www.duluthsuperior.com Posted on Fri, Jan. 31, 2003 BY MONICA GARCIA Reuters

TRES ESQUINAS, Colombia - Colombian President Alvaro Uribe cast doubt on the quick release of a kidnapped British reporter and U.S. photographer, saying on Friday that he refused to meet Marxist rebel demands to halt military offensives during the handoff.

The hard-line leader said quartering his troops would send "a contradictory message" to the war-torn Andean nation, while branding the journalists' planned release in eastern Arauca province a "show" meant to improve the image of the Cuban-inspired National Liberation Army, or ELN.

"The ELN should free the journalists without turning Arauca into dramatic spectacle. If the government signs off on the drama and the paraphernalia in Arauca, and the show, it would send contradictory messages, discourage our troops," said Uribe, whose father was killed by leftist rebels. "For this reason, deploring as we deplore the kidnapping of the journalists, yearning as we yearn for their release, the government has made the decision to proceed in Arauca with actions that do not affect the morale of the troops," he said, speaking at Tres Esquinas military base in southeastern Colombia.

British reporter Ruth Morris and U.S. photographer Scott Dalton were abducted while traveling on freelance assignment for the Los Angeles Times along a rural road on Jan. 21 in the province of Arauca, where U.S. Special Forces started training local troops in counterinsurgency techniques this month.

The 5,000-member rebel army said in a communique this week it intended to soon free the reporters "safe and sound" as long as the country's president and the military did not try to rescue them by force. It also requested that a commission, composed of prominent officials, be present for the handoff.

The media have, in the past, accompanied rebels for the release of kidnap victims -- beaming images of the emotive handoffs to television sets across the nation.

Following Uribe's speech, a member of the proposed commission Jaime Bernal -- former public prosecutor -- branded the situation "delicate." He had not left for Arauca.

Colombia, ravaged by a four-decade-old guerrilla conflict, is one of the world's most dangerous places for reporters -- with eight Colombian journalists killed last year alone.

Still, until the kidnapping of Morris and Dalton, international press had gone relative unscathed. Leftist rebels and right-wing paramilitary outlaws have often posed for foreign press cameras and chatted happily into microphones.

Uribe said ELN abduction of Morris and Dalton was a clear attempt by the rebels to win points abroad by staging a spectacle, which the guerrilla had further hoped would be made safe with Colombian troops locked up in their barracks.

"When they kidnap international reporters and realize they have summoned an international reaction, then they start feverishly asking for commissions to unleash the drama and appear like kind-hearted observers and followers of international human rights law," Uribe declared.

"They don't do the same thing when they kidnap our middle class every day."

The Cuban-inspired ELN, a 1960s rebel group, kidnaps hundreds of people every year for ransom to pay for their struggle, which they say is to impose socialist reform in a country torn by the divide between rich and poor.

But ELN forces have not appeared interested in money in kidnapping Morris and Dalton. Rebels stopped them at a roadblock, hooded them and took them to a secret guerrilla camp, according to their driver, who was later released.

Arauca, an oil-rich region of savannas and swamps bordering Venezuela, is one of the most violent zones in a war that kills thousands every year. Suspected rebels killed six soldiers in Arauca on Sunday, in the fourth car bomb attack there in January.

news.ft.com By Ivar Simensen in London Published: January 31 2003 21:41 | Last Updated: January 31 2003 21:41

Prices of precious metals eased slightly on Friday after hitting new highs this week as investors sought shelter in commodities amid concerns about war in Iraq.

The recent weakness of the dollar has also helped make prices more attractive for non-US investors.

Spot gold rose to $371.50 per troy ounce in London on Friday, in sight of the six-year high of $372.60 from earlier in January, before easing back in afternoon trade to $367.50 as the dollar recouped some lost ground. Over the week, gold prices were $1.50 higher, adding to the $9 gain in the previous week.

Silver also fixed higher in the morning in London, hitting 487.25 an ounce, up from 478.50 cents in the previous morning fix, before sliding back to 484 cents by the afternoon.

Platinum slipped from Thursday's 17-year high, fixing at $667 an ounce. Traders said buying was boosted by US president George W. Bush's call for more research into fuel cell technology in his State of the Union speech on Tuesday. Fuel cells rely on platinum as a catalyst to produce electricity without pollution. The metal hit $673 an ounce on Thursday, its highest level since September 1986.

Crude oil prices firmed over the week after comments from President Bush and UN weapons inspector Hans Blix increased the likelihood of a war against Baghdad. Iraqi president Saddam Hussein replied by saying he would attack oil-rich Kuwait in case of an attack on Iraq.

In Venezuela, president Chavez continued his battle with striking oil workers. The Venezuelan government claimed daily oil production had risen to 1.4m barrels while the opposition said it remained at just above 1m. Venezuela produced more than 2.5m barrels a day before the general strike started in early December.

Brent crude futures slipped 11 cents to $31.10 per barrel on Friday but firmed 4.4 per cent over the week from last Friday's close of $29.65.

In New York, WTI settled 34 cents lower at $33.51 by the close.

www.guardian.co.uk Friday January 31, 2003 9:30 PM

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush dropped Guatemala from the list of allies in counternarcotics efforts Friday, concluding it had ``failed demonstrably'' during 2002 to meet international drug control standards.

Guatemala and 22 other countries were graded on their counternarcotics performances last year. It was the first time that Guatemala had received a failing grade, unlike Myanmar and Haiti, which also were singled out for poor performances, as they were a year ago.

Pervasive corruption was a principal reason for Guatemala's poor rating. ``Police stole twice the quantity of drugs they officially seized,'' said Paul Simon, the State Department's top counternarcotics official.

Under law, Bush can impose economic sanctions against countries that do not measure up on counterdrug policy. Bush waived sanctions on national security grounds for both Guatemala and Haiti.

``These two countries will receive assistance, notwithstanding their counternarcotics performance,'' White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said.

Simon said an aid cut for Guatemala would only lead to a further deterioration of drug-fighting institutions. He said aid to Haiti will be continued primarily on humanitarian grounds.

Sanctions were continued against Myanmar, also known as Burma. This was symbolic because that country has not received U.S. foreign aid for years.

Simon said Myanmar took some useful steps but added that large-scale poppy cultivation and opium production continued as did trafficking in methamphetamine.

He said Haiti remains a major transshipment point for drugs, primarily cocaine, moving from South America to the U.S. market. He described Haiti's counterdrug commitment as very weak.

In a memo to Secretary of State Colin Powell, Bush also decried an increase in illegal synthetic drugs entering the United States, especially Ecstasy from Europe. He said the Netherlands is a major clandestine production center for Ecstasy.

The president said Canada has become a primary source of pseudoephedrine and is an increasing source of high-potency marijuana. He expressed hope that Canada will do more to combat the trade, particularly in the regulation of precursor chemicals.

The countries whose 2002 counternarcotics performances were evaluated were Afghanistan, the Bahamas, Bolivia, Brazil, Myanmar, China, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Laos, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Thailand, Venezuela and Vietnam.

Rep. Cass Ballenger, R-N.C., chairman of the House International Relations subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, welcomed Bush's decision on Guatemala.

Ballenger said Bush recognized Guatemala's failure to cooperate fully with U.S. counternarcotics efforts. ``Regrettably, the Guatemalan government deserves to be decertified,'' he said.

In Guatemala City, Foreign Minister Edgar Gutierrez criticized Bush's decision. It could create ``a bad atmosphere for business, investments and the development of the financial and banking system,'' Gutierrez said.

Simon made clear the administration's dissatisfaction with Guatemala in testimony last fall.

``Widespread corruption, high turnover of law enforcement personnel and a lack of resources have plagued counternarcotics efforts in Guatemala during the last three years,'' Simon testified.

He said that since President Alfonso Portillo took office in January 2000, ``there have been four ministers of government, four directors of the national civilian police, and nine different directors of the government's anti-narcotics unit.

``This constant upheaval makes long-range planning for operations and investigations nearly impossible and working relationships very difficult,'' he said.

Release of Journalists in Colombia Urged

www.timesdaily.com ANDREW SELSKY Associated Press Writer January 31. 2003 4:15PM

Colombian soldiers manage a roadblock at the entrance of Saravena, in the Arauca state on the eastern border with Venezuela, Friday, Jan. 31, 2003. President Alvaro Uribe has made Arauca the showcase of his attempts to put Colombia in order. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC, and the National Liberation Army, ELN, are battling the army for control of Arauca's oil-rich plains. U.S. Army special forces troops arrived in Arauca this month to train Colombian soldiers, angering the rebels. Twoforeign journalists, American photographer Scott Dalton and British reporter Ruth Morris, were kidnapped by the ELN, some 20 miles south of Saravena ten days ago. (AP Photo/Javier Galeano)

President Alvaro Uribe took a hard line Friday against rebels holding two foreign journalists, insisting they be freed without fanfare and warning that government troops would not hold back because of the hostages.

Earlier Friday, a humanitarian commission requested by the rebels aborted its mission to retrieve hostages Scott Dalton, 34, and Ruth Morris, 35, in Arauca state, a lawless area of eastern Colombia.

Dalton, a photographer from Conroe, Texas, and Morris, a Briton raised in southern California, were kidnapped by the National Liberation Army on Jan. 21 while on assignment for the Los Angeles Times. They are the first foreign journalists abducted in Colombia's four-decade-long war.

The kidnapping sent a shock wave through the foreign press corps in Colombia, and has been widely covered by the Colombian media. Uribe, while he said he longs for Dalton and Morris to be freed, also recalled the thousands of Colombians who have been abducted by rebels for ransom.

Uribe, speaking at a ceremony at the Tres Esquinas military base in southern Colombia, said the insurgents were hypocrites for seeking the involvement of a humanitarian commission.

"In kidnapping middle-class Colombians, in mistreating our countrymen, these groups have no limits," Uribe snapped. "Humanitarian considerations have no weight at all when they drive families to ruin by forcing them to pay ransoms."

Uribe's father was killed by another rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, in 1983 during an apparent kidnapping attempt.

The rebels, Uribe charged, were planning to hand over Dalton and Morris to try to gain respectability abroad.

"They're afraid of international public opinion," the president said. "They fear the Los Angeles Times ... but they continue abusing the Colombian people, the ordinary unknown Colombians." Uribe said the kidnappers must free the hostages without making "a show" of it.

He also said Colombian troops would continue counterinsurgency operations in Arauca. The ELN, as the rebel group is known by its initials in Spanish, had demanded the military stop operations in Arauca, but then seemed to drop the demand in later communiques.

Uribe has made Arauca the showcase of his attempts to put Colombia in order. The ELN and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia are battling the army and a right-wing paramilitary force for control of Arauca's oil-rich plains. U.S. Army special forces troops arrived in Arauca this month to train Colombian soldiers, angering the rebels.

The ELN said this week they would hand over Dalton and Morris to a humanitarian commission if it came to retrieve them on Friday. The commission went to Bogota's airport before dawn to fly into Arauca, but decided at the last minute it was too dangerous, one of its members said.

"We're not going today," said commission member Dario Echeverri, a Roman Catholic priest. "There were difficulties concerning minimum guarantees of security for the commission and the journalists."

A Colombian army officer in Arauca said it was next to impossible to completely reassure the commission.

"Guaranteeing security is very difficult because of the diverse terrain and the presence of guerrillas everywhere," Col. Santiago Herrera said at an army base in Saravena, Arauca. Colombia had 3,000 kidnappings last year.

www.arabnews.com 1 February 2003 Published on 01 February 2003

We live in very troubled times. Too many people with the power to wreak destruction are doing, or are about to do, their worst. Hardly anywhere in the world seems free from conflict or the threat of imminent war.

At least 18 people have been murdered in a blast that destroyed a bus near the Afghan city of Kandahar. Remnants of the Taleban and Al-Qaeda fighters have been blamed. India and Pakistan remain poised on the edge of war. North Korea continues to play its enigmatic game of nuclear brinkmanship which could yet lead to a horrific new conflict. In the Ivory Coast, a French-brokered peace deal with rebels who now control a half of the country appears to have collapsed.

Ariel Sharon, the greatest enemy of just peace for the Palestinians has just been re-elected, giving him a mandate to resume his oppressive Zionist policies, designed ultimately to drive the last Arab from land which Sharon and his fellow hawks believe should be exclusively Israeli. The general strike in Venezuela may be faltering but the deep social wounds that have been inflicted in the confrontation between President Chavez, champion of the poor, and the country’s affluent elite, will surely leave deep scars. Venezuela, an important member of OPEC, may yet be heading for civil conflict.

Last, but by no means least, closest to home, we face the prospect of a US-led invasion of Iraq, preceded by a long campaign of high-technology slaughter, dealt out via remote control by military technicians far from the front line. Whatever heroics the Iraqis may produce in their defense, the result of the fighting is a foregone conclusion. What are entirely less certain, are the consequences of the ouster of Saddam Hussein — both for Iraq itself and for the region as a whole.

Whatever the Americans may protest, this will be seen as a war about oil and power. It will also be seen as an act of oppression against the Muslim world, exactly parallel to the Zionist crushing of the Palestinians. The Bush White House, however, is too wrapped up in the mental body armor of its immense military power, to see that, just as Zionist might has bred extremism among the Palestinians, so the crushing of Iraq will foster many more implacable foes for America and its policies.

At first glance, it would seem that no one is giving peace a chance. But there are two places from where Bush, Blair and Sharon, the faceless killers of Al-Qaeda and everyone else who has the power to destroy could all learn an important lesson. Both Sri Lanka and Rwanda were once riven by catastrophic ethnic conflicts that left between them well over a million dead. Now each country is at peace but neither pretends that the danger of new conflict has gone away forever. Rather, they know that they have to work hard, not for months, but for years, to resolve peacefully all of the issues which once brought their different communities into such savage conflict.

There is little cause for optimism, unless the world can learn to use the Sri Lankan and Rwandan solution to conflict, rather that brutal means of Sharon, Al-Qaeda and, it seems, very soon, the United States of America.