www.dw-world.de   Colombian authorities are looking for six members of the Basque separatist group ETA and the Irish Republican Army wanted in connection with the bombing of Bogota nightclub two weeks ago. Thirty-six people died in the blast. According to a security report, four ETA and two IRA members entered Colombia along its border with Venezuela. The attack, which also wounded 160 people is believed to be the work of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia rebel group.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Monday, February 24, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Opposition Coordinadora Democratica (CD) politician Jesus Torrealba says the CD will ask the National Assembly (AN) to open an investigation into the dismantling of Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) and will hire undisclosed international energy agencies “to study the direct relationship between the political interests of some Arab administrations linked to international terrorism and the process of corporative genocide that (President) Chavez Frias is promoting against the Venezuelan oil company.”

Torrealba claims that Chavez Frias is hell bent on ruining national interest and wants to place in the hands of his terrorist allies greater control of the oil market to use as a political tool against the West.”

Torrealba recalls the links of friendships between Chavez Frias and terrorist governments, such as those of Saddam Hussein and Ghaddafi.

www.jsonline.com Last Updated: Feb. 22, 2003 County Lines Laurel Walker

It's a relative thing, this sense of security.

Our collective blood pressure rises when the government puts our nation on high alert over terrorist threats. We get a little anxious and edgy, or maybe do desperate things, like tape up our windows with plastic and duct tape.

Still, we haven't begun to feel the fright that is embedded in some people, like Esther Canales in days past and her countrymen in Colombia still today. Esther Canales

Photo/William Meyer Esther Canales, who sought asylum in the U.S. in 1999, is a health promoter for the Hispanic Community Health and Resource Center in Waukesha.

"People are not safe" in Colombia, she said. "Any people." Searching to find the right words in English, which she is still working to master, and with the help of a translator, Canales said there is no sense of security anywhere in her native land.

"Maybe they will be fine in their house, in their work, in the street," she said. Then again, she added, maybe not, because violence shows up anywhere and often in her native land.

"A lot of my friends in Colombia have died from the violence," she said. "I never read the news of Colombia."

Canales, 44, was a lawyer, political activist, women's rights advocate and kidnapping survivor when she came to the United States from Colombia under political asylum in December 1999. She now lives and works in Waukesha, where she is a health promoter for the Hispanic Community Health and Resource Center.

At a time when Americans are more concerned than ever about terrorism in their backyard, Canales' story is a reminder that terrorism existed long before Sept. 11, 2001.

Canales grew up with eight siblings in a middle-class family on a dairy farm in the northern part of Colombia.

For as long as she can remember, the country has been split between warring and corrupt factions - the military, police and paramilitary acting for the government, guerrilla groups seeking socialist reforms and political power for themselves, and, more recently, the drug traffickers.

When she was very young, Canales said, her uncle - then a university student - had joined one of the guerrilla groups that appealed to certain intellectuals. But at age 26, when he decided he'd made a mistake and tried to disassociate himself, he was killed by them.

Canales still remembers how when she was 6 her grandmother was persecuted, as a result of her uncle's politics - particularly the night a paramilitary group came knocking at the door and ransacked her house.

She went to public school and, after studying at a private university, became a lawyer with a practice in family law, adoption, domestic abuse and divorce cases. Canales also became active in politics herself. She was elected one of 17 municipal representatives - like an alderman here - in 1988. In 1992, she was elected one of 16 state representatives - like a state legislator here.

In 1995, Canales participated in a women's rights congress in Cuba - an extension of her local efforts to teach women their rights at seminars and clinics.

Some of those seminars attracted 400 women and were "like revival meetings," she said, recalling one emotional event when a woman came bruised and battered by her husband who had ordered her not to attend.

Meanwhile, Colombia became even more violent. Drug traffickers grew in power and influence, using their drug money to corrupt the rebels and the government.

They recruited young men - often teenagers - to carry out assassinations and murders.

"There was a lot of disorder," she said.

"The narcotraffickers are not the principal trouble," she said.

The U.S. has come to Colombia's aid in fighting the drug traders, she said, and "it's helping." But the clashes between guerrillas and the military have worsened.

Just over a week ago, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as FARC, was blamed for a huge explosion that destroyed several houses and killed at least 16 people. A house was holding explosives that went off during a search after police learned that FARC intended to kill President Alvaro Uribe the next day.

The U.S. State Department, warning against Americans traveling to the country, said in December, "Violence by narcotraffickers, paramilitary groups, guerrilla and terrorist organizations and other criminal elements is widespread and increasing in certain areas."

It reported 3,000 kidnappings there in 2001, more than any other country. Hundreds of people are killed every month over politics, but many more because of common crime.

"Colombia is one of the most dangerous countries in the world," the report says.

Canales knows firsthand. "All people in Colombia are afraid," she said.

In 1998, Canales was managing a political campaign for a Liberal Party presidential candidate. While in a rural village on his behalf, she, her husband (from whom she has since separated) and two friends were kidnapped by FARC, the rebel group.

She was separated from the others and taken to a mountain encampment - where eventually she was reunited with her husband and friends. They were held for 14 days.

The guerrillas did not physically harm them or demand ransom, Canales said. But once they realized she was not with an opposition group, they agreed to release her if she carried the message of their goals for the country to the media.

She said she did that, only to face intimidation in the community through anonymous phone calls, surveillance of her home and an extortion attempt. Out of fear and to recover from her psychological trauma, Canales moved from city to city in Colombia, and even to Venezuela.

Finally she took her family's suggestion that she seek asylum in the United States, where a sister already lived. She arrived in 1999, staying with her sister until she decided to visit a friend in Wisconsin in November 2000.

Within days of that visit, she had a job with Quad/Graphics Inc. She also found Wisconsin a place where she would be pushed to learn English and where she would become independent again.

"I like Wisconsin people," she said. "I feel at home here."

"And I feel safe in America, in spite of September 11," she said.

A version of this story appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Feb. 23, 2003.

www.chicagotribune.com By Melita Marie Garza Tribune staff reporter Published February 22, 2003

Already on tenterhooks over the prospect of war with Iraq and possible terrorist attacks, U.S. energy markets spiked sharply early Friday after a fuel barge exploded at an Exxon Mobil Corp. storage facility near Manhattan. The incident also jolted the stock market, helping to send the Dow Jones industrial average down as much as 60 points in early trading. Both the Dow and the energy futures market recovered after authorities said there were no indications that the blast was caused by terrorism. "There was definitely an overreaction," said Mark Baxter, director of the Maguire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. "First there were news reports that the explosion had occurred at a refinery, then before long you saw a picture of the Empire State Building with the smoke in the background," Baxter said. "Our first concern was: Who planted the bomb?'" Within 10 minutes of the explosion, light sweet crude oil jumped almost 50 cents, to $35.95 a barrel, on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Heating oil futures contracts gained about 3 cents within minutes, jumping to $1.12 per gallon by 10:25 a.m. Phil Flynn, vice president and senior analyst with Alaron Trading Corp. in Chicago, noted that prices already were on their way up before news of the barge explosion hit. "Then the traders down in the pits began to see the smoke billowing out across the skyline," said Flynn, noting that the dramatic footage sent prices up before details of the incident were known. Traders also were nervous because the terminal is from time to time responsible for up to 25 percent of the physical deliveries traded on the NYMEX. Exxon Mobil officials said the fire and explosion occurred as 100,000 barrels of unleaded gasoline were being unloaded from a barge. Two barge workers, employed by Bouchard Transportation Co., were killed in the explosion, while another worker, employed by Exxon Mobil, was admitted to the hospital with burns, officials said. To some degree, the market's reaction was considered understandable. The country has been on an "orange" or high, security alert since last week. Tom Ridge, the homeland security chief, has sent citizens off on a duct tape and plastic sheeting buying binge, urging them to stockpile such items to protect against a possible bioterrorist attack. In addition, energy infrastructure, including U.S. oil refineries, has been singled out as a possible terrorist target. Some initial news reports characterized Friday's incident as a refinery explosion, though none of the nation's 150 refineries are located north of New Jersey. Amid these jitters, the crude oil market has been on a march upward, putting pressure on already vulnerable sectors of the U.S. economy and raising prices at gasoline pumps. U.S. crude oil supplies are hovering perilously close to a 270 million-barrel minimum inventory level the federal government said must be maintained in order to insure uninterrupted supplies to consumers. The tight market is the result of a complex confluence of circumstances. Crude oil supplies have been squeezed since Dec. 2, when a general strike in Venezuela seriously cut exports. In addition, the government has been stockpiling record amounts of oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, leaving less for commercial inventories. Tom Kloza, with the Oil Price Information Service, said dramatic footage of billowing smoke and circling helicopters, combined with inaccurate initial news reports, fed the emotional reaction of the futures markets. "In the grand scheme of things, this is not a big deal for prices," Kloza said. "On Fridays, markets have been prone to go up, but it has had more to do with worries overseas. "Monday, we are going to be looking back at this and say: Wow, that was a spectacular fire, but it really has very little to do with what is going to happen to prices,'" he said. The 100,000 barrels of gasoline lost Friday represent a minuscule portion of the 211.2 million barrels of gasoline in U.S. inventories. Still, "If you look at the big picture, it's still a big deal because it shines a spotlight on the bigger issues," said Flynn, of Alaron Trading. "We dodged a bullet here. If this had been a real refinery fire, it could have been a major problem. The whole country is running on fumes."

www.vheadline.com Posted: Friday, February 21, 2003 By: David Coleman

South Florida's Sun-Sentinel newspaper reports that Venezuela's ambassador to India, Walter Marquez has asked the US FBI to investigate a man who made false allegations against him, accusing him of helping to funnel money to terrorists in Afghanistan.

According to the report, published today, FBI spokeswoman Judy Orihuela confirmed that Marquez met an FBI agent in Miami yesterday to file complaint after traveling from his New Delhi embassy to respond to last month allegations by a rebel Venezuelan Air Force (FAV) pilot who accused Marquez and President Hugo Chavez Frias of transferring $1 million to the Taliban and Al Qaeda shortly after the September 11 (2001) attacks on New York's 'Twin Towers.'

Juan Diaz Castillo, who had flown Venezuela's Presidential plane until he was kicked out of the Air Force and joined elements in Venezuela's radical opposition, made the spurious accusations last month from self-imposed exile Miami, saying that the money was disguised as humanitarian aid to Afghanistan and claiming that Ambassador Marquez had facilitated the deal.

Writing in Florida's Sun-Sentinel, reporter Sandra Hernandez says "the case underscores the growing role South Florida is playing in Venezuela's mounting political crisis ... during the past month, key opposition leaders have attended rallies in Miami and dissident military officials such as Castillo have shown up in Florida to denounce alleged plots. Now Venezuelan government officials appear to be using the same tactic to plead their case before the international community on Miami's shores."

Hernandez insists that Marquez says Castillo is lying ... "he displayed letters and bank receipts during a news conference at the Venezuelan Consulate in Miami to prove that the government made legitimate contributions of $1 million to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to be used for Afghan aid."  Marquez said that an additional $1 million was given to the Indian government for an earthquake relief fund.

Castillo had made the accusations after fleeing Venezuela in January ... he said he feared for his family's safety and had sought asylum in the United States ... but he had apparently gone underground Thursday as the FBI investigation kicked off.

Venezuelan anti-constitutional rebels in Florida are reported as saying the presence of Venezuelan government officials in Miami is "simply a public relations move ... the government is pleading their case in Miami because it has the benefit of the English- and Spanish-speaking world," according to Venezuelan American Chamber of Commerce executive Francisco Gonzalez.  "It is clear that Chavez has lost sympathy, and the standard line that the opposition is a bunch of crazy people and Chavez is the victim is being eroded by their own tactics."

The Florida Sun-Sentinel reports Marquez as saying he was responding to the allegation in Miami because of the current crisis in Venezuela.  He is also named in a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the watchdog group Judicial Watch which filed suit last month on behalf of the family of a woman killed in the Twin Towers attack. He reiterates that "I have never received information or instructions to give money to Al Qaeda."

Questioned on possible solutions to Venezuela's domestic-political crisis, Marquez says "the only way out of this current crisis is a political agreement ... the government is not in a position to break the opposition nor is the opposition in a position to break the government ... the government and the opposition are taking the country into a profound and worsening crisis. In the end, the government and the opposition will disappear some day, but the country will remain, and we have to fight for the survival of Venezuela."

South Florida's Venezuelan expats said they fear the latest round of arrests (Fedecamaras Fernandez) will provoke a new exodus and further cripple Venezuela's fragile economy ... Venezuelan American Chamber of Commerce executive Francisco Gonzalez says "I don't think this latest action will do anything to stop the exodus because it is clear that there are going to be retaliations against the leaders of the strike."

Magin Briceno, quoted as a Venezuelan member of the (Florida) Weston Chamber of Commerce says "this is the worst message that could be sent out ... we were hoping that, after the strike, the situation would ease a bit ... but this seems to make the situation now worse ... everyday we receive dozens of calls from people there who want to know if we can help them."