Pubdate: Tue, 13 Aug 2002
Source: Daily Telegraph (UK)
Copyright: 2002 Telegraph Group Limited
Contact:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/114
Author: Jeremy McDermott, in Medellin
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/colombia.htm

STATE OF EMERGENCY AS COLOMBIA STEPS UP WAR ON TERRORISM

President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia imposed a limited state of emergency
yesterday after more than 100 people were killed by Marxist rebels in the
five days since he took office.

The "state of internal commotion" gives him power to sideline Congress on
security issues. It also authorises preventive detention without a warrant,
the suppression of protests, restrictions on the movements of civilians and
curbs on the media.

The first measure imposed after an all-night cabinet session was a wealth
tax on individuals and businesses with liquid assets of more than UKP40,000.
It is intended to raise UKP510 million for the security forces.

Marta Lucia Ramirez, the country's first female defence minister, said the
money would pay for two elite mobile battalions, a total of about 3,000
troops, to take the offensive to the guerrillas, and 10,000 new police
officers to try to stem a tide of urban attacks.

Announcing the state of emergency, the interior and justice minister,
Fernando Londono, said: "The nation is subject to a regime of terror in
which democratic authority is sinking and where economic activity is
increasingly more difficult, multiplying unemployment and poverty for
millions of Colombians."

The emergency decree can be applied for 90 days, then reactivated for two
more periods of 90 days, the second of which must be authorised by Congress.

Sources close to the guerrillas welcomed the new taxes and the imposition of
a state of emergency as "more fuel for the fire", saying the measures would
hurt the people who had voted for Mr Uribe - the rich - and that his support
would start melting away.

The assumption of power last week by Mr Uribe, an Oxford-educated
Right-winger, was marked by guerrilla attacks in the capital, Bogota,
including a mortar barrage against the presidential palace, killing 21
people and wounding more than 70 others.

Colombia's estimated 35,000 Marxist rebels have since continued their
attacks across the country, claiming at least 115 lives since Mr Uribe's
inauguration.

After 38 years of civil conflict, Mr Uribe is under pressure from the public
that elected him in a landslide victory to show results in the war on
insurgents.

He is also being watched carefully by Washington, which has just lifted
restrictions on a UKP1 billion package of military aid granted by Bill
Clinton when he was president specifically for the war on drugs so that it
can be used against the rebels.

President George W Bush, who has embraced Mr Uribe as his newest and keenest
recruit in the war on terrorism - Colombia's guerrillas are on the US
terrorism list - has given an extra UKP250 million, and promised another
UKP300 million in the next financial year if Colombia increases its own
military spending.
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