Colombian said war zone failed to staunch violence

19 May 2003 18:17:04 GMT

BOGOTA, Colombia, May 19 (Reuters) - An emergency war zone declared in eastern Colombia to crack down on Marxist rebels has failed to restore order or stop political killings, Colombian human rights and legal officials said on Monday.

Selective assasinations continue, and violence has flared in towns adjacent to the Arauca region where military reinforcements were sent in by President Alvaro Uribe last year, Colombia's ombudsman Eduardo Cifuentes and inspector general Edgardo Maya said at a news conference.

The presence of military reinforcements has reduced the death rate in the area, they said, but added that municipal officials live in fear for their lives and death threats have forced journalists to flee the oil-rich area on the border with Venezuela.

"Today the civilian population lives in fear and the authorities themselves have no security," said Cifuentes, Colombia's top human rights official.

Shortly after he took office in August Uribe decreed the "rehabilitation zone" in an area long under seige from Marxist rebels and sent extra troops and police armed with broad emergency powers to detain suspects.

Until the reinforcements arrived, police in the Arauca town of Saravena had lived as virtual prisoners in their sandbagged barracks, under constant threat of bomb or mortar attack.

Colombia's constitutional court has recently declared most the emergency powers illegal, although the rehabilitation zone in Arauca, and another created in Bolivar and Sucre provinces, were due to expire anyway.

The continued presence of the military and police reinforcements has become the highest profile test of Uribe's promises to crack down on illegal armed groups fighting in a four-decade-old war.

Cifuentes and Maya said Arauca needed more public investment as well as troops and better protection for officials working to build institutions in the long almost lawless province.

A group of U.S. Special Forces are stationed near Arauca training Colombian troops to protect the Cano Limon oil pipeline from rebel bombing.