Rebel's Death Hinders Betancourt Rescue

[struggle4progress]

Source: AP

By ANDREW O. SELSKY – 4 hours ago

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — A French-led mission to free hostage Ingrid Betancourt in Colombia may fail because officials cannot find any rebels to talk to about her release. The insurgents are in hiding, their main contact with the outside world is dead and Interpol has an arrest notice out for a top guerrilla leader.

Only a few years ago, Colombian rebel leaders were easily found in the towns and fields of southern Colombia as they talked peace with the government.

After peace talks with rebels collapsed in 2002, commanders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, disappeared into the jungle, leaving a bearded, diminutive rebel known as Raul Reyes as their public face.

Reyes was killed on March 1 in a Colombian military raid on a FARC camp across the border in Ecuador that triggered a regional crisis, with Ecuador, backed by Venezuela and Nicaragua, complaining the attack violated its sovereignty ...

Read more: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gTRUMAs8-axuQb4X3lCvreBznrHAD8VS0DV00

[burrowowl]

1. Isn't that convenient!

Killing the spokes-person!
The U$ of A doesn't want her released wouldn't be good pub for support of Columbia and the paramilitary.
Where was the news for Chavez capturing Colombian Lord Lord linked of course with the paramilitary?

[burrowowl]

2. Kick!

[Judi Lynn]

3. Uribe doesn't mind losing the hostages at all.What he DOESN'T want to lose is his war "on terrorism"

He has no intention of having peace breaking out, and having to surrender yearly infusions of MEGA-GIFTS from the U.S. taxpayers, to keep himself the WORLD'S THIRD LARGEST FOREIGN AID RECIPIENT.

If he loses his "war," and doesn't have any "terrorists" to "battle," he'd have to live on Colombia's income, and there's no way he's going to do that.

In case everyone hasn't seen this, please scan this info from the U.S. Defense Department of Information, released recently, revealing the fact Colombia's President, and _{George W. Bush's} puppet, Álvaro Uribe was the subject of investigations in 1991 which our government apparently has overlooked in the last few years:.S. INTELLIGENCE LISTED COLOMBIAN PRESIDENT URIBE AMONG
"IMPORTANT COLOMBIAN NARCO-TRAFFICKERS" IN 1991

Then-Senator "Dedicated to Collaboration with the Medellín Cartel at High Government Levels"


Confidential DIA Report Had Uribe Alongside Pablo Escobar, Narco-Assassins

Uribe "Worked for the Medellín Cartel" and was a "Close Personal Friend of Pablo Escobar

Washington, D.C., 1 August 2004 - Then-Senator and now President Álvaro Uribe Vélez of Colombia was a "close personal friend of Pablo Escobar" who was "dedicated to collaboration with the Medellín cartel at high government levels," according to a 1991 intelligence report from U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) officials in Colombia. The document was posted today on the website of the National Security Archive, a non-governmental research group based at George Washington University.

Uribe's inclusion on the list raises new questions about allegations that surfaced during Colombia's 2002 presidential campaign. Candidate Uribe bristled and abruptly terminated an interview in March 2002 when asked by Newsweek reporter Joseph Contreras about his alleged ties to Escobar and his associations with others involved in the drug trade. Uribe accused Contreras of trying to smear his reputation, saying that, "as a politician, I have been honorable and accountable."

The newly-declassified report, dated 23 September 1991, is a numbered list of "the more important Colombian narco-traffickers contracted by the Colombian narcotic cartels for security, transportation, distribution, collection and enforcement of narcotics operations." The document was released by DIA in May 2004 in response to a Freedom of Information Act request submitted by the Archive in August 2000.

The source of the report was removed by DIA censors, but the detailed, investigative nature of the report -- the list corresponds with a numbered set of photographs that were apparently provided with the original -- suggests it was probably obtained from Colombian or U.S. counternarcotics personnel. The document notes that some of the information in the report was verified "via interfaces with other agencies."

President Uribe -- now a key U.S. partner in the drug war -- "was linked to a business involved in narcotics activities in the United States" and "has worked for the Medellín cartel," the narcotics trafficking organization led by Escobar until he was killed by Colombian government forces in 1993. The report adds that Uribe participated in Escobar's parliamentary campaign and that as senator he had "attacked all forms of the extradition treaty" with the U.S.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB131/index.htm



_Bush + Uribe