Colombia warns of guerrilla attacks during Bush visit(will he sleep on a boat again?)

[maddezmom]

BOGOTA, March 8 (Reuters) - Colombia's leftist guerrillas are planning attacks and sabotage during U.S. President George W. Bush's visit to his closest South American ally this weekend, the country's police commander said on Thursday.

Bush arrives in Bogota on Sunday for talks with President Alvaro Uribe, who has received billions of dollars in U.S. aid to help fight Latin America's oldest guerrilla war and the cocaine trade that helps finance the violence.

"We have heard some communications, some orders from these criminals to carry out acts of public disorder and we know they could be acts of terrorism," National Police Commander Gen. Jorge Daniel Castro told local radio.

"The idea is that the plan we have and that has been in place for eight days will be enough to counter this and we hope nothing will happen," he said without giving details.

Since taking office in 2002, Uribe has sent troops out to repel the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the largest rebel group and also disarm illegal right-wing paramilitaries who had fought the guerrillas.

more:http://mobile.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N08451075.htm

[Bacchus39]

1. not many boats in Bogota

n/t

[maddezmom]

2. yeah I know I lived there

:D But he could always fly out to sleep on one. :hi:

[Bacchus39]

4. maybe he is staying at the Guatavita reservoir

n/t

[Judi Lynn]

3. You may remember they pretended the FARC had planned to assassinate his ass

in November, 2004, when he graced Colombia with his presence earlier.

Yeah, so likely, wasn't it, that rebels would make their way into Cartagena or wherever, and get through the 15,000 Colombian regular soldiers stationed there, specifically to protect the little emperor, and plot to zap him?

Sounds very windy, and designed to make it appear there's even any possibility of risk to his life, an entire life lived heaviliy insulated from even a HINT of something not going entirely his way, and benefitting him.That WOULD be so unlikely.

Just remember the precautions taken to black out all the windows in grade schools he visits, and the schools surrounded with school buses, etc.

Don't forget the Free Speech areas which are dangerously close to the President in the States, where some wild-eyed taxpayer could go wacko and yell something at the top of his lungs, and, with amplification, and a satellite, be heard by the pResident!

[Bacchus39]

5. I assume the security will be very tight in Bogota too

and??????????

[Judi Lynn]

6. Bush Amigo's Para Pals

posted March 8, 2007 (March 26, 2007 issue)
Bush Amigo's Para Pals
Liliana Segura

When George W. Bush embarked on his five-country tour of a left-leaning Latin America in early March, he no doubt looked forward to visiting his one remaining ally in the region: the man he calls "mi amigo," right-wing Colombian President Álvaro Uribe. But a recent series of explosive revelations of Colombian government collusion with paramilitary thugs ought to put a damper on the occasion. The first came November 9, when Colombia's Supreme Court issued warrants for the arrest of three uribistas in Congress for their alleged ties to the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC), Colombia's murderous right-wing paramilitary group. Rivals of the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the paras have grown increasingly powerful over the past decade, dominating the drug trade, even as they have become beneficiaries of the so-called Peace and Justice Law, which last year granted amnesty to some 32,000 paras in exchange for their disarmament.

Then, on February 15, five more senior senators were arrested for paramilitary ties, including Senator Álvaro Araújo, the brother of Uribe's Foreign Minister, María Consuelo, provoking her resignation February 19. A warrant for the capture of their father, Álvaro Araújo Noguera, was issued March 2; meanwhile, former security and intelligence head Jorge Noguera, a campaign chief for Uribe in 2002, was arrested for arranging the assassination of union leaders and academics by paramilitaries.

The unraveling confirms what has long been an open secret: The Colombian government is rife with paramilitary influence. "What we are discovering here is not just a series of meetings between politicians and criminals," Senator Gustavo Petro of the leftist Polo Democrático told Congress November 30. "What we are discovering, before the eyes of all citizens, is the building of a mafioso regime in Colombia."

The Bush Administration has been largely mute about the mounting parapolitica scandal. But with the advent of a Democratic-led Congress and the State Department requesting a new round of funding for Latin America, the upheaval in Colombia may become impossible to ignore. For the first time since the passage of Plan Colombia--the Clinton-era drug-eradication package that under Bush became a $4.7 billion boon for the Colombian military and American corporations outfitting the drug war--Democrats head key committees that under Republican control have funneled US dollars to Bogotá.
(snip)

The events of 2006 alone (labeled the "black year" by the Colombian press) make an overwhelming case for rethinking aid to Colombia. A low point came last fall, in a scandal that spoke volumes about what Uribe's US-funded "democratic security" state has wrought. After a spate of attempted--and seemingly coordinated--terrorist attacks in the weeks surrounding Uribe's re-inauguration last summer, the daily El Tiempo broke the story: Of seven bombs discovered by the military, "at least four" were planted by hired hands of the very officers who were later credited with deactivating them. This included a July 31 attack that injured nineteen soldiers and killed a civilian.
(snip/...)

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070326/segura