Posted on 04/19/2003 6:59:47 PM PDT by Indy Pendance
Suspected guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the FARC, have attacked a religious procession in a central province, killing three people and wounding two others.
It appears to be the Colombian rebels' response to the government's promise to protect citizens over Holy Week.
The people of Dolores in Tolima province were marching through the town in a religious procession marking the stations of the cross when shots were fired and pandemonium ensued.
Suspected FARC rebels opened fire on members of the security forces who were accompanying the procession.
But of the three people killed, one was a 14-year-old boy, and one of the wounded was also a child.
The armed forces had told Colombians they would guarantee security over Holy Week, and armed convoys are escorting motorists along strategic highways in this battered Andean nation.
But the guerrillas saw government assurances as a challenge and have broken the tranquillity of the festival in this deeply Roman Catholic nation.
The Marxist guerrillas are no friends of religion and, according to government statistics, have been responsible for the murders of almost 40 priests and pastors over the last four years.
The fear is that there will be more rebel disruption of the holiday season as the guerrillas seek to undermine the security police of hardline President Alvaro Uribe and force the government back to the negotiating table on their terms.
These folks appear to have had the same teachers as the Pallies.
I don't know what the issue is but I'm not on their side.
ML/NJ
They're called the Irish Republican Army.
Chavez likened to Saddam by some - `Caraqueos' keep eyes on Iraq war *** A former colonel in the National Guard and one of the dissident military officers at the Plaza Francia de Altamira saw similarities between Saddam and Chavez. "Saddam Hussein and his persecution of his own people is the same as Venezuela's president and his so-called revolution," said Manuel Jesus Carpio Manrique.
By calling for the armed forces and armed civilians to unite, Chavez has created a personal military, not unlike Hussein's Republican Guard, Carpio said. The former colonel accused Chavez of turning his political enemies into common criminals and wanting to bring the country to economic ruin so that he could establish a regime of hunger that he controls, such as Saddam did in Iraq.
Chavez has long enjoyed a friendly relationship with Saddam. In 2000, Chavez became the first Western head of state to visit Saddam since the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Both are members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Venezuela, the world's third-largest oil supplier, provides 13 percent of U.S. oil needs. Chavez has been a vocal opponent of the U.S. war against Iraq, citing civilian casualties, but has promised to honor oil contracts with the United States.***
Maria and a dozen frightened neighbors said hundreds of guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) attacked their town from Venezuela, crossing the river to engage an anti-guerrilla paramilitary force occupying several riverside villages. Within an hour, Maria saw Venezuelan military aircraft swoop over her village to bomb paramilitary positions inside Colombia supporting the rebel advance.***
Then, I dared to make another question: How far are we from the camp in the Venezuelan territory? "About 40 or 70 days, depending on the circumstances," he answered. So, it is deep inside that country, I said. "Yes, well inward," he said. When we spoke about famous exchangeable prisoners (political, military, police and governmental dignitaries that have been kidnapped and that, according to the guerrilla, could be exchanged by FARC captives), one of the guerrilla told me: "You should be grateful for not being one of those exchangeable people, because if you were, we would have taken you with them already." And where are they? I asked. "On that side of the frontier."***
By Rosie Cowan in London
April 25 2002
The Sinn Fein leader, Gerry Adams, is under fire for deciding not to appear before an influential United States congressional hearing on the IRA's alleged links with Marxist guerillas in Colombia.
The House of Representatives international relations committee had invited Mr Adams to Washington to answer questions on global terrorism and drug links at a one-day hearing yesterday.
The hearing was to include the case of three Irish republicans accused of helping Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels.
Mr Adams said he had declined to attend because he was concerned that some elements were intent on using the hearing to damage the Northern Ireland peace process, and that lawyers had advised him his attendance could prejudice the men's chances of a fair trial.
Niall Connolly, James Monaghan and Martin McCauley were arrested last August after they left the FARC-controlled zone. They are in jail awaiting a non-jury trial on charges of teaching the Colombian terrorists bomb-making techniques, which they deny.
The committee's chairman, Henry Hyde, said the hearing would have let Mr Adams explain what two IRA explosives experts and Sinn Fein's Cuban representative were doing in a rebel region of Colombia with a group that poses a direct threat to US national interests.
Mr Adams admitted the men's visit to Colombia had been ill-advised, and said had he or any other Sinn Fein leader known about it in advance he would have cautioned them not to go. But he insisted he believed the IRA had not sent anyone to Colombia to train or engage in military co-operation with any group.
"Irish republicans pose no threat to national security interests in Colombia," he said. "Irish republicans are resolutely opposed to the scourge of drugs. Sinn Fein is also implacably opposed to international terrorism."
But the committee spokesman, Sam Stratman, said: "Terrorism imperils Colombian democracy, and the alleged IRA role in helping groups like the FARC perpetuate this violence poses a direct threat to US national interests."
The committee released a summary of a nine-month investigation which concluded that links between the IRA and the Colombian guerillas went back to 1998, and said that after the three suspects arrived in Colombia, the rebels became proficient in the kinds of urban terror techniques used by the IRA in Northern Ireland.
The Guardian, The New York Times
For 40 years, Fidel Castro has pursued an "ourselves alone" policy, distracting attention from the condition of his own island by attacking its larger neighbour. Although he has the fanatical support of a minority, Mr Castro despises the democratic process and holds his legitimacy to derive, not from popular support, but from the sacrifice of a past generation of revolutionaries.
On this side of the Atlantic, Cuba might seem rather viejo sombrero: an unfashionable cause for ageing Marxists. But it is hard to exaggerate the horror that Mr Adams's visit is provoking in Washington. Patience with the IRA, already strained by its links with Colombian narco-terrorists, snapped after September 11. Eventually, the gunmen felt obliged to recognise international opinion by decommissioning some weapons.***
Do they care about Tibet? or Cuba?
ML/NJ
I don't think the IRA was doing any teaching. All of these groups were educated in Moscow. (And didn't the Great Stainmaker go there for some training too.)
ML/NJ
My thoughts have more of a "plagues of Egypt" quality.
Fortunately, it's Passover as well as Easter...
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