www.goshen.edu Contributed by Tim_Nafziger on Thursday March 20, @ 10:55PM

Since Luz Marina Gomez is on the paramilitary death list in Colombia for her work with the most impoverished people in the province of Arauca, she and her family have taken refuge in Venezuela.

Gomez is on the paramilitary death list because of her work with the poor, including her work with Human Rights Commission of the Colombian Council of Evangelical Churches (CEDECOL). Since she is on this list, if she passes through any of the many paramilitary checkpoints scattered across the province, she will be taken away and murdered.

Gomez and another religious leader from Columbia visited GC to speak in Professor Jo-Ann Brandt’s biblical themes of peace class Thursday afternoon and to an audience of community members that evening. Father Luis Teodoro Gonzalez Bustacara, a parish priest, joined her.

The two focused their talk on the situation in Arauca, which is where U.S. Special Forces arrived in January 2003 to train the Colombian army to protect a pipeline carrying oil owned by the Occidental Corporation to the coast. Guerillas in the oil-rich region have repeatedly targeted the pipeline with bombs in attempts to sabotage oil production. “The armed conflict in Arauca is mainly because of land, power and oil,” said Bustacara. “The guerillas claim to be fighting for social justice, but we don’t see the concrete results.”

“Over the last year, the war has shifted from a focus on anti-narcotics to a focus on anti-guerillas,” said Gomez. The two main left-wing guerilla groups are the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN). In the last decade, wealthy landowners, with support from the Colombian military, have created a paramilitary army. This right- wing force, claiming to be acting in self-defense, does the dirty work that the Colombian army cannot, targeting human rights workers like Gomez. Both groups have been declared terrorist organizations by the U.S. government and both are involved with the drug trade.

One of the results of the 40-year-old Colombian civil war in Arauca is a skewed age distribution among the population. Children make up 44% of the population, youth 31%, adults 24% and senior citizens 3%, according to Bustacara. Gomez works with children who are at-risk of being targets of guerillas and paramilitary recruiting. Government social services are unreliable and church-administered agencies are often the only ones available to work with the 50% of the Colombian population below the poverty line.

In the midst of their stories of pain and violence, Bustacara and Gomez spoke of a vision of peace, forgiveness and hope for the people of Colombia. They pointed to the church as a central part of this reconciliation. CEDECOL has been involved in providing conflict transformation. “We feel we can contribute by constructing a culture of peace,” said Gomez.

usinfo.state.gov 8 March 2003

(U.S. pleased with participants' commitment to fight terrorism, drugs) (270)

At a March 12 regional security ministerial in Bogotá, the United States congratulated Colombia and its neighbors Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Venezuela and Panama for their progress in strengthening the coordination of regional efforts against terrorism and narcotics trafficking, according to a statement issued March 18 by State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.

Boucher said that the United States is pleased that ministerial participants reaffirmed their commitment to the fight against terrorism and drug trafficking.

Following is the text of Boucher's statement:

(begin text)

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE Office of the Spokesman March 18, 2003

STATEMENT BY RICHARD BOUCHER, SPOKESMAN

Regional Security Ministerial Held In Bogota, Colombia

The United States congratulates Colombia and its neighbors -- Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Venezuela, and Panama -- for the progress made during the Regional Security Ministerial held in Bogota, Colombia, on March 12, 2003. We are pleased that the states that participated in this Ministerial have reaffirmed their commitment to the fight against terrorism and drug trafficking.

The document signed by the participants reiterates their support for United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373 and 1464, as well as Organization of American States Resolution 837, which calls on states to implement enhanced law enforcement measures and to promote a more law-abiding environment.

The document also calls on the participating states to meet periodically to discuss coordination and the implementation of the document. The cooperation agreed upon by the participating states will improve the security and quality of life of the people of Colombia, and of its neighbors.

(end text)

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: usinfo.state.gov)

www.wfn.org From dmack@episcopalchurch.org Date Thu, 13 Mar 2003 11:02:12 -0500 March 12, 2003 2003-055

Pakistani says Islamic leaders should thank Christians for opposition to war

Children of Abraham should seek peace, Griswold tells Muslim website

Former house of torture in Kenya to undergo spiritual cleansing

Clergy and church workers targets in intensified Colombian war

(ENI) Churches have increasingly become targets of violence perpetrated by both left-wing and right-wing groups in Colombia, said eyewitnesses to the worsening situation in rural areas.

"The churches were once removed from the conflict. But no more," said Luz Marina Gomez, a human rights activist and member of a small independent Protestant church, at a March forum at New York City's Interchurch Center. Gomez and Luis Teodoro Gonzalez Bustacara, a Roman Catholic priest, said increased militarization was raising the level of bloodshed and crippling Colombian society. The activists spoke as the guests of US-based groups active in issues related to Colombia, and echoed concerns made by other Colombian church representatives who have visited the United States in the past year.

In some ways, the war in Colombia today differs from Latin American conflicts of the 1970s and 1980s. In those clashes, activist clergy and church workers influenced by liberation theology, a teaching that included Marxist economic analysis and elements of social activism, were often targets of right-wing groups and military units.

Today various clergy, including pastors of small independent Protestant or Pentecostal churches in rural areas who claim to be apolitical, have become targets of violence from both leftist guerrilla groups and right-wing paramilitary units. Clergy who simply offer safe haven to those fleeing from the intensifying war can be interpreted as taking sides in the conflict, observers say.

The situation is especially tense in Arauca, an oil-rich region in the north bordering Venezuela that is the home province of Gonzalez and Gomez. Leftist forces--most prominently the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which has been labeled terrorist by Washington--have for years been attacking a 500-mile pipeline in Arauca used for US-bound oil. In recent months, FARC has stepped up its military campaign with periods of daily bombing. At the same time, as part of a "counter-terrorism" effort, 70 US Army Special Forces have been training Colombian military personnel to protect the pipeline, which is used by Occidental Petroleum, a US firm.

The militarization has crippled the region, Gomez and Gonzalez said, paralyzing Arauca's economy and forcing people from their homes. "We have two options: either wait for death or leave," Gomez said. The activists called for a renewal of peace negotiations to end the nearly 40-year conflict and a redirection of military funding to assist with education in the region.

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www.forbes.com Reuters, 03.12.03, 4:27 PM ET BOGOTA, Colombia, March 12 (Reuters) - Colombia said on Wednesday it would call a tender in 15 to 20 days to construct a $450 million electricity transmission line to boost energy links between the country's north and center, which are threatened by rebel bombings. "In a matter of 15 to 20 days the tender will be open, honest," the director of the government's Mining and Energy Planning Unit, Julian Villarroel, told Reuters. The project will seek to both cut transmission costs and reduce the risk of blackouts in the capital Bogota, which has been affected by rebel attacks on energy infrastructure. "The project will provide more protection to the transmission system," Villarroel said. The 500,000-volt line will be 600 miles (1,000 km) long. The government hopes work should start by the end of the year and it should begin to operate by 2006. While the risks of Colombia's four-decade-long guerrilla war might cause some investors to pause, the project offers good returns and the possibility of an energy link-up with Venezuela and Brazil, Villarroel said. Government officials have mentioned possible investors including Colombia's state-controlled ISA <ISA.CN>, Canada's Hydroquebec, Britain's National Grid <NGT.L> and Red Electrica <REE.MC> from Spain. Colombia currently has two major transmission lines linking the hydroelectric generators of the country's center with thermal plants on the Atlantic coast.

reuters.com Mon March 10, 2003 07:08 PM ET By Gail Appleson

NEW YORK (Reuters) - One of Colombia's most powerful drug traffickers pleaded guilty on Monday to heading a cartel that smuggled massive amounts of cocaine into the United States and hid hundreds of millions of dollars in profits.

Alberto Orlandez Gamboa, 47, pleaded guilty to conspiracy, drug smuggling and money laundering in Manhattan federal court. He faces a minimum mandatory sentence of 10 years in prison and a possible maximum of a life term and millions of dollars in fines. Sentencing was scheduled for May 27.

The federal indictment charged that he led an organization based in the coastal city of Barranquilla that smuggled cocaine to Europe, Central America and the United States, where it went to New York, Miami and Philadelphia.

It said the organization sometimes shipped cocaine in crates of mustard and cough medicine to mask its odor. It was also hidden in shipments of engine parts, cement, and sometimes inside ceramic tiles.

The indictment said that the profits were hidden in various ways. In one case, more than $11 million was found hidden in hollowed-out truck transmissions in a shipping container destined for Venezuela from Port Elizabeth, New Jersey.

U.S. authorities said Orlandez Gamboa also went by the alias of Caracol and that his name was sometimes spelled Orlande Gamboa.

He had been scheduled to go on trial on Monday for leading conspiracies to import thousands of pounds of cocaine into the United States and to launder hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal drug proceeds.

Orlandez Gamboa was extradited to the United States in 2000 from Colombia, where he had been arrested in 1998. If he is eventually released from U.S. prison, he could be deported to Colombia.

Although he had initially pleaded not guilty to the U.S. charges, he changed his plea after a federal appeals court issued a critical ruling against him last month.

The U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals held that incriminating statements he made in Colombia to local authorities during unsuccessful plea talks there could be used as evidence in his New York trial.

The statements were made in 1999 when the U.S. government began seeking his extradition. In an effort to remain in Colombia, Orlandez Gamboa made certain admissions to Colombian authorities in the hopes of reaching a deal that would allow his case to proceed there.

He was among the first Colombian nationals extradited from that country to the United States after the Colombian government eliminated the ban on extradition in 1997.

The crimes to which Orlandez Gamboa pleaded guilty began in 1996, however authorities said he began leading the cartel of large-scale traffickers in 1990 or earlier and kept running the group while in prison during 1998.

The indictment charged that he kept his leadership role by directing others to commit bribery and acts of violence, including carrying out kidnappings and assassinations of rival drug dealers.