Colombia

[Pneuma]

I was wondering if anyone here could provide me w/ a link to a reliable source of information regarding recent events in Colombia.

On a related note, I heard something about Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams being pressured to attend a US Congressional inquiry concerning alleged links between thr IRA and Marxist guerrillas in Colombia. Any thoughts?

Cheers

[IzmSchism]

didn't the IRA train the soldiers??? what is the dilly there

[elizquierdista]

There are 2 marxist groups in Colombia, they're the:

ELN (Ejercito de Liberación Nacional)
National Liberation Army
and
FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

There were ties found between the IRA and las FARC. As to the details, I'm not sure. But I do know that there were 2 IRA members giving arms and conversing with FARC officials. This worried the Americans because now they realized weapons are being brought in from a second source. I've not heard anything of the Sinn Fein party being pressured to attend U.S. meeting though.

I hope I've shed some light on the subject.

I'll look for some links for you.
The only link I can think of right off the bat is http://www.farc-ep.org
This will take you to the FARC homepage, scroll all the way down and you can choose to see it in the English language (mong many others).

[liderDeFARC]

Izquierdista dont forget the M19.

[Spartacist]

Don't forget the Roja Espada Brigade either.

(or is that Argentina?)

[liderDeFARC]

You crack me up Spartacist... well i havent heard of that group in colombia but that gave me a good laugh.

[elizquierdista]

I've never heard of a Roja Espada Brigade, but I can tell you that if it is in Argentina, it won't get anywhere. The majority of the Argentine population is ignorant and peronistas, which are fascist assholes.
Spartacist, maybe you mean la Brigate Rossa (the red brigade) which is in Italy.

[elizquierdista]

lider de FARC, in my prior post, I was limiting the marxist groups to the 2 leftist armies that are most well known and have most people. I apologize, but I've never heard of the the M-19. I'd like to learn more about them if you have any information please tell me about them.

[revolutionary spirit]

yes Gerry Adams is being pressurised into going into a senate hearing to explain IRA/FARC links.He said he isn't too sure he will go because he was advised not to and there is nothing to say.I hope he tells them to fuck off.He don't have to explain himself to America.It's good to see the IRA helping the FARC i think because it shows the IRA are serious about politics,and the leaning towards the left above all.It counters the claim they are gangsters with a political sideline.

[honest intellectual]

3 men with previous IRA links were arrested in Columbia last year some time (August, maybe) for training the FARC in bombmaking. They haven't actually been charged yet.

[chupacabra]

Some guy almost got killed or something! Colombian govt. is always run by the drug cartels, read Marquez!

[revolutionary spirit]

Quote: from honest intellectual on 6:11 pm on April 14, 2002
3 men with previous IRA links were arrested in Columbia last year some time (August, maybe) for training the FARC in bombmaking. They haven't actually been charged yet.



I picked up somewhere that another 25 IRA men were meant to of slipped the border,don't know if it is true or not.

[elizquierdista]

The reason the FARC went after Uribe is because he's ahead in the polls. As if it weren't bad enough that a right-wing candidate is ahead (by a large sum), he has promised all out war against FARC if he is elected, in other words a civil war.

[chupacabra]

Take him to the montan~as and shoot him, then! The Colombians need to get rid of all right-wingers and neutrals.

[Acolombian]

Izquierdista: the reason you haven't heard of M-19 is because that group already collapsed and is reinserted into society. The same that will happen some day with the assholes of Farc and ELN that loot and destroy the country for their own benefit day by day.

By the way the farc ep website is definately not a site if you want to know what is really going on in Colombia. That is why most of the people in this forum are so screwed up, for reading so much crap.

Fact: Less than 10% of the population of Colombia like Farc or ELN. Most of the country despise then for all the suffering and empoverishment on all the regions they go. They loot, massacre, kidnapp for ransom, grow drugs,... they get more than 2 million dollars daily for their illegal activities. And the perfect way to justify it is to put a fake political agenda behind it so as to gain the support of naive and not very well informed people as the ones in this forum.

[Acolombian]

And another thing Izquierdista,

Uribe is not right wing, he is a liberal. The only "right wing" thing about him is to want to get rid of Farc so that investment can return to the country. So do most of the people of Colombia.

And for your information, we are already in a civil war. A war of 40 million colombians who just want to make a living against 20000 very well armed assholes who think they know what it is best for everyone.

[pastradamus]

Im not entirely sure but i think one of the IRA members that went over to train FARC is now alledged to have been kidnapped.
I dont believe this statement.But why do FARC want the IRA's help?
& why are the republican army helping them?
We got a war over for them!
There is also rumours of the IRA aiding movements in venezuala,peru & the basque sepretists group ETA.

[revolutionary spirit]

IRA and ETA are meant to be close

[elizquierdista]

Acolombian, I do not argue with you over FARC because you're right, they've been corrupted by the drug trade. However ELN has remained true to their cause and does not attack civilians. They're a true revolutionary group.

I've heard Uribe speak, I've only heard him speak 3 times, then I see him on the news very often. Although he claims to be "liberal", his issues and opinions are definitely leaning towards the right a little too much for my taste.

[pastradamus]

yes the IRA were the inventors of modern day guerilla warfare,them & the IRB.

[revolutionary spirit]

urban guerrilla warfare


on another note,i hate to be a ***** pastradamus but it wasn't sean connery who wrote ur quote,maybe u r robbing the writer of the ''ROCK''

[Acolombian]

Colombian news paper article, taken from "El Tiempo". Just to shopw how sadistic the guerrillas in colombia can be (hope you can read spanish):


Farc asesinaron a menor y prepararon su cadáver con explosivos

Pretendían atacar a la Brigada Móvil No. 4 en Vista Hermosa (Meta), según denunciaron ayer las Fuerzas Militares.

El hecho ocurrió en la inspección de Piñalito, zona rural del mencionado municipio. Miembros del frente 27 de las Farc asesinaron al menor de 14 años. Dentro de sus ropas colocaron explosivos y luego envolvieron el cuerpo en papel de regalo. Luego obligaron a una familia del sector a transportarlo en un vehículo y entregarlo en la sede del Batallón de Contraguerrillas No. 40.

Cuando el cuerpo del menor llegó a Vista Hermosa, unidades de la Brigada Móvil No. 4 lo detectaron y con la ayuda de técnicos antiexplosivos lograron desactivar la bomba.

Junto con el cuerpo fue hallada donde los guerrilleros de las Farc, donde un subversivo que se halle llamar 'Alberto Pitufo' se adjudica la muerte del menor y anuncia nuevos atentados contra las tropas.

Las unidades contraguerrilla iniciaron de inmediato operaciones para lograr la captura de los subversivos, presentándose un enfrentamiento en el que murieron dos guerrilleros. Las tropas también desactivaron un campo minado de 100 metros de longitud en cercanías a Vista Hermosa.

Esta es la tercera vez que las Farc utilizan cadáveres como señuelos para atacar al Ejército. El 10 de abril, el cuerpo de Pedro Nel Camacho, un campesino de Sibaté (Cundinamarca) fue abandonado por miembros de la columna Abelardo Forero dentro de su camioneta que estaba llena de dinamita. Cuando los técnicos antiexplosivos de la Policía, capitán Germán Arturo Ruíz y el intendente Juan Carlos Medina, intentaron desactivar las bombas, estas explotaron causándole la muerte a los dos uniformados.

También el 22 de abril, dos niños de 14 y 15 años, Norberto Navarro y Jesús María Alvarez, fueron obligados por guerrilleros del frente 61 de las Farc en Acevedo (Huila) a llevar un caballo que cargaba explosivos y dejarlo frente a un grupo de soldados del Batallón Magdalena que patrullaba la zona. Cuando llevaban al animal, la carga explosiva se activó matando a los menores.

[liderDeFARC]

I see your point Acolombian, but i think you should tell them the other half of the story. What about the innocent civilians the Paras kill? I mean, i think the people just want all the violence to go away, and that includes the AUC.

[Nateddi]

Columbian?

What the hell are you doing posting outside your cage?

[concerned]

Authorities plot to rescue survivors of bloody Colombia battle
108 dead, including dozens of infants, women and elderly

QUIBDO, Colombia (AP) -- The death toll in an isolated village where rebels and paramilitaries are fighting for control rose to 108 Sunday as authorities continued to debate how to rescue the survivors.

U.N. officials said they warned the government that a tragedy was about to occur before the fighting started.

"It's lamentable that the government authorities ignored the early warning," the United Nations said in a prepared statement.

Among the dead were dozens who had taken refuge in a church in the village of Bojaya on Thursday. Authorities said the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, fired homemade mortars into the church. It was unclear if they were aiming for the church.

People fleeing the violence began trickling into Quibdo, the capital of Choco state, some 58 miles south of Bojaya, on Sunday.

Juan Evaristo Mosquera, 70, abandoned his small farm in the village of Puerto Conto to flee with his son, daughter-in-law and four grandchildren on Friday. The family took two days to reach Quibdo by boat, stopping periodically because of fighting.

"We're good people, we've always lived in peace -- poor, but in peace," he said. "Now we're just poor."

Choco is the poorest, and one of the most conflicted states in Colombia. The rebels and paramilitaries are fighting in the region for control of strategic drug trafficking routes, officials say.

Minister of Interior Armando Estrada said troops would be heading to the area Sunday or Monday. Neither the military nor the police have outposts in the tiny riverfront village, which is reachable only by air or river.

President Andres Pastrana and high-ranking military commanders met with local authorities in Quibdo Sunday to plan a rescue mission.

After the meeting, he said 108 people had been confirmed dead, many of them infants, children and elderly people.

"What happened here was genocide on the part of the FARC," he said.

Rescue workers airlifted 18 seriously injured victims out of the village Saturday but officials worried that the small village hospital in Vigia del Fuente, across the river from Bojaya, was overwhelmed.

Authorities said at least 38 of the dead were infants and children.

Colombian soldiers gear up to be transported to the battle zone.
Albeiro Parra, spokesman for the diocese in Quibdo, said some 80 people, including the town priest, were still missing Sunday. Many have reportedly fled into the jungle around the village.

Parra urged the authorities not to send the military into the region, fearing that anyone who might have been taken hostage might be hurt or killed during a military operation.

"The response should be humanitarian, not military," he said.

Luis Angel Moreno, director of the government's Solidarity Network in Choco state, said his office was working with the Red Cross to send 5,000 individual rations from Quibdo eight hours up the Atrato River by boat.

There is no telephone communication and only limited radio contact with Bojaya, 235 miles northwest of Bogota.

Colombia's 38-year-civil war pits the FARC and a smaller rebel group against the paramilitaries and government forces. Roughly 3,500 people -- most of them civilians -- are killed in fighting each year.

[CheGuevara]

It's very amusing that whenever capitalists mention the struggle in Colombia, they neglect to mention that when the FARC tried to make a peaceful political party in Colombia in the 1980s, several thousand of them were slaughtered by rightwing paramilitaries.

[concerned]

Yes, Che, that is true. It is certainly sad and unadmissible what happened with the UP. Although don't blame it on the paramilitaries, they were tiny at the moment and weren't even well organized. I believe most of the UP killings were just performed by right wing extremists.

It's not that I am neglecting this. Is just that this unfortunate acts cannot become an excuse to perpetrate even more human right abuses and attack defenseless civilians. As Farc seems to have opted to do.

[elizquierdista]

Concerned, that is what I fear. The FARC lately have been making many mistakes beginning with the downing of power generators, civilian casualties, and the loading of explosives to a dead teenage corpse. As I've stated before, FARC needs structural change, and needs to find a way back to what they originally fought for, not just the narco-trafico.

ELN however has remained loyal to their cause.

[concerned]

I completely agree Izquierdista, that is what I fear too. To your list of mistakes you can add contaminating the water supply in Neiva, car bombs in crowded areas (restaurants and others), the kidnapping of presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, which as a matter of fact has always been a pacifist and has always been trying to reach a peacefull settlement for all of this deal... the list is countless...

It is true that ELN has remained more loyal to their cause, but ELN is also now a very small group in respect to Farc. They have been badly hit by the paramilitaries, and believe it or not even by Farc itself (Farc have killed a lot of integrants of ELN for the control of the region bordering Venezuela).

ELN is badly hit and it is actually negotiating a peace agreement with the government currently.

[elizquierdista]

I've known about the peace talks, and the last thing I heard they (ELN) were talking to government officials in Europe over a peace deal. But nothing else after that.

The latest news I have heard, is the ELN has said that several oil pipelines will be targeted, and anyone who contributes will be considered a target. IN other words, you're a civilian working for pipeline you're gonna be taken prisoner.