abcnews.go.com The Associated Press Jan. 25 —

BOGOTA, Colombia The Red Cross failed Saturday to make contact with rebels who kidnapped an American photojournalist and a British reporter early last week.

Photographer Scott Dalton and reporter Ruth Morris were captured on Tuesday in the eastern province of Arauca. The two were on assignment for the Los Angeles Times.

Fighters from the National Liberation Army, or ELN, announced two-days later they were holding the journalists, but didn't say when they would be released. The journalists' hired driver, who was detained and later released, said the rebels promised to turn the foreigners over to the Red Cross along with a message for the international community.

A Red Cross delegate in Arauca, where Dalton, 34, and Morris, 35, were abducted, made unsuccessful attempts Saturday to contact the rebels, Red Cross spokesman Carlos Rios told The Associated Press.

Police officials in the province said they had nothing new to report on the fate of the hostages.

The ELN and a larger rebel group are fighting right-wing paramilitaries and the government for control of oil-rich Arauca.

The United States, which has given Colombia nearly $2 billion in mostly military aid, recently deployed approximately 70 Green Berets to Arauca to train Colombian troops. The rebels see their presence as an act of aggression.

Dalton worked for The Associated Press for about nine years in Panama, Guatemala and Colombia. Last year, he left the AP to pursue video projects while freelancing for major newspapers.

Morris has previously written as a freelancer for the Los Angeles Times, Time magazine, and other publications.

Meanwhile, suspected rebels armed with machetes killed four Colombian men who had apparently denounced them for stealing cattle, authorities said Saturday.

The men were hacked to death on Friday in Sahagun, 310 miles northeast of the capital. Police blamed the slayings on a small band of rebel fighters known as the Popular Revolutionary Army.

abcnews.go.com

The Associated Press Jan. 25 —

BOGOTA, Colombia The Red Cross failed Saturday to make contact with rebels who kidnapped an American photojournalist and a British reporter early last week.

Photographer Scott Dalton and reporter Ruth Morris were captured on Tuesday in the eastern province of Arauca. The two were on assignment for the Los Angeles Times.

Fighters from the National Liberation Army, or ELN, announced two-days later they were holding the journalists, but didn't say when they would be released. The journalists' hired driver, who has been detained, said the rebels promised to turn the foreigners over to the Red Cross along with a message for the international community.

A Red Cross delegate in Arauca, where Dalton, 34, and Morris, 35, were abducted, made unsuccessful attempts Saturday to contact the rebels, Red Cross spokesman Carlos Rios told The Associated Press.

Police officials in the province said they had nothing new to report on the fate of the hostages.

The ELN and a larger rebel group are fighting right-wing paramilitaries and the government for control of oil-rich Arauca.

The United States, which has given Colombia nearly $2 billion in mostly military aid, recently deployed approximately 70 Green Berets to Arauca to train Colombian troops. The rebels see their presence as an act of aggression.

Dalton worked for The Associated Press for about nine years in Panama, Guatemala and Colombia. Last year, he left the AP to pursue video projects while freelancing for major newspapers.

Morris has previously written as a freelancer for the Los Angeles Times, Time magazine, and other publications.

Meanwhile, suspected rebels armed with machetes killed four Colombian men who had apparently denounced them for stealing cattle, authorities said Saturday.

The men were hacked to death on Friday in Sahagun, 310 miles northeast of the capital. Police blamed the slayings on a small band of rebel fighters known as the Popular Revolutionary Army.

english.eastday.com

Two journalists, an American photographer and a British reporter, on assignment for an American newspaper, were kidnapped, Colombian rebels said yesterday in a radio broadcast. Three other foreigners believed abducted were freed late on Thursday.

The two were seized on Tuesday at a rebel roadblock in one of the most violent regions of Colombia. They were led away from their taxi with hoods on their heads, but had been told they were being taken for an encounter with a rebel commander.

Meanwhile, three reporters who were reported missing last Sunday in Panama, just north of the Colombian border, were turned over to church officials on Thursday.

They were reportedly seized by the right-wing United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia last Sunday. One journalist, Robert Pelton, gained worldwide attention with an interview of American Taliban suspect John Walker Lindh while covering the war in Afghanistan for CNN.

The rebel said the journalists were being held and "in due time, they will be freed, when the political and military conditions permit."

The kidnapping occurred 330 kilometers northeast of Bogota. Several dozen U.S. special forces are to be stationed at an army base in the area, located near Venezuela.

The rebels claimed the two journalists had arrived in the guerrilla stronghold without their permission.

"You must take into account that Arauca state has been declared a war zone by the U.S. and Colombia," the rebels said. "For that reason, the National Liberation Army is (acting) in the defense of the dignity of all the people of eastern Colombia."

The country is one of the most dangerous in the world to work in, but local journalists have been the ones usually targeted.

(The Associated Press)

abcnews.go.com The Associated Press BOGOTA, Colombia Jan. 24 —

An American writer and two hikers emerged smiling from the Colombian jungle Friday after nearly a week in the custody of right-wing paramilitaries, while leftist rebels kept captive two foreign journalists working for the Los Angeles Times.

Robert Young Pelton, a freelance writer and TV reporter, said he and his companions, Megan Smaker and Mark Wedeven, were not mistreated.

In a separate case, journalists and officials appealed to the National Liberation Army, known as the ELN, to release photographer Scott Dalton, 34, of Conroe, Texas; and reporter Ruth Morris, 35, a British citizen who was raised in the Los Angeles area.

Leftist rebels the avowed enemies of the paramilitaries kidnapped the freelance journalists on Tuesday in northeastern Colombia near the Venezuelan border.

"This is very serious," said Vice President Francisco Santos, a former journalist and himself once a hostage of drug traffickers. "We hope that the ELN will free them as soon as possible."

Pelton of Redondo Beach, Calif., Smaker of Brentwood, Calif., and Wedeven of Bremerton, Wash., were turned over to church officials in northern Colombia Thursday night after they emerged from the jungle-covered Darien Gap, which spans both countries.

They arrived by boat in the town of Carepa, in northern Colombia, on Friday and were expected to travel to Bogota, the capital, next.

The paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, encountered the trio in a jungle-covered region along the Panamanian border on Sunday and removed them from the area when fighting broke out.

Pelton said he was not angry about being taken out of the war zone, although the paramilitary forces held them for a few days afterward.

"Even though we were not happy about being kidnapped or being kept away from our families and our jobs, they had a reason to do so," Pelton, author of a guidebook called "The World's Most Dangerous Places," told CNN. "After all, it is their country and their war."

Wedeven said he never felt that he and his fellow travelers were abducted.

"We were not kidnapped," Wedeven said. "During the time we were with the AUC we did not have any problems."

The State Department said Friday that the United States was trying to secure the release of the two journalists who were taken captive in Arauca state, one of Colombia's most violent regions.

"We are greatly concerned about their welfare," spokesman Richard Boucher said. "Our embassy officials in Bogota are working with the government of Colombia to ensure their safe return to the United States."

He said the State Department also had contacted the families of the two journalists.

Boucher said Colombia's government must stop the terrorism that comes from the various groups involved in the civil war.

The ELN and a larger rebel group are fighting right-wing paramilitaries and the government for control of Arauca's oil-rich plains.

The United States, which has given Colombia almost $2 billion in mostly military aid, recently deployed approximately 70 Green Berets to Arauca to train Colombian troops. Washington has rejected any direct combat role for the U.S. troops, but the rebels see their presence as an act of aggression.

Dozens of foreign and local journalists holding photos of Morris and Dalton gathered in Bogota's central plaza Friday to demand their release.

The International Press Alliance, an informal organization of foreign media in Bogota, issued a statement late Thursday also calling for their release.

Both Dalton and Morris are veteran journalists.

Dalton worked for The Associated Press for about nine years in Panama, Guatemala and Colombia. Last year, he left the AP to pursue video projects while freelancing for major newspapers.

Morris has previously written as a freelancer for the Los Angeles Times, Time magazine, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and other publications.

www.forbes.com Reuters, 01.24.03, 1:23 PM ET By Stephen Jukes

DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 24 (Reuters) - Austerity measures designed to clamp down on Colombia's budget deficit are essential as the government pursues its war on drugs and tries to rebuild international confidence, President Alvaro Uribe said on Friday.

Shrugging off protests about the programme, Uribe told the World Economic Forum that strong measures were vital to hold the deficit in check at a time when spending on the military and police needed to rise to combat outlawed guerrilla groups.

The plan, which will be put to a referendum in mid year, seeks a two-year freeze on public spending and pension cuts and has already sparked a protest campaign from unions and left-leaning lawmakers.

The protests spread to Davos itself on Friday. Church groups piled hundreds of pairs of shoes in the snow at the gates of the World Economic Forum to represent 6,000 people they say have disappeared in Colombia's drug wars over the past decade.

They said Uribe's programme to meet International Monetary Fund (IMF) targets would hurt the poor and escalate the war.

But Uribe said he was confident that there was widespread support for the measures. The president has a high approval rating but this has been falling a little because of the economic package.

Colombia is Latin America's fifth largest economy and has received strong backing from the U.S. government for its fight to eradicate the world's largest cocaine industry. It has also won endorsement from the IMF but missed its 2002 deficit target and was granted a waiver.

Finance Minister Roberto Junguito told reporters that budget targets were 'tough but feasible' and he was confident they could be met. Colombia has agreed with the IMF to cut the government deficit to 2.5 percent of gross domestic product this year and 2.1 percent in 2004 from four percent in 2002.

In addition to clamping down on spending the government has been seeking to increase revenues, introducing a wealth tax and increasing some other taxes.

Junguito said tax rises might have to be brought forward if the austerity package were rejected in the referendum, adding that the government would need to asess any knock-on impact from the political unrest and oil strike in neighbouring Venezuela.

Colombia's floating exchange rate has come under pressure in the wake of Venezuelan unrest but Junguito said he did not see this as a reflection of concern about Colombia's economic programme and that confidence was growing.

'I don't see this as a structural problem or lack of confidence in the country,' he said.

He cited the nation's ability to raise $500 million earlier this month through a 30-year global bond offering.