COLOMBIA BRIEFS
Gov't scuttles
talks
with ELN
The Colombian government gives lip service to its
commitment to peace. Colombian President Andres Pastrana has
opened talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia-People's Army (FARC-EP) and has offered to begin a
separate process with the National Liberation Army (ELN).
But on the eve of July 24-25 preliminary talks with ELN
representatives in Geneva, government-backed paramilitary
forces launched a major attack on ELN troops in the Bolivar
province of northern Colombia.
"This is an attack against a zone where the government has
promised to refrain from military operations and from which
the ELN leadership is directing peace negotiations," ELN
Commander Nicolas Rodriguez said. Rodriguez called the
attacks a "joint operation" of government and paramilitary
forces.
"As a result of the armed confrontation, severe
difficulties have arisen for the process under way between
the government and the ELN," stated a joint communiqué
after the talks in Geneva. Eighty representatives of Col
ombian "civil society"--unionists, teachers, employers and
religious leaders--also took part in the two-day meeting.
U.S. admits
aiding
counterinsurgency war
While the U.S. Congress discussed President Bill Clinton's
$1.3 billion military-aid package to Colombia, solemn
assurances were made that the attack helicopters and elite
battalions were destined only for the "war on drugs." The
United States was not going to be involved in the war against
the FARC-EP and the ELN.
Just two weeks after Clinton signed the aid bill, that lie
has been publicly abandoned. Blackhawk helicopters were
employed to repel a July 30 FARC-EP offensive in the town of
Arboleda.
"The U.S.-supplied aircraft are generally permitted to
conduct such rescue [sic] flights and search and rescue
missions in addition to their normal anti-narcotics
responsibilities," explained U.S. State Department
spokesperson Philip Reeker.
Arboleda is a town in coffee-producing western Colombia,
where neither coca nor poppy is grown.
The State Department was on the defensive as the most
extreme U.S. congressional advocates for
counter-revolutionary war in Colombia complained about the
nominal restrictions on the military aid.
Days earlier, on July 25, U.S. House International
Relations Committee Chair Ben Gilman ranted about a July 14
attack in Roncesvalle, a town in northern Colombia. "Since
the U.S. Embassy maintains the absurd fiction that U.S. aid
could only be used for counter-narcotics purposes, the
Blackhawks were not called in," he complained.
Gilman openly pushed for dropping the sham of the "war on
drugs." The warmonger whined: "If, on the other hand, the
guerrillas are not engaged in any narcotics activities and
they don't fire first, the security forces can't fire on
them. Isn't that bizarre?"
The FARC-EP launched a massive nationwide offensive in
July. Leaflets found amid the rubble of destroyed police
stations link the offensive to the recently signed U.S.
military-aid package.
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