english.pravda.ru 11:00 2003-02-10

Friday's blast had left 32 killed and 200 wounded, as fears of terror campaign rise.

President Alvaro Uribe, who has promised to crack down on the 40-year insurgency, Saturday claimed to the United Nations to give Colombia the same treatment as Iraq. Uribe made these declarations after visiting the place where before the bomb attack functioned the exclusive club "El Nogal", in an elite area of Bogota.

The late-night explosion blew debris on to a busy avenue, collapsing floors and starting a fire that burned for two hours. The car, which was carrying explosives, had been left in a car park on the third floor of the building. No one claimed responsibility for the attack which took place shortly after 8pm on Friday, but the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) had said several months ago it intended to attack Colombia’s elite. The rebels have recently brought their war, which has lasted four decades, from the countryside into the cities.

The attack has raised fears that the country’s rebels are making good their threats to attack the country’s ruling class. Therefore, Uribe made another attempt to internationalize the long- running conflict, as he has openly considered peace talks useless.

Alvaro Uribe had expressed such idea during the sworn in ceremony of the leftist President of Ecuador, Lucio Gutierrez. The Colombian Head of State thinks that country's guerrillas finance their activity thanks to the international consumption of drugs produced in the country.

"The world should not ask Colombia to tolerate terrorism; we need that the democratic nations of the world come to Colombia to help us fighting it", repeated Uribe.

However, Uribe will have to struggle hard to see his dream, a large-scale US military intervention, to become reality. There is an increasing opposition to such idea amid Colombia's powerful neighbors: Chavez's Venezuela and Lula's Brazil. They strongly rejected in several occasions all the attempts of US intervention into the Amazonian jungle.

The bomb attack was the second blow to hit Colombia in as many days. On Thursday, a light plane carrying minister of social welfare Juan Luis Londono and four other people disappeared on a domestic flight. On Friday, suspected rebels fired on a helicopter that was searching for the plane in the Andean Mountains of central Colombia.

Hernan Etchaleco PRAVDA.Ru Argentina

Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, February 09, 2003 english.peopledaily.com.cn

The death toll of Friday's car-bomb explosion in El Nogal night club in northern Bogota has risen to 33 and 162 others were injured, official sources said Saturday. The death toll of Friday's car-bomb explosion in El Nogal night club in northern Bogota has risen to 33 and 162 others were injured, official sources said Saturday. A car-bomb, loaded with about 200 kilograms of dynamite, Fridayevening ripped through the third floor of a 12-story building, where the El Nogal night club was located. Vice President of Colombia Francisco Santos attributed the attack to the 17,000-strong rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The government has asked Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador, Panama and Brazil to list FARC as a terrorist organization, and requested thegovernments of these countries to help stop its subversive activities. In spite of the material damage to the building of the night club, a 12-year-old girl, Maria Garcia, was found alive on Saturday morning covered by the debris, said Colombia's Attorney General Luis Osorio. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the governments of the United States and French condemned the bombing as a "terrorist attack." The UN chief's spokesman said Annan "strongly condemns this cruel bombing and all other terrorist attacks by any actor in the conflict." US President George W. Bush released a statement in Washington,condemning the attack as "barbaric act of terrorism," and said theUnited States "will offer all appropriate assistance to the Colombian government in bringing to justice the murderers responsible for this act."

February 8, 2003 www.newsday.com

A powerful bomb rocked an exclusive club in Bogota Friday night, killing more than 20 people, leaving about 100 injured and setting the 10-story building on fire. The blast showered bricks and mortar onto a busy boulevard, denting and damaging cars that were passing by. Bogota Mayor Antanas Mockus said a theory that the explosion in the El Nogal Club - frequented by politicians and business executives - may have been an accident had been discarded by investigators, who determined that explosives caused the blast. Leftist rebels have recently begun bringing their four-decade war from the countryside into the cities. "It was a huge explosion. I thought an airplane had crashed outside," said Luis Moreno, who lives across the street from the club on Seventh Avenue in north Bogota. The explosion blew out walls of two stories of an interior parking garage, raining rubble onto the street below. Jorge Velandia, who works at the club's mini-golf course, said the blast opened up a hole in one of the floors, and people tumbled through. Black smoke poured from the building, and flames licked out from upper windows. Media reports said that people were still trapped inside. Catalina Ortíz told Radionet she was driving in front of the club when she felt the explosion and thought her car had been hit. "When I looked back I saw the club was on fire, with a ball of fire coming out of the third or fourth floor," she said. Nearby buildings were also damaged in the explosion, authorities said.

www.guardian.co.uk Friday February 7, 2003 The Guardian

George Monbiot says (Comment, February 4) "there is little doubt that the Farc has been diverted by the struggle for control of drugs money". In the 40% of the country it controls, Farc also "taxes" Colombia's other big exports, bananas, beef and flowers - we don't hear them described as "fruit fighters"or "cattle combatants".

According to the UN and others, the rightwing paramilitaries are Colombia's leading narco-traffickers. Indeed, President Uribe, when mayor of Medellin, was closely connected to drug lord Pablo Escobar. As a senator he opposed the extradition of wanted drug traffickers. The DEA has long been after his election campaign manager Pedro Villa, whose chemical company is implicated in the mass production of cocaine. Farc has repeatedly pleaded with the US to work with it on sustainable crop-substitution programmes rather than inflict "fumigation" on the country. And in the vast demilitarised zone it controlled until the collapse of the peace process last February, it worked successfully with agro-economists and farmers to this end.

The problem for Washington's hawks is that, after four decades, Farc is still led by the same disciplined central committee and still making populist political declarations from the mountains about its plans for an alternative government. The prospect of having the Farc sweep to power and make common cause with Chavez's Venezuela, Lula's Brazil, Gutierrez's Ecuador and Castro's Cuba is driving the White House and Pentagon towards the "Vietnamisation" of the entire Amazon and Andean region. Those concerned by the looming war in Iraq should know where George Bush intends to go next.

Oliver Houston Colombia Peace Association www.ColombiaPeace.org

· The drug trade and the guerrilla war that it finances have created a climate of violence in many areas of my country. Unfortunate incidents do occur. But Colombia has a freely elected government and a free press and a forceful civilian opposition in parliament.

Our electoral system requires two rounds of voting to elect the president until a majority of over 50% is achieved. Unprecedentedly, President Uribe was elected in the first round, garnering more than half the votes. The turnout of 12 million voters, despite the Farc's efforts to sabotage the elections, was an overwhelming legitimation of Colombia democratic system.

As far as the army is concerned, it is, according to a recent Gallup poll, the most respected institution in the country, with an 87% positive image. It surpasses even the church. So we have a legitimate democratic regime, a freely elected president who enjoys great popular support and an army with a high public approval rating. And those are not conjectures but verifiable facts.

Alfonso Lopez Caballero Ambassador of Colombia

www.voanews.com VOA News 05 Feb 2003, 03:38 UTC

Authorities in eastern Colombia say gunmen have shot and killed the private secretary to the regional governor.

Officials in the province of Arauca say the unidentified assailants fired at Rosario Camejo as she left her home Tuesday on her way to the office of Governor Oscar Munoz.

Authorities closed roads and waterways into nearby Venezuela as part of the search for the assailants.

Arauca is one of Colombia's most embattled regions, where leftist rebels, rightist paramilitaries and the government are battling for control of the state's oil-rich plains.

Colombia's RCN radio reports the government has rejected a U.N. proposal for a regional dialogue with the armed groups.

Rebels recently abducted two foreign journalists in Arauca. The two, British reporter Ruth Morris and American photographer Scott Dalton, were released unharmed Saturday after 11 days in captivity.

Seventy U.S. special forces troops are in Arauca to train Colombian troops in protecting an oil pipeline frequently targeted in rebel bombings.