Santander). 
 
On July 24 the office of the Defender of the People began
mediating to seek an end to the protest near the US embassy. The
embassy has made no comment on the protest. [El Nuevo Herald
(Miami) 7/25/98 from AP; El Diario-La Prensa 7/25/98 from AP]
 
In a report by telephone to members of the Madison, Wisconsin-
based Colombia Support Network (CSN) on July 25, professor
Francisco Jose de Roux explained that the Magdalena Medio
refugees want a government commission to go to San Pablo to
discuss the crisis there and address people's needs. Some 2,000
of the refugees in San Pablo have now crossed the Magdalena river
to seek refuge in Puerto Wilches (Santander), said de Roux. 
 
On July 24 de Roux met in Bogota with the miners who are camped
near the US Embassy. They told de Roux they are not opposed to
international capital investing in mining in Colombia, but they
are very concerned that the foreign mining companies may make
arrangements with paramilitary groups in the region. De Roux said
the miners are seeking to work out an agreement that will protect
their interests. [CSN message 7/25/98] [In 1995 de Roux
coordinated peace negotiations between government and rebel
forces; before that he served as director of the Bogota-based
Center of Investigation and Popular Education (CINEP).]
 
*3. COLOMBIA: REBELS CHARGE "NARCO-PARAMILITARY ALLIANCE" 

The rebel National Liberation Army (ELN) declared on July 21 that
rightwing paramilitary groups and drug traffickers--with army
complicity--had joined forces in northwestern Colombia to attack
the civilian population. In a communique issued from their prison
cells in Itagui, near Medellin, ELN leaders Francisco Galan and
Felipe Torres accused paramilitary chief Carlos Castano of
heading a "narco-paramilitary alliance." 
 
The declaration by Galan and Torres was triggered by an ELN
commando's shootdown on July 16 of a helicopter of the Antioquia
departmental government's civil service, which was overflying the
municipality of Amalfi. According to Galan and Torres, the
commando was able to shoot down the helicopter because it had
information on offensives planned by the army. 
 
According to Galan, the region is also the setting of a "dirty
war" in which "paramilitaries, drug traffickers, the police, army
and intelligence services comprise one single force" which has
launched an offensive against the civilian population. The ELN
called on authorities to combat the link between drug
traffickers, paramilitaries and security forces, and urged the
attorney general's office, the office of the defender of the
people and international human rights entities to investigate
links between the drug trade, paramilitary groups and security
forces in Amalfi. [InterPress Service 7/21/98, via Antifa Info-
Bulletin #174, 7/26/98]
 
Meanwhile, twelve bombs blew up within a few minutes of each
other early on July 22 outside banks in Medellin, shattering
windows and doors. Police said taxis and motorcycles were used to
place the charges. One man was killed when a bomb he was setting
exploded, according to police. There were no other reports of
injuries. A group calling itself the Popular Liberation Forces
sent a statement to radio stations claiming responsibility. "The
poor cannot always be the victims of war and its tough
consequences," read the statement, which was broadcast by RCN,
Caracol and Radionet radio stations in Medellin. The group said
it acted with urban guerrillas of the ELN. A man claiming to be
an ELN member called a Medellin radio station on July 22 to claim
responsibility for the attacks. [AP 7/22/98]
 
*4. SOA LINKED TO COLOMBIAN VIOLENCE

On July 23, human rights activists and lawyers held a news
conference in Washington to draw attention to their call to shut
down the US Army School of the Americas (SOA) at Fort Benning,
Georgia, claiming that new evidence links SOA graduates to
murders and human rights abuses in Colombia. Rep. Esteban Torres
(D-CA) said he will ask the House to eliminate funding for SOA
for fiscal 1999. Last year the House came within seven votes of
approving a similar amendment by Torres. [Associated Press
7/23/98]
 
The legislators appeared with Colombian television journalist
Richard Velez, who said he was beaten by Colombian soldiers in
August 1996 when he filmed them attacking campesinos who were
protesting the eradication of their coca crops in Morelia,
Caqueta department. His videotape of soldiers attacking the
campesinos was shown at the news conference. Velez has sued the
Colombian government, but was forced to leave Colombia last Oct.
19--with assistance from the International Committee of the Red
Cross (CICR)--after he received death threats and soldiers tried
to abduct him. Velez is now living in New York City; the US
government granted him political asylum on July 14. 
 
Gen. Nestor Ramirez Mejia, commander of the 17th Brigade, the
military unit accused of beating Velez, was a "distinguished
graduate" of SOA's Command and General Staff College in 1985. SOA
public affairs officer Capt. Kevin McIver said the school should
not be held accountable for the actions of each of its nearly
60,000 graduates. "There's not an institution out there that
doesn't have a graduate who has gone astray," McIver said. "We
teach professionalism, we teach US Army doctrine and we augment
it with a very demanding human rights program." [AP 7/23/98; El
Diario-La Prensa 7/15/98; list of SOA graduates compiled by SOA
Watch]
 
Meanwhile, a series of articles in the Washington Post exposing
the lack of oversight over US military training programs overseas
has prompted the defense committees of the US House of
Representatives and Senate to consider requiring Defense
Secretary William Cohen to play a greater role in reviewing and
approving training programs in countries where the military's
human rights record is poor, or where there is active conflict,
according to congressional staffers. [WP 7/15/98] The three-part
series of articles ran in the Post on July 12, 13 and 14.
"Officers who conduct the anti-drug training in Colombia and
elsewhere acknowledge it differs hardly at all from the
traditional counterinsurgency training given Latin militaries
during the Cold War," notes the July 13 article, which focuses on
Latin America. "The major distinctions, they said, are that the
US troops are called trainers, not advisers, and give the Latin
American troops some human rights training." [WP 7/13/98]