Colombia's vice president is taking a hard-hitting anti-drug message to Europe, complaining about cocaine-snorting celebrities who he says are financing the drug-fueled civil conflict bleeding this South American nation. Vice President Francisco Santos spoke of supermodel Kate Moss, although she doesn't appear in the ads that he planned to unveil today in London along with 13 European anti-drug czars. Santos called Moss a perfect example of liberal European attitudes toward drug use because she is enjoying a career comeback after a British tabloid last year published photos of her apparently snorting cocaine. [continues 410 words]
Colombia's vice president has it out for coke-snorting celebrities, targeting people like supermodel Kate Moss who he said are directly financing his country's violent, drug-fueled civil conflict. "Cocaine not only destroys you, it also destroys a country," is the theme of a hard-hitting Colombian-led advertising campaign designed to change attitudes among Europeans about their booming cocaine habit in the same way that "Just Say No" did in the United States. Moss herself doesn't appear in the ads, but Vice President Francisco Santos said she's a perfect example of liberal European attitudes toward drug use -- she's enjoyed a career comeback even after a British tabloid published photos of her apparently snorting cocaine. [continues 536 words]
They Claim Union Was Targeted, But Company Blames Bottom Line FACATATIVA, Colombia - When workers at Colombia's largest flower grower organized themselves into a union a few years ago, they won protections against overly long hours, potentially dangerous exposure to pesticides and other abuses. But in an increasingly globalized economy, the effort may also have cost the employees of Dole Food's flower division their jobs. Last week, Estela Yepes was on her way out of work at the Splendor-Corzo flower farm outside of Bogota, the Colombian capital, when she was handed a one-page letter. [continues 622 words]
Demobilized Paramilitaries Are Sidestepping Justice, Critics And Victims Say BARRANCABERMEJA, Colombia -- In the midst of a relentless conflict, Colombia's government and its ally, the Bush administration, are hailing the demobilization of 32,000 fighters from right-wing paramilitary groups -- a disarmament that authorities here say is larger than any of those that closed out Central America's civil wars in the 1990s. But another, far more critical picture of the disarmament has emerged in recent months, drawn from the accounts of rights groups, victims of Colombia's murky, drug-fueled conflict, and even a report from the Attorney General's Office. Paramilitary commanders, according to these accounts, have killed hundreds of people in violation of a cease-fire, trafficked cocaine and stolen millions of dollars from state institutions they had infiltrated. [continues 1342 words]
SAN JOSE DEL FRAGUA, Colombia -- A $4 billion battle to wean Colombian farmers off the cocaine trade through a combination of military might and American aid is quietly being cut back in a region where cocaine production is surging. In an internal memo, the United States Agency for International Development cites unacceptable security risks for its workers and a lack of private investment partners for its pullout from Caqueta State. Six years and more than $4 billion in American tax dollars after Plan Colombia began in Caqueta, coca, the raw ingredient of cocaine, is still the region's No. 1 cash crop. But the programs meant to provide farmers with a profitable alternative to growing coca are vanishing. [continues 101 words]
SAN JOSE DEL FRAGUA, Colombia -- The United States is quietly cutting back economic aid in a region where cocaine production is surging, a strategy critics say hurts Washington's $4 billion effort to try to wean Colombia off the illegal drug trade. In an internal memo obtained by the Associated Press, the U.S. Agency for International Development blames unacceptable security risks for its workers and a lack of private investment partners for its pullout from Caqueta, a former rebel stronghold in impoverished southern Colombia. [continues 735 words]
SAN JOSE DEL FRAGUA, Colombia - The United States is quietly cutting back economic aid in a region where cocaine production is surging, a strategy critics say hurts Washington's $4 billion effort to try to wean Colombia off the illegal drug trade. In an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press, the U.S. Agency for International Development blames unacceptable security risks for its workers and a lack of private investment partners for its pullout from Caqueta, a former rebel stronghold in impoverished southern Colombia. [continues 209 words]
SAN JOSE DEL FRAGUA, Colombia - The United States is quietly cutting back economic aid in a region where cocaine production is surging, a strategy critics say hurts Washington's $4 billion effort to try to wean Colombia off the illegal drug trade. In an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press, the U.S. Agency for International Development blames unacceptable security risks for its workers and a lack of private investment partners for its pullout from Caqueta, a former rebel stronghold in impoverished southern Colombia. [continues 752 words]
President Alvaro Uribe Has Softened His Hard-Line Rhetoric And Signaled He Wants A Prisoner Swap With Colombia's FARC Rebels -- And Perhaps Even Peace Talks BOGOTA - Despite a strong mandate validating his first four years of waging all-out war against leftist rebels, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has opted for a more peaceful beginning to his second term. Since his inauguration in August, Uribe has reached out to leaders of the hemisphere's largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia or FARC, by offering to swap imprisoned rebels for kidnapped politicians, citizens and soldiers in guerrilla hands. [continues 789 words]
BOGOTA, COLOMBIA - The Colombian soldiers look young. A little disinterested, perhaps. Or maybe just scared. One by one, they politely stand in the spare courtroom and state their names and ranks. They are charged with planning and carrying out the murder of 10 US-trained counternarcotic policemen and a civilian - at the behest of narcotraffickers. But this is simply a preliminary hearing. More than four months after the May 22 massacre in Jamundi, the prosecution of this high-profile case has barely begun. [continues 2021 words]
Why the massacre of an elite US-trained Colombian police team prompted Congress to freeze drug-war funding. JAMUNDI, COLOMBIA - Arcesio Morales Buitrago is in charge of the keys at Mi Casita. A soft-spoken man diagnosed as schizophrenic, he is the doyen of the patients at the leafy psychiatric home. On May 22, right after the Monday afternoon bingo game, three cars skidded to a halt on the road that dead ends at Mi Casita. Ten men in blue jeans and police vests and one man in a ski mask piled out. [continues 2252 words]
Officials Say Rebel Strongholds Too Dangerous But Some Call It Choice Of Force Over Help BOGOTA, COLOMBIA - Although the southern jungles of Colombia are ground zero for the war against Marxist guerrillas and cocaine traffickers, a U.S.-backed program to persuade some of the region's drug farmers to switch to legal crops has been suspended. In southern Caqueta state, a longtime rebel stronghold, the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, has pulled out of the campaign because the region lacked economic potential and was considered too dangerous for the agency's workers, according to a Colombian government memo. [continues 667 words]
U.S. Likely Will Back Effort, Officials Say BOGOTA, COLOMBIA - Colombia to the rescue? Overwhelmed by a flourishing opium trade, Afghanistan's government is getting help from a country that knows about narcotics operations. A team of Colombian narcotics police, which spent two weeks in Afghanistan, has come up with a series of recommendations, including better evidence-gathering, airport surveillance, training and organization. U.S. State Department and congressional sources said this week they support Colombia's suggestions and would push for implementation. [continues 474 words]
The Colombian Government Is Getting Criticized For Admitting Drug Traffickers Into The Paramilitary Peace Process Some 32,000 illegal paramilitary fighters have surrendered and their top leaders are in custody. But the Colombian government now finds itself on the defensive about the peace talks with the so-called paras, amid complaints that top drug traffickers infiltrated the paramilitaries to avoid extradition to U.S. courts. "It's a farce," said one longtime U.S. government investigator of drug trafficking in Colombia whose agency's regulations do not allow him to be further identified. "Some of these guys were never paramilitaries before." [continues 930 words]
BOGOTA, Colombia -- The latest chapter in America's long war on drugs - -- a six-year, $4.7 billion effort to slash Colombia's coca crop -- has left the price, quality and availability of cocaine on American streets virtually unchanged. The effort, begun in 2000 and known as Plan Colombia, had a specific goal of halving this country's coca crop in five years. That has not happened. Instead, drug policy experts say, coca, the essential ingredient for cocaine, has been redistributed to smaller and harder-to-reach plots, adding to the cost and difficulty of the drug war. [continues 2465 words]
BOGOTA, Colombia The latest chapter in America's long war on drugs - a six-year, $4.7 billion effort to slash Colombia's coca crop - has left the price, quality and availability of cocaine on American streets virtually unchanged. The effort, begun in 2000 and known as Plan Colombia, had a specific goal of halving this country's coca crop in five years. That has not happened. Instead, drug policy experts say, coca, the essential ingredient for cocaine, has been redistributed to smaller and harder-to-reach plots, adding to the cost and difficulty of the drug war. [continues 2465 words]
BOGOTA, Colombia - The latest chapter in America's long war on drugs - - a six-year, $4.7 billion effort to slash Colombia's coca crop - has left the price, quality and availability of cocaine on American streets virtually unchanged. The effort, begun in 2000 and known as Plan Colombia, had a specific goal of halving this country's coca crop in five years. That has not happened. Instead, drug policy experts say, coca, the essential ingredient for cocaine, has been redistributed to smaller and harder-to-reach plots, adding to the cost and difficulty of the drug war. [continues 2465 words]
'Plan Colombia' Produces No Effect BOGOTA, COLOMBIA - The latest chapter in America's long war on drugs - a six-year, $4.7 billion effort to slash Colombia's coca crop - has left the price, quality and availability of cocaine on American streets virtually unchanged. The effort, begun in 2000 and known as Plan Colombia, had a specific goal of halving Colombia's coca crop in five years. That has not happened. Instead, drug policy experts say, coca, the essential ingredient for cocaine, has been redistributed to smaller and harder-to-reach plots, adding to the cost and difficulty of the drug war. [continues 303 words]
BOGOTA, Colombia - Despite environmental concerns, Colombian authorities have for the first time used U.S.-supplied planes to spray a pristine national park where leftist rebels have grown coca - the raw ingredient for cocaine. Anti-narcotics police said they chemically fumigated the Sierra Macarena national park last week, clearing its entire 11,370 acres of coca. The spraying destroyed coca capable of producing 17.5 tons of high-grade cocaine and was likely a major blow to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. [continues 503 words]
Acreage Has Increased Despite Record Levels of Aerial Spraying Under a U.S. Eradication Plan. Julian, a peasant farmer in this mountainous region of Colombia, wants to stop growing coca but says leftist guerrillas won't let him. If they catch you pulling up any coca plants, he says, they give you 12 hours to leave your land or they kill you. Under Washington's multibillion-dollar "Plan Colombia," much of the drug-fighting money has gone to pay for the eradication of 1.8 million acres of coca, which is used in the production of cocaine. [continues 1118 words]
Drug Traffickers Find It's Getting Harder To Smuggle Earnings Back Into The Country BOGOTA, Colombia -- Colombian police routinely try to detect travelers attempting to smuggle drugs to the USA and Europe. This year, they have turned their attention to travelers coming into Colombia -- not with drugs, but with hundreds of thousands of dollars and euros believed to be profits from the illegal drug trade. Colombia is the world's largest source of cocaine. Most of the estimated $35 billion annual cocaine market in the USA is supplied by Colombian drug traffickers, despite $4 billion in U.S. aid since 2000 to assist the Colombian government's counternarcotics efforts, including spraying herbicide on the crops that yield cocaine and heroin. [continues 692 words]
The area where the Lost City was built centuries ago now is home to one of the most lucrative and destructive businesses in the world: cocaine trafficking. And for a $10 fee, those who come to see the Lost City can take a detour to see the first stage of the dirty process involving gasoline and sulfuric acid, among other appetizing ingredients, that makes a simple, hard-edged leaf into a deadly and addictive powder. On my recent trip, three travelers accompanied by myself and a photographer, paid close attention to all the details, then asked questions of Adan Bedoya, a 62-year-old campesino from the Santa Marta mountain range, who showed us through the process step by step. The tourists then toyed with the ingredients and took some photos in the so-called "factory" for their parents. One of them asked Bedoya for some cocaine and was disappointed to find that Bedoya rarely has contact with "the actual stuff." [continues 69 words]
Around The World BOGOTA, COLOMBIA -- Colombia's interior minister said Wednesday that his country should double its coca eradication effort, a day after a UN report said cultivation of the plant used to make cocaine jumped 8 percent last year. Aerial fumigation of coca fields reached a record last year in Colombia as authorities used 20 U.S.-supplied airplanes to spray nearly 345,000 acres. Despite that, the UN estimated that cultivation rose in 2005 for the first time in five years, to 330 square miles, or more than 211,000 acres. Interior Minister Sabas Pretelt urged a doubling of efforts, even as he tried to downplay the UN report, telling W Radio, "If we didn't fumigate as much as we did, Colombia today would be submerged in a sea of coca." [end]
BOGOTA, Colombia - A key component of the U.S.-backed war on drugs appears to be failing. Despite record drug seizures and spraying of herbicides, production of the plant used to make cocaine increased by 8 percent in Colombia, to 330 square miles, the United Nations said Tuesday - even as authorities sprayed coca fields totaling 25 times the size of Manhattan. [end]
JAMUNDI, Colombia -- On a dirt road dotted with country homes near the western city of Cali, three trucks carrying an elite squad of anti-narcotics police pulled up to the gates of a psychiatric center for a planned raid about an hour before dusk. Within minutes, all 10 officers in the U.S.-trained unit were dead in a ferocious attack that stunned Colombians and severely embarrassed President Alvaro Uribe just as he was savoring a crushing re-election victory. That's because the alleged killers were no typical outlaws. The gunmen firing from roadside ditches and from behind bushes were a platoon of 28 soldiers who unleashed a barrage of some 150 bullets and seven grenades, according to a ballistics investigator. [continues 815 words]
JAMUNDI, Colombia -- On a dirt road dotted with country homes near the western city of Cali, three trucks carrying an elite squad of anti-narcotics police pulled up to the gates of a psychiatric center for a planned raid about an hour before dusk. Within minutes, all 10 officers in the U.S.-trained unit were dead in a ferocious attack that stunned Colombians and severely embarrassed President Alvaro Uribe just as he was savoring a crushing re-election victory. That's because the alleged killers were no typical outlaws. The gunmen firing from roadside ditches and from behind bushes were a platoon of 28 soldiers who unleashed a barrage of some 150 bullets and seven grenades, according to a ballistics investigator. [continues 446 words]
Prosecutor Alleges Soldiers Worked for Traffickers JAMUNDI, Colombia -- About an hour before dusk, on a dirt road dotted with country homes near the western city of Cali, three trucks carrying an elite squad of anti-narcotics police pulled up to the gates of a psychiatric center for a planned raid. Within minutes, all 10 officers in the U.S.-trained unit were dead. An informant who led the police squad to the scene promising they would find a large stash of cocaine was also found dead. When investigators removed his ski mask, they found a bullet hole in his head. In May, members of the Colombian prosecutor general's office visited the site in Jamundi, Colombia, where 10 undercover police and a civilian died in a firefight with a military patrol. "The army was doing the bidding of drug traffickers," Prosecutor General Mario Iguaran said. [continues 940 words]
JAMUNDI, Colombia - On a dirt road dotted with country homes near the western city of Cali, three trucks carrying an elite squad of anti-narcotics police pulled up to the gates of a psychiatric center for a planned raid about an hour before dusk. Within minutes, all 10 officers in the U.S.-trained unit were dead in a ferocious attack that stunned Colombians and severely embarrassed President Alvaro Uribe Velez just as he was savoring a crushing re-election victory. [continues 782 words]
On a dirt road dotted with country homes near the western city of Cali, three trucks carrying an elite squad of anti-narcotics police pulled up to the gates of a psychiatric center for a planned raid about an hour before dusk. Within minutes, all 10 officers in the U.S.-trained unit were dead in a ferocious attack that stunned Colombians and severely embarrassed President Alvaro Uribe just as he was savoring a crushing re-election victory. That's because the alleged killers were no typical outlaws. The gunmen firing from roadside ditches and from behind bushes were a platoon of 28 soldiers who unleashed a barrage of some 150 bullets and seven grenades, according to a ballistics investigator. [continues 1039 words]
Colombia -- After suffering years of conflict at the hands of guerrillas, militias, and drug traffickers, Colombians reelected President Alvaro Uribe yesterday by a landslide as a reward for dramatically reducing violence and presiding over the strongest economic recovery in a decade. The election was largely peaceful. With 99 percent of the ballots counted, Uribe had 62 percent of the vote, ensuring four more years for the Bush administration's most loyal ally on a continent dominated by leftist governments. At a time when neighboring Andean countries are nationalizing resources, the 53-year-old center-right Uribe has been Washington's biggest collaborator in the war on drugs and the push for free trade in South America. "Uribe got a much stronger mandate than four years ago -- he's won 1.5 million more votes than last time, and that's going to give him a lot of room to maneuver," said Alejandro Vargas, a political scientist at National University in Bogota. [continues 1007 words]
U.S. Ally Has Led Fight vs. Rebels BOGOTA, Colombia, May 28 -- President Alvaro Uribe was reelected in a landslide Sunday in Colombia's most peaceful elections in more than a decade, strengthening the U.S. ally's mandate to crack down on armed groups and drug traffickers. Uribe's win marks the first time in more than a century that an incumbent Colombian leader has been reelected, and bucks a trend of leftist leaders taking office across South America. With 96 percent of ballots counted, the conservative Uribe won a stronger-than-expected 62 percent of the vote, according to official results. A majority was needed to win in the first round and avoid a runoff. [continues 559 words]
Police Antidrug Team Was Slain By Soldiers BOGOTA -- The suspicious killings last week of all 10 members of Colombia's most elite antinarcotics police team by soldiers have raised questions about the possible infiltration of the military by drug lords. The police unit, trained by the US Drug Enforcement Administration, had smashed 15 drug rings; captured 205 traffickers, including 23 wanted for extradition to the United States; and seized nearly 4.4 tons of cocaine in the past two years, Brigadier General Oscar Naranjo, director of the judicial police, said in an interview. [continues 831 words]
Colombian president Alvaro Uribe, one of Washington's closest allies in Latin America, is a heavy favorite to win re-election Sunday, which would break a string of victories by populist candidates elsewhere in the region. The latest polls give Mr. Uribe, who pushed through an amendment to Colombia's constitution last year to permit presidential re-election, 56% of the vote against 24% for his closest rival, Sen. Carlos Gaviria, the candidate of the left-wing Alternative Democratic Pole party. [continues 420 words]
Six years and $4 billion into the US-backed campaign to wipe out cocaine at its source, Colombia appears to be producing more coca than when the campaign started, according to US government estimates. As Congress opens debate this month on another $640 million for next year for Washington's most ambitious overseas counternarcotics effort, a growing number of critics say the costly program has neither dented the cocaine trade nor driven down the number of American addicts. Two of the program's major missions -- to dramatically reduce coca growing in Colombia and provide alternative livelihoods for drug farmers -- have fallen far short of hoped-for goals. [continues 1808 words]
Senator Urges Bush To Fire U.S. Drug Czar BOGOTA Aerial spraying of illegal, drug-producing crops in Colombia, an expensive linchpin of the U.S.-backed war on drugs, is failing, key members of Congress and drug policy specialists said Tuesday. Despite a record fumigation last year of almost 550 square miles of coca, the latest U.S. government survey found 26 percent more land dedicated to the plant used to make cocaine. The White House attributed the meteoric rise from 2004 to an 81 percent increase in the satellite sampling area, which skewed an otherwise 8 percent drop in coca production in areas previously surveyed. [continues 496 words]
More Land In Colombia Is Under Coca Cultivation, The U.S. Says, But Cultivation Is Down. It Depends On How You Look. No one likes to trumpet failure. But was the White House drug czar's office trying to hide something this month? For the second year in a row, the office released its annual survey of coca cultivation (the plant used to make cocaine) using what skeptics might call a touch of creative accounting. Oddly, the survey found 26 percent more land under coca cultivation last year than in 2004. This comes after Washington has spent more than $4-billion since 2000 on an antidrug program known as Plan Colombia, which was supposed to cut coca cultivation in half within six years. [continues 903 words]
Colombia Leader Treats Detractors As Traitors, Refuses To Debate His Rivals BOGOTA, COLOMBIA - Rather than taking the high road as he marches toward re-election, President Alvaro Uribe has come under fire for delivering a series of low blows to his detractors. Bolstered by a double-digit lead in the polls heading into next month's election, Uribe often treats his critics as traitors and acts as if a second term is his birthright, many analysts say. He has refused to take part in debates with rival candidates. He has bashed the media, provoking a sharp rebuke from Human Rights Watch. [continues 1046 words]
The White House Said The Anti-Drug Campaign Is Working In Colombia, Despite Recent Results From A Survey That Indicated Otherwise WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is denying that the drug war in the Andes is going badly, despite a U.S. survey showing that far more Colombian acreage is planted with coca than previously reported. The 2005 coca cultivation survey for Colombia, issued Friday evening by the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), estimated acreage at 356,000, a 26 percent increase over 2004. [continues 511 words]
U.S. Downplays Negative Figures BOGOTA, Colombia -- In a blow to the United States' antidrug campaign, new White House estimates indicate that Colombia's coca crop expanded nearly 21% last year. Figures released Friday by the Office of National Drug Control Policy indicate Colombian farmers grew 355,680 acres of coca, the raw material for cocaine. That's up nearly 74,000 acres from 2004, even though U.S.-funded crop dusters destroyed record amounts of coca plants in 2005. The United States has provided Colombia with more than $4 billion, mostly in antidrug aid, since 2000 for Plan Colombia, which was supposed to cut coca cultivation by half within six years. Yet according to the new figures, more coca is being grown than when the program started. [continues 226 words]
BOGOTA, Colombia - The United States will give three additional planes to Colombia this year to help its fleet of 21 aircraft already spraying defoliants on plants used to make cocaine, a top U.S. official said on Monday. The planned move follows a report showing an increase in coca crops in the Andean country and a request from Colombian President Alvaro Uribe for more anti-drug assistance. The U.S. government's 2005 survey of Colombia's coca crop found 26 percent more land dedicated to coca cultivation than in 2004 after nearly doubling the area surveyed. [continues 416 words]
The CIA Finds Colombian Acres Grew 21% During Eradication Effort Costing Billions BOGOTA, COLOMBIA - In a blow to the United States' anti-drug campaign here, which cost more than $4 billion, new White House estimates indicate that Colombia's coca crop expanded by nearly 21 percent last year. Figures released late Friday by the Office of National Drug Control Policy indicate Colombian farmers last year grew 355,680 acres of coca, the raw material for cocaine. That represents a jump of nearly 74,000 acres from 2004 even though U.S. funded crop-dusters destroyed record amounts of coca plants in 2005. [continues 764 words]
Colombia's Curse SANTA MARTA -- Of the thousand shades of green that wash the hills of Tayron national park, the lightest is the coca leaf. Seen from the air, mud trails spread like yellow veins into the forest, each ending in burnt black scars. These clearances give way to dense coca fields as the growers move deeper into the primary forest, hacking and slashing as they go. Cocaine labs speckle the high ground, hoisted on stilts and wrapped in black polythene against the rain. [continues 777 words]
Coca-Sek, Bottled by a Colombian Tribe, Gets Its Kick From Coca Leaves. The Not-So-Soft Drink Has Stirred Debate About Drugs and Sovereignty. INZA, Colombia -- Call it the "Real Thing." Indians in this remote mountain village in southern Colombia are marketing a particularly refreshing soft drink that harks back to Coca-Cola's original formula, when "coca" was in the name for a reason. Advertising posters here describe the carbonated, citrus-flavored Coca-Sek as "more than an energizer" -- a buzz that just might be provided by a key ingredient, a syrup produced by boiling coca leaves. [continues 1437 words]
Five years and $7.5 billion later, Plan Colombia is still struggling to solve the puzzle of how to shift Colombians away from illegal crops. The story of Plan Colombia -- the U.S.-funded, $7.5 billion strategy launched to smash the cocaine traffic in this country -- may be best understood by studying a project to grow an ingredient for fancy salads near this once formidable coca-growing area. Planting acres of the palm trees that produce hearts of palm was one of many projects launched under the plan in late 2000 -- a means by which the hundreds of families that grew coca, the raw material for the cocaine sold on U.S. streets, were going to make a legal living. [continues 1584 words]
BOGOTA, Colombia - Active and retired police and army officers working for one of Colombia's largest cocaine cartels used commercial cargo planes to ship drugs to the United States, authorities said Tuesday. U. S. officials, who are seeking the extradition of the seven, said the case illustrates the reaches of Colombia's notorious drug rings and the danger posed by corruption among the country's security and transportation workers. Among those arrested are a retired police major and captain, a former army lieutenant, two police officers and an employee of Colombia's national airline, Avianca. [end]
The United States has launched a fresh offensive in its Latin American war on drugs by putting a $75m (UKP 43m) bounty on the heads of 50 alleged leaders of the Colombian rebel group they accuse of running half of the world's cocaine trade. Announcing the move against a group whom Washington calls "narco-terrorists", the US attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, said it was "the largest drug trafficking indictment in US history". The announcement raised the prospect of US troops being sent into Colombia to pursue the rebels, a move that Mr Gonzales refused to rule out, although he insisted that there were other "effective options". [continues 795 words]
FARC Leaders Accused Of Trafficking More Than $25 Billion In Cocaine WASHINGTON - The United States charged 50 leaders of Colombia's largest guerrilla group with sending more than $25 billion worth of cocaine around the world to finance their fight at home, a federal indictment that depicts the rebels as major narco-terrorists. The indictment made public Wednesday in U.S. District Court said the leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, ordered the killings of Colombian farmers who did not cooperate with the group, the kidnapping and killing of U.S. citizens and the downing of U.S. planes seeking to fumigate coca crops. [continues 248 words]
Progress Against Coca In Colombia Is Threatened By The Perilous Politics Of The Drug War And, As Always, By Market Forces LA MACARENA National Park is a dramatic mountain ridge that cuts like a serrated knife through the tropical grasslands of Colombia. It is a refuge for dozens of species of wildlife found in few other places on earth. But recently it has become a new front in the war on the cocaine industry that the United States and its allies have now been waging for a generation in the Andean states of South America. [continues 1300 words]
A Clear-Cut Victory Over Growth Of The Drug Is Impossible. It Can, Perhaps, Be Contained. La Macarena National Park is a dramatic mountain ridge that cuts like a serrated knife through the tropical grasslands of Colombia. It is a refuge for dozens of species of wildlife found in few other places on earth. But recently it has become a new front in the "war" on the cocaine industry that the United States and its allies have now been waging for a generation in the Andean states of South America. [continues 1261 words]
Colombia has it in for Hollywood's ultimate tough guy. Andres Pastrana, the country's ambassador in Washington, has scolded actor Bruce Willis for suggesting the United States should consider invading Colombia as part of its war on drugs. At a media event in New York to promote his new film, 16 Blocks, Willis said the United States should weigh "going to Colombia and doing whatever it takes to end the cocaine trade". Willis's comments, on screen and off, have landed him in trouble before. [continues 57 words]