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Weekly News Update on Colombia #491, 6/27/99 Tue, 29 Jun 1999 06:15:21

Wall Street chief meets with colombian rebels

The conversation with Reyes focused on topics related to the upcoming peace talks, including the role of multinational corporations in the Colombian economy. The state-run news agency ANCOL quoted Grasso as having stressed the importance of negotiations between the government and FARC. Formal talks are set to begin July 7 with a 12-point agenda worked out in prior discussions.

At an improvised press conference in San Vicente del Caguan, at which Restrepo acted as translator, Grasso said he had come to Colombia to bring a message of cooperation from US financial circles, who view with great interest the peace process being promoted by President Andres Pastrana Arango. Grasso said the meeting with Reyes basically dealt with economic issues, and that the exchange of opinions was very interesting. He said he explained to Reyes how some 200 million North Americans participate in one way or another in the stock market, and how these markets could prove useful to businesses in places like Colombia, since they could put their shares on the market to get capital for social and economic development.

Citing sources in Bogota, Clarin reports that Grasso's visit was organized by the Colombian government, in particular by Colombian ambassador to the US Luis Alberto Moreno, said to be a close personal friend of Grasso. According to these sources, the Pastrana administration's interest is to show the world--and particularly business executives--that the peace process is moving along. Also of concern to the government is the risk rating that Moodys is about to assign Colombia, which would put Colombia among those countries with "negative perspectives" for growth. In recent years Colombia's growth rate has been around 3% of the annual GDP; this year it will barely hit 0%. [ABC News 6/26/99 from Reuters; CNN en Espanol 6/26/99; El Nuevo Herald (Miami) 6/26/99 from AP; Clarin 6/27/99]

[The Colombian peso fell 2% against the US dollar June 22-23, leading to fears that the government may be forced to devalue the currency. The first quarter of 1999 saw a 4.8% decline in the economy, the largest decline since the government started issuing quarterly figures in 1977. Unemployment is at a record 19%. The banking sector is in its worst crisis since 1982, and the government might have to spend as much as 10% of the gross domestic product (GDP) to restructure the sector. A team from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) arrived on June 21 to review the situation, although Finance Minister Restrepo insists that Colombia doesn't need a formal agreement with the IMF. [Financial Times (London) 6/22/99, 6/25/99]]

ANCOL reported that Grasso extended a personal invitation to leaders of the FARC--which is considered a "terrorist" organization by the US State Department--to visit Wall Street as soon as possible. "I invite members of the FARC to visit the New York Stock Exchange so that they can get to know the market personally," Grasso was quoted as saying. "I truly hope that they can do this," he added. [ABC News 6/26/99 from Reuters]

In early June, US congressional representative William Delahunt (D-MA) also traveled to Colombia and met with FARC spokesperson Reyes. [ENH 6/26/99 from AP]

Meanwhile, the Colombian government appears to be cracking down on the country's second-largest leftist rebel force, the National Liberation Army (ELN). On June 21, Attorney General Alfonso Gomez Mendez ordered the arrest of top ELN commander Nicolas Rodriguez and his second- and third-in-command, Erlington Chamorro and Pablo Beltran, on charges of murder, kidnapping and extortion. The ELN is still holding some 63 hostages from three dramatic high-profile kidnapping operations over the past few months [see Update #489]. [Miami Herald 6/22/99]

Some 30,000 people--including kidnap victims previously freed by the ELN and relatives of others still being held--marched on June 20 in the city of Bucaramanga to demand and end to kidnappings and the release of all people abducted by armed groups. Several hundred people marched the same day in Cali to protest the kidnappings. [La Republica (Lima, Peru) 6/21/99 from AFP]
 

Colombian army seems to back paramilitaries against rebels

On June 22 and 23, Colombian army helicopters dropped 46 of its troops into an area of Cordoba department to fight the FARC, which had some 500 troops in the area. At least 35 soldiers were killed, and another five are believed to have been captured. Gen. Jorge Enrique Mora Rangel said 19 rebels were killed in the clash; the army claimed on June 24 that it had retaken control of the zone. Another army officer, Gen. Nestor Ramirez, said on June 23 that local army commanders may have miscalculated when they deployed troops directly into the jungle area occupied by the rebels.

A statement from the FARC's propaganda arm on the Internet declared that the army "suffered one of its worst military defeats." The FARC statement maintained that the army column was deployed to help rightwing paramilitary forces fend off a FARC offensive. It said the army troops serve as "saviors of the so- called paramilitaries." The army operation took place after some 500 FARC troops attacked four villages near Nudo de Paramillo, the stronghold of rightwing paramilitary chief Carlos Castano and his United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). The FARC killed eight campesinos they accused of collaborating with rightwing paramilitaries; their attack followed a four-day killing spree by paramilitaries in which 28 people were killed at four different locations across Colombia. [CNN en Espanol 6/22/99 with info from Reuters, AFP; ENH 6/25/99 from AFP; MH 6/25/99]

"The apparent fact that the army always seems to show up when the FARC or other armed opposition group is engaged in fighting with the paramilitaries... seems to once again highlight the close nature of the relationship between the Colombian security forces and the paramilitaries," noted Carlos Salinas, head of the Americas section of Amnesty International, in a telephone interview with Reuters. [Reuters 6/25/99]

Meanwhile, some 150 FARC troops attacked a federal prison in southern Colombia early on June 25 with explosives and automatic weapons, blasting holes in the walls, overwhelming the jail's 20 guards and freeing at least 15 comrades, authorities said. One inmate was killed and one guard injured in the predawn attack outside Neiva, the capital of Huila department, said national prisons spokesperson Rocio Devia. [MH 6/26/99]