Republican News · Thursday 28 February 2002

Colombian Army invades FARC zone

On Monday 25 February, Colombian interior minister Armando Estrada Villa announced that one of the presidential candidates was being held hostage by the rebel group in southern Colombia's war zone - apparently to trade for rebel prisoners.

The government said it received a FARC statement claiming Ingrid Betancourt would be held until captured guerrilla combatants were freed by the government. Interior minister Estrada told RCN radio that officials were trying to authenticate the statement, which carried the name of Joaquin Gómez, a spokesman for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Campaign officials confirmed that Betancourt, who accused guerrilla leaders of drug trafficking, and her campaign manager, Clara Rojas, were kidnapped at a roadblock as they were driving toward San Vicente del Caguan, a rebel town occupied by government troops on Saturday 23 February. Three men traveling in the same car as Betancourt, including two Colombians and a French photographer, were detained for several hours by the rebels and released.

FARC has said it won't negotiate with President Andres Pastrana after he cancelled peace talks on Wednesday 20 February and will wait until Pastrana's term ends in August. The Colombian government suggested Betancourt had been "irresponsible" for travelling into the war zone from the southern city of Florencia. Officials had warned her not to go.

In 1998, and after meeting the FARC leadership, Colombian president Andrés Pastrana gave FARC a safe haven twice the size of Switzerland to allow for negotiations aimed at ending Colombia's 38-year civil war. Negotiations and the creation of the demilitarised area were opposed by the army, paramilitaries and the US government.

At the beginning of the peace talks, the Clinton administration launched Plan Colombia, an anti-drugs strategy consisting of a $7,5 billion military assistance programme that targeted the area controlled by FARC guerrillas - who levy coca production. The Plan ignored the areas controlled by right wing paramilitary death squads) who, human rights activists reckon, are responsible for more than 80% of Colombia's human rights violations and 50% of coca production and trafficking.

The election of US Republican president George W Bush has brought a hardening of US policy, with the US ambassador in Colombia, Jane Patterson, encouraging the Colombian military to use Plan Colombia's equipment and budget to fight the guerrillas.

Unsurprisingly, the trust between the guerrillas and the government failed, causing the negotiations to collapse on several occasions. In January, the peace talks were saved at the last minute, thanks to international mediation, but Pastrana has finally given in to internal and external pressure. On Wednesday 20 January, he ordered hundreds of air strikes on rebel targets and mobilized 13,000 troops to retake the zone, after rebels hijacked an airliner and kidnapped Colombian senator Jorge Gechem Turbay.

Colombia's largest guerrilla army apparently vanished into the tropical jungles of its former sanctuary ahead of the military offensive.

Since 1998, Colombia has received more military aid from the United States than any country outside the Middle East. The US government insists it won't send in troops, although it has sent Special Forces during the past two years to train Colombian anti-drug soldiers.

The Bush administration is, however, moving to expand its military aid beyond counter-drug efforts. "Two of the more immediate things we're looking at is to share more information, including intelligence information, with the government of Colombia," US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told a daily briefing.

While Colombia's government insists it will protect residents of San Vicente and all of the 100,000 people living in the zone the government seized last week, nearly everyone feels uneasy about what will happen next. Some fear that Colombia's powerful right-wing paramilitaries, who in some parts of the country have operated in cooperation with military troops, might move in to get revenge on residents fingered as collaborators with the FARC.

"We didn't have any problems with the guerrillas. They didn't treat us bad," a rancher said. But now he worries more about his safety. "This is all I have. How can I defend myself with this?" he asked, patting a pocketknife.

Saudis offer negotiations as Palestine bleeds

Israel is exploring with interest a tentative Saudi proposal that calls for an Israeli pullout from virtually all the territories it occupied in the 1967 Middle East war in return for comprehensive peace. Details of the Saudi proposal remained sketchy, but it is clearly very different from the limited interim settlement that Sharon has said he would pursue with the Palestinians if and when violence subsides.

However, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has fiercely opposed a total pullout, as he knows any discussion of significant concessions to Palestinians could undermine his governing coalition - a conglomerate of parties with divergent positions on the land-for-peace idea. Sharon has been a leading supporter of the West Bank and Gaza settlements where some 200,000 Israelis live. A near-total pullout would require many, if not most, to be removed.

The Palestinians have welcomed the Saudi idea.