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CIA Factbook: http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/co.html
ICL background: http://www.uni-wuerzburg.de/law/co__indx.html
Yahoo on Colombia: http://dir.yahoo.com/Regional/Countries/Colombia/
El Tiempo: http://www.eltiempo.com/hoy/
Univ. de los Andes: http://www.uniandes.edu.co/Colombia/IndiceColombia.html
Travel-Pinzon: http://ee1.bradley.edu/~mrr2ro/colombia/travel.html
WHA: http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/42/index-d.html
The Ika and Kogi are tribes in the Amazon
rain
forest of Colombia. They are described by Wade Davis in his 1997 book:
"One River: Explorations and Discoveries in the Amazon Rain Forest."
The
U'wa tribe lives in the rain forest of northeast Colombia.
(SFC, 5/12/97, p.T8)(SFC,10/22/97, p.C2)
The 32 Provinces include: Antioquia; Arauca;
Bolivar;
Boyaca; Cauca; Cundinamarca; Meta; Narino; northern Cesar; Putumayo;
Quindio
(Armenia); Santander; southern Caqueta, Vaupes (Mitu).
58Mil-60Mil Researchers in 2009
reported that a snake named Titanoboa cerrejonensis (titanic boa from
Cerrejon) lived in Colombia about this time and stretched 42 to 45 feet
long, reaching more than 2,500 pounds.
(AP, 2/4/09)
500BC-400BCE The Tairona civilization established a
city (Teyuna) later known as Ciudad Perdida (lost city) east of Santa
Maria, Colombia, about this time. Its ruins were only rediscovered in
1975.
(AM, 11/04, p.19)
1509-1520 The Spanish colonized the area of Nueva
Granada (modern Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Venezuela).
(http://homepage20.seed.net.tw/web@3/flags/wfh/pg-am-4.htm)
1524 Nov 14, Pizarro began his 1st
great expedition near Colombia.
(MC, 11/14/01)
1533 Cartagena de Indias
(Colombia) was founded by Spain and served as a major port for the
trade of slaves, gold and cargo.
(SSFC, 5/18/03, p.C12)
1536 A Spanish conquistador
noted oil seeping in the countryside of Colombia.
(WSJ, 1/3/96, p.A-1)
1537 Popayan, Colombia, was
founded.
(SFEC, 11/10/96, p.T10)
1575-1625 Some of the U’wa tribe (Colombia), pushed
up against the timber line at 12,000 feet, threw themselves off the
Cliff of Truth rather than submitting to the Spanish conquistadors.
Legend held that U’wa Indians led by Chief Guaiticu committed mass
suicide to protest Spanish colonialism. A historical record was lacking.
(SFC, 4/25/97, p.A3)(SFC,10/22/97, p.C2)(WSJ,
6/7/99, p.A1)
1575-1625 The Tairona civilization, coerced by the
Spaniards to convert to Christianity, fled from their coastal
settlements and moved to the mountains of Colombia. They were skilled
masons, farmers, weavers and goldsmiths. They had established the city
now known as Ciudad Perdida (lost city) east of Santa Maria in the 5th
century BCE, whose ruins were only rediscovered in 1975. The indigenous
Arhuaco, Assario, and Kogi Indians are thought to be their descendants.
(WSJ, 7/28/97, p.A16)(AM, 11/04, p.19)
1676 King Carlos II of Spain,
having successfully outlawed a drink suspected of leading to homicides,
inattentiveness at church and moral turpitude, warned his colonial
rulers in Bogota of a drink "that is, beyond all comparison, more
dangerous and which goes by the name of aguardiente." In 1988 Gilma
Mora de Tovar's authored, "Aguardiente and Social Conflicts in 18th
Century New Granada,"
(AP, 9/2/03)
1700 The Spanish crown
monopolized the aquardiente industry in Colombia.
(AP, 9/2/03)
1708 Jun 8, The Spanish galleon
San Jose was trying to outrun a fleet of British warships off
Colombia's coast, when a mysterious explosion sent it to the bottom of
the sea with gold, silver, emeralds and 600 men. In 1979 Sea Search
signed a deal with Colombia giving Sea Search exclusive rights to
search for the San Jose and 50 percent of whatever they find. In 1982
Sea Search announced to the world it had found the San Jose's resting
place 700 feet below the water's surface, a few miles from the historic
Caribbean port of Cartagena. In 1984 Colombian President Belisario
Betancur signed a decree reducing Sea Search's share from 50% to a 5%
"finder's fee." By 2007 the treasure was valued at more than $2
billion. In July, 2007, Colombia’s highest court ruled that the ship
must first be recovered before an international dispute over the
fortune can be settled.
(AP, 6/3/07)(AP, 7/6/07)
1741 Mar 4, English fleet under
Admiral Ogle reached Cartagena, Colombia.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1741 Don Blas de Lezo, a one-eyed,
one-handed, peg-legged castle defender, led the defense of Cartagena,
Colombia, against British Adm. Edward Vernon. Lezo was mortally wounded
in the battle.
(SSFC, 5/18/03, p.C13)
c1770 A monastery was built in
Cartagena, Colombia, that served as the seat of the Inquisition
Tribunal for Spain. It later became the Hotel Santa Clara.
(SSFC, 5/18/03, p.C12)
1781 In Colombia the Comunero
Revolt was the most serious revolt against Spanish authority before the
war for independence. The most important uprising began among artisans
and peasants in Socorro (in present day Santander Department). The
imposition of new taxes by the viceroy stimulated the revolt further.
(http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+co0019))
1783 Jul 24, Simon Bolivar
(d.1830), was born in Caracas, Venezuela. He was a soldier and
statesmen who led armies of liberation throughout much of South
America, including Ecuador, Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Peru and
Bolivia, which took its name from Bolivar. Bolivar, called "the
Liberator," was a leader in Venezuela for struggles of national
independence in South America. He formed a Gran Colombia that lasted 8
years but broke apart into Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador. Bolivar
died of tuberculosis.
(AHD, p.148)(SFC, 6/14/97, p.E3)(AP, 7/24/97)(HNQ,
3/30/00)
1808 Sep 12, Jose Celestino Mutis
(b.1732-1808), Spanish naturalist, died in Santa Fe de Bogote
(Colombia). He spent 40 years on his unfinished work “Flora de Nueva
Granada.”
(www.famousamericans.net/josecelestinomutis/)
1810 Jul 20, Colombia declared
independence from Spain.
(AP, 7/20/97)
1819 Jan 17, Simon Bolivar the
“liberator” proclaimed Colombia a republic.
(HN, 1/17/99)
1819 May 23, Bolivar’s
revolutionary commanders met in the deserted village of Setenta,
Venezuela, and planned a march across the Andes to attack Spanish
forces in New Granada (Colombia).
(ON, 3/05, p.1)
1819 Aug 7, South American
liberator Simon Bolivar defeated Spanish forces under Gen. Jose
Barreiro in New Granada (Colombia) at the Battle of Boyaca. The
revolutionary army entered Bogota Aug 10.
(HNQ, 9/12/99)(ON, 3/05, p.2)
1822 May 24, At Battle of
Pichincha (Ecuador) General Sucre (1795-1830) won a decisive victory
against Spanish forces. Shortly after the battle, Sucre and Bolivar
entered the newly-liberated Quito and Sucre was named President of the
Province of Quito, which formed Gran Colombia with Venezuela and
Colombia.
(HN, 5/24/98)(AP,
11/24/02)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Jos%C3%A9_de_Sucre)
1822 Jul 26, Simon Bolivar and
Jose de San Martin held a secret meeting in Colombia.
(MC, 7/26/02)
1828 Jun 13, Simon Bolivar
(1783-1830) was proclaimed dictator (Colombia).
(MC, 6/13/02)
1828 Conspirators broke into the
presidential palace in Bogota in an attempt to murder Simon Bolivar,
who escaped.
(Econ, 2/9/08, p.40)
1828 The Republic of Gran Colombia
fell apart due to political rivalries between its constituent
provinces. Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela became independent countries.
(ON, 3/05, p.2)
1830 Dec 17, Simon Bolivar
(b.1783), called "the Liberator," died of TB in Santa Marta, in
Colombia. He was a leader in Venezuela for struggles of national
independence in South America. He formed a Gran Colombia that lasted 8
years, but broke apart into Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador. In 2006
John Lynch authored “Simon Bolivar: A Life.”
(AHD, p.148)(SFC, 6/14/97, p.E3)(AP, 12/17/97)(Econ,
7/1/06, p.77)
1851 Slavery was abolished in
Colombia.
(Econ, 8/1/09, p.34)
1854 Daniel Florence O’Leary (53),
Irish-born personal secretary to Simon Bolivar, died in Bogota. After
Bolivar’s death (1830) O’Leary served in a diplomatic capacity for the
Venezuelan and British governments in Bogota. In 1879 his memoirs were
published by his son.
(ON, 3/05, p.2)
1874 Laura Montoya (d.1949) was
born in Colombia. She founded the Congregation of the Missionary
Sisters of the Immaculate Mary and was beatified in 2004.
(AP, 4/25/04)
1899-1902 The civil war known as the War of the
Thousand Days took place in Colombia, beginning in1899 and ending in
1902. Some 100,000 of Colombia's four million people perished in the
conflict, mostly from disease. Colombia had been plunged into
bankruptcy and subsequent civil war in 1899 after three years of steep
declines in world coffee prices.
(HNQ, 2/25/99)
1902 Sep 17, US troops were sent
to Panama to keep train lines open over the isthmus as Panamanian
nationals struggled for independence from Colombia.
(HN, 9/17/98)
1903 Jan, The Hay-Herran Treaty
with Columbia would have given the United States the land and the right
to build a canal across Panama, but Columbia refused to ratify the
treaty.
(HNPD, 11/18/98)
1903 Mar 14, The Senate ratified
the Hay-Herran Treaty which guaranteed the US the right to build a
canal at Panama. The treaty promised Colombia $10 million plus $250,000
annually for a zone 6 miles wide.
(HN, 3/14/98)(ON, 1/00, p.2)
1904 Feb 3, Colombian troops
clashed with US Marines in Panama.
(HN, 2/3/99)
1911 The El Tiempo newspaper was
founded by Eduardo Santos. Santos later served as a president of
Colombia.
(SFC, 4/23/99, p.D8)(SFC, 12/8/01, p.A23)
1914 Apr 8, The US and Colombia
signed a treaty concerning Panama Canal Zone.
(HN, 4/8/98)
1920 Apr 12, In Colombia the firm
Nacional de Chocolates was founded. In the 1970s three of the largest
holding companies in the country bought stock from each other in order
to protect themselves from hostile takeovers. The newly formed
Antioquean Syndicate was composed of: Suramericana de Seguros, Nacional
de Chocolates, and Cementos Argos.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compan%C3%ADa_Nacional_de_Chocolates)(WSJ,
1/16/97, p.A12)
1927 The Colombia coffee
federation was set up to act as a buyer, marketer, technical advisor
and banker to Colombia’s coffee farmers.
(Econ, 10/1/05, p.37)
1928 Mar 6, Gabriel Garcia
Marquez, Columbian-born novelist and Nobel Prize winner (1982), was
born. In 2009 Gerald martin authored “Gabriel Garcia Marquez: A Life.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_Garc%C3%ADa_M%C3%A1rquez)(SSFC,
6/7/09, Books p.J1)
1933 In Colombia the Palacio de
San Francisco, begun in 1918, was completed in La Candelaria, the
historic section of Bogota.
(SSFC, 3/4/07, p.G4)
1934 Feb 27, Compania de Cementos
Argos was founded in Medellin, Colombia. In 1936, the factory began
production and it issued its first dividend in 1938.
(http://tinyurl.com/5rdhj2)
1935 Jun 24, Carlos Gardel,
Argentine tango singer, died with 17 others, including three of his
guitarists, when the propeller plane they were traveling in collided
with another on takeoff from Medellin, Colombia, and burst into flames.
(AP, 6/25/05)
1939 In Colombia the Museo de Oro
(Museum of Gold) opened in Bogota.
(SSFC, 3/4/07, p.G4)
1948 Apr 30, The charter of the
Organization of American States (OAS) was signed in Bogota, Colombia.
(AP, 4/30/08)
1948-1958 This period in Colombia is known as “La
Violencia.” Over 200,000 people were killed in massacres by the 2 rival
parties, the Conservatives and the Liberals.
(SFC, 12/18/00, p.A11)
1949 Pedro Antonio Marin (aka
Manuel Marulanda) took up arms after Colombia’s Conservative Party
henchmen began slaughtering supporters of the peasant-backed Liberal
Party.
(SFC, 1/7/99, p.A8)
1953 In Colombia a domestic spy
agency was created during the government of Gen. Gustavo Rojas Pinilla.
In 1960 it reconstructed as the DAS by President Alberto Lleras Camargo.
(AP, 9/18/09)
1956 Jul 7, Seven Army trucks
loaded with dynamite exploded in middle of Cali, Columbia, killing
1,100-1,200. 2000 buildings were destroyed.
(MC, 7/7/02)
1960 Colombia’s a domestic spy
agency, created in 1953, was reconstructed as the DAS by President
Alberto Lleras Camargo.
(AP, 9/18/09)
1962 The Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia began guerilla action.
(SFC, 4/17/96, p.A-8)
1964 Colombian army troops
descended on peasant militias who set up the self-styled Independent
Republic of Marquetalia. Manuel Marulanda and Pedro Antonio Marin led
survivors and co-founded the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
(FARC). Disaffected peasants and Communist intellectuals founded FARC
in an effort to share power and to fight poverty and corruption.
(SFC, 1/7/99, p.A8)(SFC, 2/22/02, p.A19)(WSJ,
1/16/03, p.D8)(Econ, 7/17/04, p.36)
1965 Oct 30, A fireworks
explosions killed 50 in Cartagena, Colombia.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1967 The book "A Hundred Years of
Solitude," by Colombian novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez (b.1927), was
published in Spanish.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Hundred_Years_of_Solitude)
1968 Aug 22, Pope Paul VI arrived
in Bogota, Colombia, for the start of the first papal visit to Latin
America.
(AP, 8/22/98)
1969 Fernando Botero, surrealist
Colombian painter, created "The Butcher's Table," a pig's head laughing
at his own slaughter.
(WSJ, 3/17/00, p.W12)
1970 Aug 7, In Colombia Misael
Pastrana (1923-1997), a member of the Conservative Party, began serving
as the country’s 31st president. He was elected by a margin of 63,000
votes. Some who favored his opponent, Gen’l. Gustavo Rojas Pinilla,
formed the M-19 rebel group and waged war for almost 2 decades before
they disarmed in 1989.
(SFC, 8/23/97,
p.A20)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misael_Pastrana_Borrero)
1971 Opportunity International, a
non-profit organization with Christian roots, began lending to the poor
in Colombia.
(Econ, 11/5/05, Survey p.4)
1977 Emile Rogier Heier (d.1997 at
55), Belgian-born foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star, was
released from a Colombian prison. He returned to the US and began his
book "Down in Colombia" (2003). He later wrote "Lester Leaps In," a
biography of the jazz saxophonist Lester Young.
(SFC, 9/18/97, p.C2)
1978 Jul 3, The Amazon Pact was
established. Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru,
Suriname, and Venezuela signed the Amazon Pact, a Brazilian initiative
designed to coordinate the joint development of the Amazon Basin.
(http://encyclopedia.farlex.com/Amazon+Pact)
1978-1979 Three of the largest holding companies in
Colombia bought stock from each other in order to protect themselves
from hostile takeovers. The newly formed Antioquean Syndicate was
composed of: Suramericana de Seguros, Nacional de Chocolates, and
Cementos Argos.
(WSJ, 1/16/97, p.A12)
1979 Sep 14, Colombia signed an
extradition treaty with the US, but Colombian leaders enacted
legislation that nullified the pact. It became effective march 4, 1982.
(SFC, 10/2/98,
p.B3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_extradition_treaties)
1980 Feb 27, The M-19
revolutionary group took over the embassy of the Dominican Republic in
Bogota, Colombia, for 2 months. After 61 days they were given $1
million and asylum to Cuba in a deal negotiation by Pres. Turbay.
(SFC, 1/7/97, p.A10)(WSJ, 1/8/97, p.A12)(AP, 9/14/05)
1980 Sep 12, Authorities in SF
seized 20 tons of Colombian marijuana at Pier 26 along with 2 vessels,
that included the Potomac, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s historic yacht.
Gunnysacks of the marijuana were labeled “Crippled Children’s Society
of America.” 15 men and a woman were arrested.
(SFC, 9/9/05, p.F2)
1980 Fidel Castano, a wealthy
landowner in Colombia’s Cordoba province, founded the paramilitaries
after leftist guerrillas kidnapped his father and returned him dead
following a ransom payment.
(SFC, 12/18/00, p.A11)
1981 Mar 7, Anti-government
guerrillas in Colombia executed kidnapped American Bible translator
Chester Allen Bitterman, whom they accused of being a CIA agent.
(AP, 3/7/98)
1981 In Colombia Triton Oil
executives singled out Cusiana as the most interesting geological
opportunity.
(WSJ, 1/3/96, p.A-5)
1982 Gabriel Garcia Marquez
(b.1928), Columbian-born novelist, won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_Garc%C3%ADa_M%C3%A1rquez)
1982 Colombia set up the National
Indigenous Organization (ONIC) as a lobbying group for legal advice to
Indians and for representation before national authorities.
(SFC, 3/30/98, p.A10)
1983 Mar 31, A 5.4 earthquake hit
the region of Popoyan, Colombia. It killed about 250 people and left
some 1,500 injured.
(SFEC, 11/10/96, p.T10)(http://tinyurl.com/2pmrpn)
1983 Nov 27, In Spain 181 people
were killed when a Colombian Avianca Airlines Boeing 747 crashed near
Madrid's Barajas airport.
(AP, 11/27/07)
1983 Dec 17, An Economic
cooperation agreement between the Community and the Andean Pact
countries was signed in Cartagena, Colombia.
(http://europa.eu.int/abc/history/1983/index_en.htm)
1983 Colombia’s Cano Limon Oil
Field, operated by Occidental Petroleum, was discovered.
(WSJ, 1/3/96, p.A-1)
1984 Colombia’s Pres. Belisario
Betancur sent emissaries to a FARC stronghold and established a
cease-fire.
(SFC, 1/8/99, p.A13)
1985 May, In Colombia FARC
communist guerrillas sponsored the formation of a legal political
party, the Patriotic Front (Union Patriotica). Death squads and the
army carried out a campaign against the UP and in the ensuing decade
3,000 party activists and 2 presidential candidates were assassinated
by right-wing death squads.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriotic_Union_(Colombia))(SFC, 1/8/99,
p.A13)(SFC, 12/18/00, p.A11)(Econ, 4/10/04, p.71)
1985 Nov 6, Some 35 leftist M-19
rebels took over Colombia’s Palace of Justice. A military raid to
liberate hostages held by M-19 guerrillas at the Supreme Court followed
and cost more than 100 lives, including 11 Supreme Court justices and
all 30 guerrillas. Intelligence unit soldiers under the command of Ivan
Ramirez escorted 11 people out of the building as the military stormed
the palace. Witnesses, including soldiers from Ramirez's unit, later
said the captives were tortured and killed. In 2008 Ramirez was
arrested and faced "forced disappearance" charges. In Oct prosecutors
ordered the arrest of Gen. Jesus Armando Arias, who led Bogota's army
brigade during the assault.
(WSJ, 1/3/97, p.A6)(WSJ, 1/8/97, p.A12)(SFC,
4/20/98, p.A8)(AP, 5/28/08)(AP, 10/11/08)
1985 Nov 13, Some 23,000 residents
of Armero, Colombia, died when a mudslide, triggered by the Nevado del
Ruiz volcano, buried the city under 30 feet of mud.
(PacDisc. Spring/’96, p.27)(AP, 11/13/97)(SFEC,
7/12/98, p.A22)
1986 May 25, Virgilio Barco
(1921-1997) was elected President of Colombia. He served from 1986 to
1990.
(http://sshl.ucsd.edu/collections/las/colombia/1985.html)
1986 Guillermo Cano, publisher of
the Bogota newspaper El Espectador, was assassinated by drug cartel
hitmen hired by Pablo Escobar.
(SFC, 3/22/97, p.A11)(SFC, 4/23/99, p.D8)
1986 Colombian cartels shipped 75
metric tons of cocaine into the US.
(SFEC, 1/23/00, Z1 p.2)
1988 Jan. 16, In Colombia an
exploratory oil well sunk by Triton Oil and BP was overrun and put to
fire by local guerillas.
(WSJ, 1/3/96, p.A-6)
1988 May 19, Carlos Lehder Rivas,
co-founder of Colombia's Medellin drug cartel, was convicted in
Jacksonville, Fla., of smuggling more than 3 tons of cocaine into the
US.
(AP, 5/19/98)
1988 Conservative Andres Pastrana
(33), son of former Pres. Misael Pastrana, was elected mayor of Bogota,
Colombia.
(SFC, 5/30/98, p.A12)
1988 The direct election of mayors
and town councils was begun to give Colombia’s municipalities control
over a substantial amount of federal funds.
(SFC,10/24/97, p.A12)
1989 Aug 18, In Colombia, leading
presidential hopeful Luis Carlos Galan was assassinated outside Bogota;
the Medellin drug cartel was strongly suspected. On May 12, 2005,
Alberto Santofimio Botero, former justice minister, was arrested in
connection with the assassination. In 2008 a court overturned the
conviction of Alberto Santofimio for lack of evidence.
(AP, 8/18/99)(AP, 12/22/05)(AP, 10/22/08)
1989 Aug 21, Colombian soldiers
and police raided the estates of drug lords as part of a crackdown that
followed the shooting death of a presidential candidate.
(AP, 8/21/99)
1989 Aug 24, Colombian drug lords
declared "total war" on the government.
(AP, 8/24/99)
1989 Aug 29, Seven bombs believed
set off by drug traffickers exploded in Medellin and Bogota, Colombia.
(AP, 8/29/99)
1989 Oct 14, Colombia extradited
three suspected drug traffickers to the United States as part of a war
on the cocaine cartel.
(AP, 10/14/99)
1989 Nov 27, A bomb, blamed by
police on drug traffickers, destroyed a Colombian jetliner minutes
after takeoff from Bogota's international airport. 107 people were
killed.
(AP, 11/27/99)
1989 Dec 15, Drug trafficker
Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha was killed in northern Colombia following a
shootout with police.
(AP, 12/15/99)
1989 Drug kingpin Jose Rodriguez
Gacha was killed in Colombia.
(SFC, 4/7/97, p.A10)
1989 A Time Magazine investigative
team that included Tom Quinn (1943-1996) found evidence indicating that
Gen’l. Guillermo Medina Sanchez, Colombia’s national police chief, had
taken money from drug traffickers.
(SFC, 10/21/96, p.A17)
1989 In Colombia the M-19 rebel
group agreed to disarm.
(SFC, 8/23/97, p.A20)
1989 An int'l. accord on coffee
prices was lifted. When entire inventories were sold the market was
flooded and prices dropped.
(SFC, 1/30/99, p.A12)
1989 A bomb leveled Colombia’s
state security headquarters and killed 80 people.
(SFC, 11/12/99, p.A16)
1989-1990 Extreme violence shook Colombia when
guerillas and drug traffickers mounted a brutal anti-government
campaign known as narcoterrorism. Three pres. candidates were killed
including the popular Luis Carlos Galan.
(WSJ, 5/3/96, p.A-11)
1990 Mar, Colombia’s Pres. Cesar
Gaviria and FARC held peace talks in Mexico.
(SFC, 1/8/99, p.A13)
1990 May 27, Cesar Gaviria
Trujillo was elected president of Colombia. Luis Carlos Galan, Colombia
presidential candidate, had been shot and killed while campaigning
south of Bogota. He was so far ahead in the polls for the presidential
elections that he was virtually assured of victory. His campaign
manager, Cesar Gaviria, ran in his place after the attack and was
elected president. Immediately after Galan's assassination, the
president at the time, Virgilio Barco, retaliated by reinstating
extraditions.
(AP, 5/27/00)(AP, 5/13/05)
1990 Jun, Colombia’s Pres. Cesar
Gaviria and FARC held peace talks in Venezuela.
(SFC, 1/8/99, p.A13)
1990 Aug 30, A series of
abductions began with the kidnapping of Diana Turbay, a Bogota TV news
director and daughter of former president Julio Cesar Turbay. The
abductions were by the Medellin drug cartel under Pablo Escobar. In
1997 Gabriel Garcia Marquez published his documentation of the events
in “News of a Kidnapping.”
(SFEC, 6/1/97, BR p.1,6)
1990 Colombia’s Presidential
Program for Reinsertion was founded by the government to help an
estimated 7,500 former rebels integrate into society with a variety of
assistance programs.
(SFC, 11/18/99, p.A17)
1990 US CIA and military
strategist were sent to Colombia to enhance the efficiency
effectiveness of the local military intelligence.
(SFC, 1/5/98, p.A14)
1990 An Colombian army offensive
routed the FARC from its rear-guard retreat in Uribe, but the rebels
regrouped and grew to 15,000 fighters.
(SFC, 1/8/99, p.A13)
1990 Carlos Pizarro, a Colombian
presidential candidate was killed. In 2001 fugitive Carlos Castrano
said he organized the killing because Pizarro had links to a drug lord.
(WSJ, 12/4/01, p.A1)
1990 In Colombia Jacobo Arenas,
FARC political idealogue, died of a heart attack. He was replaced by
Alfonso Cano.
(Econ, 2/28/04, p.37)
1991 Jan 15, In Colombia Jorge
Luis Ochoa turned himself in to police during an intense hunt for
leaders of the Medellin drug cartel. The Colombian Constitution of this
year forbade the extradition of its citizens.
(SFC, 7/6/96, p.A10)
1991 Jun 19, Pablo Escobar, head
of Colombia’s Medellin drug cartel, surrendered to authorities.
(AP, 6/19/01)
1991 Dec 28, In Colombia Henry
Rojas (36), a correspondent for the Bogota newspaper El Tiempo, was
killed in the northeastern city of Arauca after reporting on alleged
corruption in the mayor's office and military. Wilson Daza, the soldier
who fatally shot Rojas, later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 20
years in prison in 1995. In 2009 Colombia’s high court ruled that the
government is to blame for Rojas’ shooting and ordered it to pay
damages to his family.
(AP,
3/26/09)(www.cidh.oas.org/countryrep/Colombia93eng/chap.9.htm)
1991 Colombia’s office of the
vice-president was created, but it had no assigned duties.
(SFC, 8/30/96, p.A14)
1991 Colombia’s Constitution was
revised and included progressive legislation concerning Indian rights.
It also provided for 2 additional seats in Congress for Afro-Colombians
and a similar quota for Amerindians.
(SFC, 3/30/98, p.A8)(Econ, 8/1/09, p.34)
1991 Colombia enacted economic
reforms and tariffs were lowered.
(WSJ, 12/17/96, p.A18)
1991 Colombia’s government halted
extradition of drug traffickers to the US following a wave of bombings
and assassinations.
(SFC, 11/22/99, p.A12)
1991 Colombia’s former Pres.
Turbay saw his journalist daughter, Diana, abducted by gunmen working
for drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. She was later killed during a botched
rescue attempt.
(AP, 9/14/05)
1991 The US JCET program (Joint
Combined Exchange and Training) was established under a law that
bypassed State Department policy in which military aid is restricted to
foreign units charged with human rights abuses. This resulted in US
Special Forces assignments for training exercises in Indonesia and
Colombia.
(SFC, 3/17/98, p.B2,10)
1991 A US intelligence report said
Alvaro Uribe was a Colombian drug cartel ally. Uribe was elected
president in 2002 and in 2004 the US state report disavowed the report.
(WSJ, 8/3/04, p.A1)
1991 In Colombia 17 peasants were
dragged off a bus and killed in Valle del Cauca province. In 1998 3 men
were sentenced to 30 years in prison for the killing. the massacre was
allegedly ordered by 2 military majors and their case was turned over
to a military court.
(SFC, 7/11/98, p.A11)
1992 Jul 22, Colombian drug lord
Pablo Escobar escaped from his luxury prison near Medellin. He was
slain by security forces in December 1993.
(AP, 7/22/97)
1992 The Colombian government gave
Occidental and Royal Dutch/Shell the right to explore for oil in the
Samore oil block in U'wa Indian territory.
(WSJ, 6/7/99, p.A1,8)
1993 Jan 14, Colombia’s Galeras
Volcano erupted as 15 people gathered at the crater. Only 6 survived.
In 2001 Stanley Williams and Fen Montaigne authored “Surviving Galeras.”
(WSJ, 4/20/01, p.W12)
1993 Jan 30, A car bombing in
Bogota, Colombia, killed at least 20 people.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_bomb)
1993 May 19, A Boeing 727 of
Colombian SAM regional airline crashed into a jungle mountain near
Medellin and killed all 132 on board.
(SFC, 11/1/96, p.A18)
1993 Dec 2, Colombian drug lord
Pablo Escobar (b.1949), number 1 man in drug trafficking, was shot to
death by police Col. Hugo Aguilar in Medellin. Escobar's wife and
children vanished from Colombia in 1995 and were arrested in Argentina
in 1999 for money laundering. In 2001 Mark Bowden authored “Killing
Pablo” a chronicle of the hunt for Escobar. In 2003 Aguilar ran for
governor of Santander province.
(SFC, 7/6/96, p.A10)(AP, 12/2/98)(SFC, 11/17/99,
p.A18)(SSFC, 1/6/02, p.M3)(SSFC, 10/5/03, p.C1)
1994 Jun 6, A 6.0 earthquake and
avalanche destroyed Toez, Colombia. Some 1000 people were killed. The
earthquake hit the southern state of Cauca.
(SFC, 2/2/99,
p.A9)(http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/Hazards/What/Lahars/HuilaLahar.html)
1994 Jul 2, Colombian soccer
player Andres Escobar was shot to death in Medellin, ten days after
accidentally scoring a goal against his own team in World Cup
competition.
(AP, 7/2/99)
1994 Aug 9, Sen. Manuel Cepeda was
gunned down on his way to work in Bogota. In 1999 Sgt. Justo Zuniga and
Sgt. Hernando Medina were found guilty of participating in the murder.
They acted on orders from Col. Rodolfo Herrera Luna, commander of the
Ninth Brigade, who died of a heart attack in 1996. In 2010 Colombia's
government acknowledged responsibility in the killing and asked
forgiveness.
(SFC, 12/21/99, p.C20)(AP, 1/29/10)
1994 Antanas Mockus,
mathematician, was elected mayor of Bogota.
(SFEC, 10/9/96, p.A8)
1994 In Colombia FARC rebels
killed the police chief of Cartagena del Chaira and blew up the police
station. For the next 9 years no police officer set foot on the streets
there.
(WSJ, 8/10/04, p.A1)
1995 Jan 11, A 9-year-old girl
survived a Colombian airliner crash that killed the other 52 people
aboard near the Caribbean resort of Cartagena.
(AP, 1/11/00)
1995 Feb 8, A 6.4 earthquake at
Trujillo, Colombia, killed over 46 people.
(http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/eqlists/sig_1995.html)
1995 Mar, An oil gusher was
struck at Colombia’s Cusiana field.
(WSJ, 1/3/96, p.A-6)
1995 Jun 11, A bomb exploded at an
outdoor music festival in Medellin, Colombia, spraying shrapnel that
killed at least 28 people and wounded more than 200 others.
(AP, 6/11/03)
1995 Jun, Gilberto Rodriguez
Orejuela, Cali drug cartel chief, was arrested in the summer.
(SFC, 10/30/96, p.A10)
1995 Jul, Santiago Medina, Pres.
Samper’s campaign treasurer, testified that $6 million was solicited
from the Cali drug cartel.
(SFC, 6/13/96, p.C3)
1995 Nov 2, Alvaro Gomez Hurtado,
head of the main opposition Conservative Party, was assassinated. In
1998 former Colonel Bernardo Ruiz was charged with the murder.
(SFC, 10/31/98, p.A13)
1995 Nov, Colombia’s President
Ernesto Samper declared a national emergency hours after the
assassination of Alvaro Gomez Hurtado, a conservative party leader and
three-time candidate for the presidency on Thursday.
(V. Sun, 11/3/95, p.A-11)
1995 Dec 20, An American Airlines
Boeing 757, Flight 965 jet crashed in Columbia with 164 people on
board. Four survivors were reported. It smashed into a mountain near
Cali enroute from Miami. It was later reported that pilots had entered
an incorrect code for the approach to Cali.
(WSJ, 12/22/95, p.A-1)(SFC, 5/12/96, p.A-14)(SFC,
4/18/00, p.A5)(WSJ, 11/13/01, p.A14)
1995 Dec, Colombia’s government
said that urban unemployment was up to 9.4% and that rural
joblessness was 5.7%.
1995 Colombia granted
Afro-Colombian communities on the Pacific coast collective titles to
land occupied by their ancestors when slavery was abolished in 1851.
(Econ, 8/1/09, p.34)
1995 Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela,
a leader of Colombia’s Cali drug cartel, was arrested.
(SFC, 10/21/96, p.A17)
1995 Contraband accounted for as
much as a sixth of Colombia’s imports or about $2.34 billion in this
year.
(WSJ, 12/17/96, p.A18)
1995 A study by Alejandro Reyes in
Bogota, Colombia, estimated that drug cartels had acquired about 8% of
the nation’s best farmland.
(SFC, 4/7/97, p.A8)
1995-1997 Fraudulent insurance claims plagued
Colombia. Criminals bought life insurance policies for unwitting
beggars, prostitutes and peasants and then killed them to collect the
insurance money. Accident insurance was also abused and indigents were
maimed to collect off of policies.
(SFC, 7/22/97, p.A8)
1996 Jan, A top prosecutor was
shot and killed in Cali, Colombia. President Samper had been accused of
accepting money from drug traffickers.
(WSJ, 1/29/96, p. A-1)
1996 Mar 1, President Clinton
slapped economic sanctions on Colombia, concluding that Colombian
authorities had not fully cooperated with the US war on drugs.
(AP, 3/1/01)
1996 Apr 2, Architect Juan Carlos
Gaviria, brother of former pres. Cesar Gaviria, was kidnapped by a
group called Dignity for Colombia.
(SFC, 6/13/96, p.C3)
1996 May, Colombia’s Attorney
Gen’l. Orlando Vasquez Velasquez was arrested on charges of accepting
drug payments.
(SFC, 10/19/96, A12)
1996 Apr 16, Guerillas attacked a
military convoy in Colombia. They killed 31 soldiers and wounded 18
near the border of Ecuador outside the town of Pueres. The
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the largest and oldest rebel
group (12,000 men) having fought for 34 years, were believed to be
responsible.
(SFC, 4/17/96, p.A-8)
1996 Jun 12, Colombia’s lower
house of Congress voted to absolve Pres. Ernesto Samper of charges that
his campaign was financed by drug traffickers.
(SFC, 6/13/96, p.C3)
1996 Jun 19, Marco Tulio
Gutierrez, head of Colombia’s secret police, stepped down amid
allegations that his agency was trailing the US ambassador and taping
his phones.
(SFC, 6/19/96, p.A10)
1996 Jun 29, Masked gunmen killed
at least 16 people in Medellin, Colombia. The criminal gang called Los
Victorinos feuding with leftist urban militias was suspected.
(WSJ, 7/1/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 4, In Panama police
arrested Jaime Revello, a top Colombian drug lord, and seized 4.5 tons
of cocaine.
(SFC, 7/5/96, p.A13)
1996 Jul 5, In Colombia the
government released Jorge Luis Ochoa, aka The Fat Man, from prison
after 5 1/2 years for drug-trafficking.
(SFC, 7/6/96, p.A10)
1996 Jul, Colombian right-wing
paramilitary forces under Carlos Castanos began kidnapping the family
members of left-wing guerrillas.
(SFC, 3/26/97, p.C2)
1996 Aug 23, It was reported that
British Petroleum signed a 3-year agreement with the defense ministry
of Colombia for $60 mil. for a battalion of soldiers to protect
expansion and construction of new drilling sites.
(SFC, 8/23/96, p.A20)
1996 Aug 30, The Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia (FARQ) guerrillas attacked the army at the Las
Delicias military base in Putumayo province. They captured 60 soldiers
and killed 30 others. The 12,000 FARQ have gained income by collecting
commissions on coca leaf harvests.
(SFC, 6/16/97, p.A9)
1996 Aug 31, Colombia’s armed
forces went on alert after a series of rebel attacks on government
targets that killed about 100 people. The attacks were in response to a
US government backed campaign to eradicate coca plots. A rebel column
overran an army base in Las Delicias and killed 27 soldiers.
(SFC, 9/1/96, p.A15)(SFC, 3/6/98, p.A12)
1996 Aug, Journalist Richard Velez
filmed soldiers beating peasants during protests in Colombia’s southern
Caqueta province. He fled the country in 1997 in fear from death
threats by the army.
(SFC, 10/10/97, p.D5)
1996 Sep 4, Colombia’s government
said it will require businesses with a net worth of more than 85k to
buy war bonds to finance the war against leftist rebels.
(WSJ, 9/4/96, p.A1)
1996 Sep 6, In Colombia rebels
blew up a section of the largest oil pipeline and killed 16 police
officers and soldiers.
(SFC, 9/7/96, p.A9)
1996 Sep 10, Humberto de la Calle,
vice-president of Colombia, resigned as a protest to the presidency of
Ernesto Samper.
(SFC, 9/11/96, p.A8)
1996 Sep 12, In Colombia
government officials promised to halt forcible destruction of small
coca plantations for the time being in order to end protests.
(SFC, 9/13/96, p.A13)
1996 Sep 20, Leftist guerrillas
unleashed a wave of bombings that included 4 against banks and
electricity lines in Cartagena, Colombia. 18 coal trucks were torched
in northern Cesar province and a truck with 31 tons of ammonium
nitrate, base material for explosives, was hijacked.
(SFC, 9/21/96, p.A10)
1996 Sep 20, More than 8 lbs. of
heroin were found on Colombia’s Pres. Samper’s presidential jet as it
was preparing for a flight to New York. 11 Air Force personnel were
later arrested.
(SFC, 9/23/96, A12)
1996 Sep 25, Rebels attacked an
oil pipeline in Colombia’s Arauca province and pumping of 220,000
barrels a day was suspended.
(WSJ, 9/26/96, p.A1)
1996 Oct 7, In Colombia
authorities announced the use of Imazapyr, an all-weather herbicide, to
help eradicate illicit drug crops.
(SFEC, 10/8/96, A10)
1996 Oct 9, A heroin processing
complex of four labs near Santander de Quilichao in Colombia’s Cauca
province was destroyed.
(SFC, 10/10/96, p.A14)
1996 Oct 18, Colombia’s Supreme
Court ordered the dismissal of Attorney Gen’l. Orlando Vasquez
Velasquez, who had been arrested on charges of accepting drug payments.
He was also cited for obstruction of justice and abuse of power.
(SFC, 10/19/96, A12)
1996 Oct 20, In Colombia fighting
in 3 provinces over the weekend left 24 soldiers and leftist rebels
dead.
(SFC, 10/21/96, p.A10)
1996 Oct 29, In Colombia Gilberto
Rodriguez Orejuela, Cali drug cartel chief, agreed to pay a $105
million fine and plead guilty to crimes that included illicit
enrichment.
(SFC, 10/30/96, p.A10)
1996 Dec 5, Isidro Gil, a union
leader at Colombia’s Carepa Coca-Cola bottling plant, was killed at
work. It was later alleged that the plant manager hired right-wing
paramilitary to help wipe out union activity. In 2002 the labor union
filed suit against Coca-Cola in Miami.
(SFC, 6/6/02, p.A11)
1996 Dec 24, In Bogota, Colombia,
at least 37 people were killed. Mayor Antanas Mockus blamed the
violence on alcohol consumption.
(SFC, 12/26/96, p.B4)
1996 Dec, Colombia’s defense
minister offered a $1 million reward for the capture of Carlos
Castanos, leader of a right-wing paramilitary group.
(SFC, 3/26/97, p.C2)
1996 In Apartado, Colombia, death
squad members chopped off the head of a primary school student in front
of his class mates. They thus came to be called “mocha-cabezas” or
head-hackers.
(SFC, 1/5/98, p.A14)
1996 The US barred contacts with
Gen’l. Hernando Camilo Zuniga, commander of Colombia’s armed forces,
because of suspected ties to drug traffickers.
(SFC, 5/25/98, p.A12)
1996-1997 In Colombia warlord Salvatore Mancuso
oversaw 2 massacres that killed 19 farmers in Antioquia province. In
2006 Colombia’s government said it will pay $1.4 million to relatives
of the 19 farmers, honoring a ruling by the Inter-American Court of
Human Rights.
(AP, 7/28/06)
1997 Jan 17, In Colombia Cali
cartel bosses Gilberto and Miguel Rodriguez drew prison terms of 10.5
and 9 years for cocaine trafficking.
(SFC, 1/18/96, p.C1)
1997 Jan 25, Gunmen of the FARC
(Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) kidnapped Fernando Caballero
Argaez, president of the Bogota Stock Exchange, in Granada.
(SFC, 1/28/97, p.A8)
1997 Jan 30, Police seized 8 tons
of cocaine and shut down a large cocaine processing plant in Colombia’s
state of Guaviare.
(SFC, 1/31/97, p.A15)
1997 Feb 2, At least 25 soldiers
were killed and scores wounded in fighting with leftist guerrillas in
the mountains east of Bogota, Colombia.
(SFC, 2/3/97, p.C3)
1997 Feb 4, In Colombia the U’wa
tribe blocked Occidental Petroleum from developing an oil field on
their land worth billions.
(SFC, 2/5/97, p.A9)
1997 Feb, Colombia’s state workers
staged a 7-day strike for wage hikes.
(SFC, 9/4/97, p.A12)
1997 Mar 21, Gerardo Bedoya,
executive editor of El Pais, was assassinated in Cali. He was a former
congressman and Colombian representative to the EU.
(SFC, 3/22/97, p.A11)
1997 Apr 7, In Colombia prisoners
took over a 1,200 inmate facility in Bucaramanga, the 3rd prison to be
seized in a week.
(WSJ, 4/8/97, p.A1)
1997 Apr 25, It was reported that
the semi-nomadic U’wa tribe threatened mass suicide to prevent the
Occidental Petroleum Co. from drilling in the Samore field in northeast
Colombia.
(SFC, 4/25/97, p.A3)
1997 Apr, Some 10,000 inhabitants
fled paramilitary violence in Riosucio, Colombia.
(SFC, 1/5/98, p.A10)
1997 Jun 15, FARQ released 70
soldiers held as prisoners. FARQ regional commander Gen’l. Manuel Jose
Bonett read a communiqué that set preconditions for the start of
peace talks to end 30 years of civil war.
(SFC, 6/16/97, p.A9)
1997 Jul 15-1997 Jul 20, In
Colombia a right-wing death squad under Carlos Castano killed at least
49 suspected guerrilla sympathizers in Mapiripan, Meta province. In
1998 2 army sergeants, Juan Carlos Gamarra and Jose Miller Urena, were
linked to the massacre. In 2001 Gen. Jaime Humberto Uscategui was given
a 40-month sentence for failing to defend the town. In 2009 a court
convicted Uscategui of murder and sentenced him to 40 years in prison
for his role in the notorious massacre.
(SFC, 2/14/98, p.A8)(SFC, 7/11/98, p.A11)(SFC,
2/14/01, p.A16)(http://tinyurl.com/coyuh)(AP, 11/26/09)
1997 Jul 22, It was reported that
30,000 violent deaths per year occurred in Colombia, the world’s most
violent country.
(SFC, 7/22/97, p.A8)
1997 Jul, Paramilitaries
threatened a delegation of UN and Colombian judicial officials
investigating the exodus of peasants from Riosucio.
(SFC, 1/5/98, p.A14)
1997 Jul, The government passed a
law that made it illegal to sell more than $170,000 worth of
contraband. The annual contraband trade was estimated to be $3 billion.
(SFC, 1/24/98, p.A9)
1997 Aug 8, Senator Jorge Cristo
and a bodyguard were killed in Cucuta. Police said leftist guerrillas
were responsible.
(SFC, 8/9/97, p.C1)
1997 Aug 10, Police arrested drug
trafficker Waldo Simeon Vargas, alias “The Minister.” He was a former
associate of Pablo Escobar and created his own organization after the
Cali chiefs were arrested in 1995.
(SFC, 8/11/97, p.A8)
1997 Aug 11, Leftist guerrillas
killed at least 9 people in 2 separate incident.
(SFC, 8/12/97, p.A9)
1997 Aug 15, Ten woodcutters were
killed by a gang of hooded gunmen near the town of Retiro in Antioquia
province.
(SFC, 8/16/97, p.C1)
1997 Aug 26, Mayor Mauricio Guzman
of Cali was arrested for allegedly accepting money from a drug cartel.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.C3)
1997 Aug, A group of 30
intellectuals issued a plea for UN mediation over the violence in the
countryside.
(SFC, 1/5/98, p.A14)
1997 Sep 3, Workers joined
protests across the country to protest government privatization plans,
for better wages, respect for human rights and an end to the guerrilla
war.
(SFC, 9/4/97, p.A12)
1997 Oct 3, A paramilitary group
hired to protect a cocaine shipment killed 11 judicial officials near
the town of San Carlos de Guaroa.
(SFC, 10/6/97, p.A11)
1997 Oct 4, Rebels of the
Revolutionary Armed Forces killed 17 policemen near San Juan de Arama.
The rebels were staging a growing campaign to disrupt municipal
elections. They had already killed 26 candidates and forced more than
1,500 to withdraw.
(SFC, 10/6/97, p.A17)
1997 Oct 7, Leftist guerrillas
killed three villagers near San Jose de Apartado, a pilot peace
community that had declared neutrality in the civil conflicts.
(SFC, 10/8/97, p.A10)
1997 Oct 16, Leftist rebels killed
8 policemen in the town of Caicedo.
(WSJ, 10/17/97, p.A1)
1997 Oct 19, In Colombia leftist
rebels killed Pablo Antonio Hernandez, a mayoral candidate in Saravena
and wounded another in Yumbo.
(SFC,10/20/97, p.A9)
1997 Oct 23, In Colombia 2
observers from the Organization of American States were kidnapped by
rebels and on candidate of the upcoming elections was killed. Rebels
detonated some 20 bombs across the country and 2 policemen were killed
as they tried to defuse car bombs.
(WSJ, 10/24/97, p.A1)(SFC,10/24/97, p.A10)
1997 Oct 26, In Colombia municipal
elections were scheduled. Leftist guerrilla had forced nearly 2,000
candidates to withdraw from the elections. Rebels enforced an election
boycott in about 40% of the country, but affected only a small portion
of the population.
(SFC, 10/6/97, p.)(SFC,10/24/97,
p.A10)(SFC,10/27/97, p.A8)
1997 Oct, In Colombia paramilitary
gunmen killed 6 people in Miraflores.
(SFC, 2/14/98, p.A8)
1997 Oct, Paramilitary gunmen
under Salvatore Mancuso killed 15 people at El Aro in Antioquia
department.
(Econ, 1/20/07,
p.50)(www.cipcol.org/archives/000396.htm)
1997 Nov 12, It was reported that
the high court had recently ruled that the Convivir associations, right
wing vigilante groups promoting security, were legal. There were an
estimated 5,500 employees and 300,000 volunteers nationwide.
(SFC,11/12/97, p.A9)
1997 Nov 21, In Bogota suspected
right-wing paramilitaries killed at least 14 people. Later near Urrao a
suspected death squad killed 7 people including a Communist boss.
(WSJ, 11/24/97, p.A1)
1997 Nov 27, As many as 14
peasants were killed in Dabeiba in Antioquia Province. A 50-member
paramilitary group raided the hamlets of Balsita, Buenavista and
Toconal and riddled the victims with bullets and set fire to their
homes.
(SFC, 12/1/97, p.A13)
1997 Nov 29, At least 15 people
were killed during the night. 7 peasants were found dead outside the
town of Pitalito and another 8, including 2 children, in 2 attacks in
Medellin.
(SFEC,11/30/97, p.A22)
1997 Nov, Carlos Arturo Quiroz,
the mayor-elect of San Jacinto, was killed by a paramilitary unit.
(SFC, 2/21/98, p.A9)
1997 Dec 15, In Colombia at least
26 peasants were killed about this time after paramilitary groups began
to "cleanse" the Riosucio region of leftist guerrillas.
(SFC, 1/5/98, p.A10)
1997 Dec 21, Rebels overran a
small military base in Narino province and killed 22 [9] soldiers. Some
400 rebels overwhelmed 32 defenders. Three soldiers survived the attack
and were found by rescuers after 2 days. In the northwest weekend
fighting between rebels and right-wing paramilitaries left 6 dead.
Later reports said rebels were holding 18-19 soldiers hostage.
(WSJ, 12/22/97, p.A1)(SFC,12/23/97,
p.D3)(SFC,12/24/97, p.A8)(SFC,12/27/97, p.A13)
1997 Dec 22, A new wave of
paramilitary attacks began in the Riosucio region and some 500 more
peasants fled to Pavarando for safety.
(SFC, 1/5/98, p.A10)
1997 Colombia’s congress
reinstated extradition with the US under intense US pressure. The law
would was not to be applied retroactively.
(SFC, 10/2/98, p.B3)
1997 FARC commanders began an
urban extortion program. Their demanded payments from businessmen came
to be called la vacuna (vaccine).
(SFC, 11/26/99, p.B8)
1997 In Colombia Chiquita Brands
Int’l. began paying the AUC paramilitaries after it threatened attacks.
In 2001 the US designated the AUC a foreign terrorist organization. In
2003 Chiquita reported illegal payments to the AUC to the Justice
department, but continued payments to Feb, 2004.
(WSJ, 8/2/07, p.A1)
1997-2004 In 2006 Colombia's nonprofit Association of
Relatives of the Disappeared Detained recorded 7,300 cases of forced
disappearances during this period. Only one-tenth of the bodies have
been found, said the group's secretary general, Esperanza Merchan. She
estimated the total number of disappeared at 15,000.
(AP, 8/1/06)
1998 Jan 30, Paramilitary gunmen
descended on Puerto Asis, Colombia, and proceeded to kill 48 civilians
thought to be guerrilla sympathizers. Mayor Nestor Hernandez warned
army commanders at a local garrison but received no assistance.
(SFC, 2/14/98, p.A8)
1998 Feb 9, In Colombia rebels
blew up the nation’s main oil pipeline spilling 15,000 gallons and
forcing a suspension of pumping. It was the 7th attack on a pipeline
this year.
(WSJ, 2/10/98, p.A1)
1998 Feb 19, In Colombia Jose
Nelson Urrego, aka “El Loco” and the purported head of the so-called
Cartel del Norte del Valle, was arrested.
(SFC, 2/20/98, p.A14)
1998 Feb 20, In Colombia Army
Major Eduardo Santos Vergara and 3 local police commanders were
arrested for allegedly collaborating with paramilitary death squads in
the north. They were accused of being responsible for the Nov. murder
of Carlos Arturo Quiroz in San Jacinto.
(SFC, 2/21/98, p.A9)
1998 Feb 23, Colombia’s Pres.
Samper denied his weekend offer to resign in order to improve relations
with the US.
(SFC, 2/23/98, p.A12)
1998 Feb 24, Victor Manuel
Carranza, aka the “Emerald King,” was arrested near Bogota, Colombia,
on charges of financing right-wing paramilitary death squads.
(SFC, 2/26/98, p.A9)
1998 Feb 26, The US waived the
2-year-old sanctions against Colombia. Military and economic aid were
expected to follow.
(WSJ, 2/27/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 2-1998 Mar 3, Rebels of
the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia said that some 70 government
soldiers were killed near the Caguan River. The bodies of 58 were later
recovered. Forty soldiers were rescued and 27 were captured. The fate
of 28 was unknown.
(SFC, 3/6/98, p.A12)(WSJ, 3/11/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 8, Colombia elected new
representatives to Congress. Rebels interference forced vote
cancellations in 46 municipalities. 8 guerrillas and 7 soldiers were
reported killed in combat.
(SFC, 3/7/98, p.A10)
1998 Mar 13, It was reported that
Carlos Ardila Lulle, owner of Postobon soft-drink bottling, was one of
the richest men in Colombia.
(WSJ, 3/13/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 24, In Colombia leftist
guerrillas killed at least 9 people, wounded 14 and took 20 hostages
when they blocked a major highway 30 miles south of Bogota.
(WSJ, 3/25/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 27, Rebels under
Comandante Romana freed 9 Colombian hostages but held 4 American
birdwatchers and an Italian businessman for ransom.
(SFC, 3/28/98, p.A10)
1998 Mar 30, It was reported that
oil pipeline sabotage in Colombia had spilled 1.5 million barrels of
crude over the last decade.
(SFC, 3/30/98, p.A8)
1998 Apr 2, In Colombia Thomas
Fiore (43), one of the hostages captured Mar 27, escaped captivity by
the FARC rebel group.
(SFC, 4/3/98, p.B5)
1998 Apr 6, Manuel Perez, a former
priest from Spain and leader of Colombia’s National Liberation's Army
(ELN), died at age 62.
(SFC, 4/798, p.A21)
1998 Apr 9, A Catholic priest and
a lay worker died from a toxic cocktail of wine mixed with cyanide. At
least 10 Easter baskets with poisoned wine were delivered to priests in
Colombia’s provinces of Meta and Cundinamarca.
(SFC, 4/13/98, p.A14)
1998 Apr 12, At least 22 soldiers
and leftist rebels were killed in fighting in Restrepo, Colombia.
(SFC, 4/14/98, p.C12)
1998 Apr 17, Maria Arango (60),
Colombian human rights activist, was killed by multiple gunshots.
(SFC, 4/20/98, p.A8)
1998 Apr 18, Eduardo Umana Mendoza
(50), Colombia’s top human rights lawyer, was killed with 6 bullets to
the head.
(SFC, 4/20/98, p.A8)(SFC, 4/21/98, p.A18)
1998 Apr 20, The Goldman
Environmental Awards were presented to six winners in SF. The prizes
were increased to $100,000. Berita KuwarU’wa (44) of Colombia won for
leading the U’wa tribe’s struggle against Occidental Petroleum.
(SFEC, 4/20/98, p.A8)
1998 Apr 20, In Colombia a Boeing
727 crashed after takeoff from Bogota and all 53 people aboard were
killed.
(SFC, 4/21/98, p.A12)
1998 Apr 24, In Colombia FARC
released kidnapped American Louise Augustine. Two other bird-watchers
were released soon after.
(SFC, 4/25/98, p.A9)(WSJ, 4/27/98, p.A1)
1998 May 4, In Colombia gunmen
killed 21 people in the province of Meta. Some 200 members of a
right-wing paramilitary unit laid siege to the village of Puerta Alvira
for 3 hours. In 2000 4 army generals and a colonel were accused by the
attorney general for allowing the massacre.
(WSJ, 5/6/98, p.A1)(http://tinyurl.com/7rlwt)
1998 May 12, Retired Gen’l.
Fernando Landazabal Reyes, a former defense minister, was shot and
killed in Bogota, Colombia.
(SFC, 5/13/98, p.A13)
1998 May 17, In Colombia at least
10 people were killed by an alleged right-wing death squad in
Barrancabermeja. Later the United Self-Defense Group acknowledged that
they had kidnapped, killed and burned 25 people. At least 11 other
people were shot. In 1999 3 military officers were dishonorably
discharged and 5 police officers were suspended for failing to halt the
kidnappings.
(SFC, 5/18/98, p.A12)(SFC, 6/5/98, p.A14)(SFEC,
8/29/99, p.A21)
1998 May 19, Colombia’s Pres.
Samper disbanded the 20th Intelligence Brigade under US pressure
because of evidence that the unit was responsible for a series of
murders of civilian politicians and human rights activists.
(SFC, 5/25/98, p.A12)
1998 May 25, It was reported that
guerrilla movements were in control of 50% of Colombia. The FARC troops
were estimated at 15,000 and the ELN troops at 5,000.
(SFC, 5/25/98, p.A12)
1998 May 27, The Occidental
Petroleum Corp. agreed to give up the entire Samore block in return for
exploration rights on another 80-square-mile outside the lands of
Colombia’s U’wa tribe.
(SFC, 5/29/98, p.D3)
1998 May, Police in Cartagena,
Colombia, seized 17 metric tons of marijuana bound for Italy.
(SFEC, 7/12/98, p.A12)
1998 May 31, In Colombian
presidential elections conservative Andres Pastrana (43), son of former
Pres. Misael Pastrana, was in a tight race with Hector Serpa (55) of
the ruling Liberals. Serpa led Pastrana 34.6 vs. 34.3 and a runoff was
set for Jun 21. Noemi Sanin, an independent female candidate, received
27% of the vote.
(WSJ, 5/29/98, p.A1)(SFC, 5/30/98, p.A12)(SFC,
6/2/98, p.A11)(SFC, 6/20/98, p.B1)
1998 Jun 7, Drug cartel leader
Alberto Orlandez Gamboa, alias “the Snail,” was arrested in Colombia.
(SFC, 6/8/98, p.A12)
1998 Jun 15, In Colombia rebels
seized 15 hostages, members of the army backed civic group called
“Girls of Steel.”
(SFC, 7/4/98, p.A11)
1998 Jun 21, In Colombia, former
Bogota Mayor Andres Pastrana was elected president, defeating Horacio
Serpa, a key player in the scandal-tainted administration of President
Ernesto Samper.
(SFC, 6/22/98, p.A8)(AP, 6/21/08)
1998 Jun 24, In Colombia rebels
seized Ed Leonard of the Terramundo Drilling Co. of Canada. They asked
for a ransom of $2 million from the Grey Star Resources Co., which had
hired Terramundo for exploratory work.
(SFC, 11/7/98, p.C1)
1998 Jun 26, The US agreed to
modernize 10 helicopters for Colombia and to provide 6 new ones to
fight drug traffickers.
(SFC, 6/27/98, p.A14)
1998 Jul 3, In Colombia rebels of
the ELN freed 15 hostages, members of the army backed civic group
called “Girls of Steel” in a deal brokered by Jose Ramos-Horta of East
Timor.
(SFC, 7/4/98, p.A11)
1998 Jul 11, Police in Cartagena,
Colombia, seized 7 metric tons of cocaine in cargo containers bound for
Europe.
(SFEC, 7/12/98, p.A12)
1998 Jul 23, Manuel Mejia Vallejo,
Colombian novelist, died at age 75. His work included “It was Us,” “The
Marked Day,” and “the House of the Two Palms.”
(SFC, 7/24/98, p.D5)
1998 Jul 27, In Colombia rebels
kidnapped a congressman and 6 others at a roadblock in Santander
province.
(WSJ, 7/28/98, p.A1)
1998 Jul, Colombia’s Pres. Andres
Pastrana met secretly with FARC and agreed to temporarily pull army
troops out of 5 rural townships that included San Vincente,
Vistahermosa, La Macarena, Mesetas and Uribe, in order to encourage
negotiations by November.
(SFC, 9/10/98, p.A12)
1998 Aug 4, In Colombia over 2
dozen attacks in half of the nation’s 32 provinces left at least 76
people dead.
(SFC, 8/5/98, p.A10)(WSJ, 8/5/98, p.A1)
1998 Aug 5, In Colombia rebels
overran an antinarcotics base in Miraflores. 30 soldiers were killed,
50 wounded and 100 were missing.
(WSJ, 8/6/98, p.A1)
1998 Aug 7, Colombia’s Pres.
Andres Pastrana took office. Following his inauguration Pastrana
replaced the top leaders of the military.
(SFC, 8/5/98, p.A10)(WSJ, 8/10/98, p.A1)
1998 Aug 9, Colombia’s Pres.
Pastrana replaced the top leaders of the military.
(WSJ, 8/10/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 8/11/98, p.A1)
1998 Aug 14, Government soldiers
were attacked by some 600 guerrillas near Riosucio in Colombia’s Choco
state. Fighting continued for 2 days. 60 soldiers and guerrillas were
killed.
(SFC, 8/17/98, p.A9)
1998 Aug 19, Colombia’s Congress
named Carlos Ossa to the post of comptroller general. He had reported
links to Pastor Perafan, a convicted drug trafficker, and was opposed
by Pres. Pastrana.
(SFC, 8/21/98, p.D2)
1998 Aug 21, In Bogota, Colombia,
Venezuelan trafficker Fernando "Fatso" Flores was arrested. He was
expected to be extradited to the US for shipping nearly 8 tons of
cocaine to Florida in 1991.
(SFC, 8/28/98, p.D3)
1998 Sep 2, Colombia devalued its
currency by 9% and the peso fell 5.3%.
(SFC, 9/3/98, p.B1)(SFC, 9/11/98, p.D2)
1998 Oct 6, Norbert Reinhart (49),
owner of the Canadian Terramundo drilling Co., exchanged himself for
his employee, foreman Ed Leonard, who was being held for ransom by
rebels in Colombia.
(SFC, 11/7/98, p.C1)
1998 Oct 9, In Colombia tens of
thousands of public employees continued their 3-day-old strike after
the government declared the walkout illegal. The strike was called
against cuts in public spending and a wage increase cap of 14% for next
year.
(SFC, 10/10/98, p.A14)
1998 Oct 14, In Colombia Saul
Albaraz (29), a journalist, was shot to death in Medellin.
(SFC, 10/16/98, p.D3)
1998 Oct 15, In Colombia some
200,000 people marched on the 8th day of a strike against the
government’s planned austerity program.
(WSJ, 10/16/98, p.A1)
1998 Oct 16, Red ants, called
“crazy ants” by farmers in Colombia’s Santander and Boyaca provinces,
had destroyed some 10,000 acres of crops and threatened an additional
100,000 acres.
(SFC, 10/17/98, p.C1)
1998 Oct 18, In Colombia the
Ocensa pipeline in Antioquia province near the village of Machuca
exploded. The attack was attributed to the National Liberation Army and
at least 25 people were killed.
(SFC, 10/19/98, p.A13)
1998 Oct 20, Jose Ortega, vice
president of Colombia’s Unitary Workers’ Federation, was shot and
killed. The killing prompted a wildcat strike by thousands of
private-sector workers.
(SFC, 10/22/98, p.C5)
1998 Oct 23, Jesus Fernandez,
alleged ringleader of Colombia’s Norte del Valle drug cartel, was
arrested in Medellin. He was also wanted by the US.
(SFC, 10/24/98, p.A12)
1998 Oct 28, Colombian Pres.
Pastrana met with Pres. Clinton in Washington and agreed to expand the
fight against drugs.
(SFC, 10/29/98, p.A14)
1998 Nov 1, In Colombia some 1,000
rebels attacked a police base in Mitu, capital of Vaupes province with
missiles shaped from propane cylinders. As many as 60 officers were
believed killed. 80 police officers were reported killed and 45 taken
prisoner by the FARC rebels.
(SFC, 11/2/98, p.A14)(WSJ, 11/2/98, p.A1)(SFC,
11/3/98, p.A9)
1998 Nov 4, In Colombia government
forces retook Mitu after refueling in nearby Brazil. 5 guerrillas were
reported killed.
(SFC, 11/5/98, p.C3)
1998 Nov 7, Colombia’s Pres.
Pastrana planned to complete the evacuation of government troops from a
southern guerrilla stronghold for 90 days to facilitate talks with the
rebel FARC. The rebels took control of 5 municipalities straddling
Caqueta and Meta provinces, an area the size of Switzerland with 90,000
residents.
(SFC, 11/7/98, p.C1)(SFEC, 5/16/99, p.A20)
1998 Nov 9, US customs officials
found 1,600 pounds of cocaine on a Colombian C-130 in Florida.
Colombia’s air force chief resigned the next day.
(WSJ, 11/11/98, p.A1)
1998 Nov 10, From Colombia it was
reported that right-wing death squads had killed at least 17 peasants.
(WSJ, 11/11/98, p.A1)
1998 Nov, Frank Moreno, a US Drug
Enforcement agent, was killed along with another man in a Bogota,
Colombia, disco. Jorge Figueroa was convicted and sentenced to 30 years
in prison. In 2000 a Superior Court cited legitimate self-defense and
reduced his sentence to 5 years.
(SFC, 6/15/00, p.C4)
1998 Dec 1, It was reported that a
US congressional initiative added $165 million in counter-narcotics
funds to Colombia. The 1999 aid package totaled $289 million.
(SFC, 12/1/98, p.A10)
1998 Dec 1, In Colombia rebels
stormed 2 towns and killed at least 8 people and wounded 30.
(SFC, 12/2/98, p.A6)
1998 Dec 13, In Colombia an
anti-guerrilla raid at Santo Domingo village in Arauca state killed a
number of civilians. Most of the dead were victims of rockets and
strafing by military aircraft. The US oil-company air attack was
coordinated by 3 American civilian airmen. Later reports said the
rockets and warplanes were bought with US anti-drug aid. In 2002 a
government report faulted a Colombian helicopter pilot and crewman for
dropping a bomb that killed 17 civilians in Santo Domingo. Charges of
involuntary manslaughter were levied in 2003. In 2009 a judge found two
Colombian air force pilots guilty of murder and sentenced them to 31
years in prison each for the cluster-bombing of Santo Domingo that
killed 17 people, including 6 children.
(SFC, 12/15/98, p.C4)(WSJ, 12/15/98, p.A1)(SFC,
12/22/98, p.C4)(SFC, 6/15/01, p.A1)(AP, 10/25/02)(AP, 12/21/03)(AP,
9/27/09)
1998 Dec 27, In Colombia a natural
gas pipeline exploded in Arroyo de Piedra and killed at least 12-15
people.
(SFC, 12/28/98, p.B1)(WSJ, 12/28/98, p.A1)
1998 Dec 29, In Colombia rebels
claimed to have killed a right-wing paramilitary leader, Carlos
Castano, in a weekend capture of his northern stronghold. Other sources
denied the report.
(WSJ, 12/30/98, p.A1)
1998 Dec 30, Colombian officials
found at least 11 burned and dismembered bodies in El Diamante.
(SFC, 12/31/98, p.D2)
1998 Semana, Colombia’s leading
news magazine, named Manuel Marulanda its "Man of the Year."
(SFC, 1/7/99, p.A8)
1998 Shell ceded its oil
exploration rights in Colombia’s Samore block to Occidental Oil, which
then renounced 75% of the original block and planned to drill on lands
outside of official U'wa Indian lands. The Indians maintained the drill
sites still stood on ancestral lands.
(WSJ, 6/7/99, p.A8)
1998 There were 2,226 kidnappings
in Colombia during the year.
(SFEC, 3/7/99, p.T14)
1998 Jordan received ok from the
American CIA to sell 50,000 surplus AK-47 assault rifles to Peru. Many
of the rifles went to leftist guerrillas in Colombia and Vladimiro
Montesinos, Peru’s spy chief, was implicated.
(SFC, 11/6/00, p.A12)
1998 The remains of 36 boys aged 8
through 16 were found in a ravine and overgrown lot in Pereira,
Colombia. [see Luis Eduardo Garavito on Oct 29, 1999]
(SFC, 10/30/99, p.A14)
1999 Jan 7, In Colombia Manuel
Marulanda, leader of FARC, was scheduled to come down from the
mountains to talk peace with Pres. Pastrana at San Vicente del Caguan.
Marulanda failed to show but sent 3 top commanders in his place.
(SFC, 1/7/99, p.A8)
1999 Jan 9, In Colombia The United
Self-Defense Forces, right-wing death squads, killed 27 people in
Playon de Orozco, and 14 people in San Pablo. Meanwhile leftist rebels
released Norbert Reinhart, a Canadian mining executive, and Osmar
Brohha, a German tourist.
(SFC, 1/11/99, p.A8)
1999 Jan 10, In Colombia The
United Self-Defense Forces, right-wing death squads, killed 8 people in
Toluviejo, and 20 people in La Hormiga.
(SFC, 1/11/99, p.A8)
1999 Jan 14, In Colombia
right-wing paramilitary groups announced they were willing to begin
peace talks.
(SFC, 1/15/99, p.A15)
1999 Jan 19, In Colombia rebels
suspended peace talks and accused the government of backing recent
massacres by right-wing death squads.
(SFC, 1/20/99, p.A10)
1999 Jan 20, Alfredo Molano, a
journalist for Colombia’s El Espectador, announced that he would leave
for Europe in fear of Carlos Castano, leader of the right-wing militias.
(SFC, 1/21/99, p.A14)
1999 Jan 25, In Colombia a 6.0
earthquake hit in western Valle del Cauca state and at least 273 people
were killed and 900 injured. The cities of Armenia, Pereira, and
Calarca were hardest hit. The death toll went up and it was predicted
that 2,000 died in Armenia alone.
(SFC, 1/26/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 1/26/99, p.A1)(SFC,
1/27/99, p.A1)
1999 Jan 27, Colombia’s Jan 25
earthquake death toll went up to 878 with over 3,400 injured and
survivors began looting markets for food.
(SFC, 1/28/99, p.A12)
1999 Jan 28, In Colombia Pres.
Pastrana ordered in 2,700 soldiers and police to restore order. 2 human
rights activists were kidnapped by right-wing militia. They were
released Feb 18.
(WSJ, 1/29/99, p.A1)
1999 Jan, In Colombia 75 people
were kidnapped during the month.
(SFEC, 3/7/99, p.T14)
1999 Feb 5, The demilitarization
of southeast Colombia was extended for another 90 days in order to
extend talks with FARC.
(SFC, 2/6/99, p.A12)
1999 Feb 15, In Colombia a
right-wing paramilitary group kidnapped 9 officials sent to investigate
reports of a mass grave near Ceja.
(WSJ, 2/16/99, p.A1)
1999 Feb 25, In Colombia 3
Americans were kidnapped. [see Mar 4]
(SFC, 3/6/99, p.A10)
1999 Feb 28, In Colombia 3 US
citizens, Terence Freitas, Ingrid Washinawatok and Lahe'ena'e Gay, were
kidnapped by FARC rebels. The 3 belonged to a group that worked to
defend the rights of the Uwa Indians in a dispute with Occidental
Petroleum. 3 FARC rebels, wanted for the kidnapping, were captured Nov
28, 2002. [see Mar 4]
(SFC, 3/1/99, p.A12)(AP, 11/29/02)
1999 Feb, Orlando Garcia was
arrested along with 18 members of the “Los Niches” cocaine smuggling
ring. Garcia was extradited to the US in 2000 for shipping 230 pounds
of cocaine into the US.
(SFC, 7/14/00, p.D2)
1999 Mar 1, In Colombia a
far-right death squad killed 8 people and kidnapped 3 in
Barrancabermeja, a stronghold of the National Liberation Army (ELN).
(SFC, 3/2/99, p.A9)
1999 Mar 4, In Venezuela the
bodies of 3 Americans, who were kidnapped Feb 25 in Colombia, were
found shot to death. Ingrid Washinawatok (41), Lahe'ena'e Gay (39) and
Terence Freitas (24) were coordinating a campaign for the U'wa Indians
when they were abducted. Raul Reyes, senior commander of FARC, later
said that local commander Gildardo and 3 rebels seized and executed the
3 Americans without authorization. In Dec. German Briceno, a FARC
officer, was indicted in absentia on murder charges along with Gustavo
Bogota, a member of the U'wa Indian tribe. In 2000 Nelson Vargas was
captured in Saravena and identified as the guerrilla commander
responsible for the kidnap-slayings. Police later said Gildardo Gomez
was the commander suspected in the killings, but still held Vargas on
suspicion of rebel membership.
(SFC, 3/6/99, p.A10)(SFC, 3/11/99, p.A10)(SFC,
12/22/99, p.A18)(SFC, 3/24/00, p.D3)(SFC, 3/27/00, p.A13)
1999 Mar 19, In Colombia Marxist
rebels were reported to have abducted over 90 people in 3 provinces. 25
people were taken in Hormiga, over 50 were taken in northern Cesar
province, and 19 were seized in Cauca.
(SFC, 3/20/99, p.A11)
1999 Mar 25, In Colombia an arrest
warrant was issued for German Briceno, aka Grannobles, for the
kidnapping and killing of 3 Americans. Briceno was the brother of Jorge
Briceno, No. 2 leader of FARC.
(SFC, 3/27/99, p.C1)
1999 Apr 6, Colombia’s Pres.
Pastrana said that drug traffickers had destroyed an area of rain
forest the size of Delaware to plant illicit drug crops.
(SFC, 4/8/99, p.C3)
1999 Apr 12, In Colombia an
Avianca plane was hijacked with 46 people aboard and flown to a
guerrilla stronghold in Bolivar province.
(SFC, 4/13/99, p.A11)
1999 Apr 13, In Colombia rebels
released 6 of 46 hostages from a commandeered Avianca airplane.
(SFC, 4/14/99, p.A14)
1999 Apr 15, In Colombia rebels
released 3 more hostages as army units fought to free the remaining 32
captured in the hijacking of an Avianca plane.
(WSJ, 4/16/99, p.A1)
1999 Apr 21, In Colombia retired
Col. Bernardo Ruiz was arrested for arranging the 1995 murder of
opposition politician Alvaro Gomez.
(SFC, 4/22/99, p.D12)(WSJ, 4/22/99, A1)
1999 Apr 21, Hernando Santos (76),
chairman of Colombia’s El Tiempo newspaper, died.
(SFC, 4/23/99, p.D8)
1999 Apr 23, Colombia reported
that Marxist rebels and right-wing death squads had killed at least 371
civilians in the 1st 3 months of this year. 171 were killed by
guerrillas and 179 by paramilitary gangs.
(SFC, 4/24/99, p.C1)
1999 Apr 29, In Colombia a 2,500
member group of the Embera-Katio Indians called for a safe haven in
Europe due to the civil war in their homeland.
(SFC, 4/30/99, p.B1)
1999 May 2, Colombia’s Pres.
Pastrana and Manual Marulanda Velez, the leader of FARC, agreed to
begin formal peace negotiations with int'l. observers.
(SFC, 5/5/99, p.C5)
1999 May 7, In Colombia ELN rebels
released 7 more hostages from the Apr 12 hijacking.
(SFC, 5/8/99, p.C14)
1999 May 14, In Colombia Matthew
Aaron Burtchell, a US helicopter technician, was kidnapped by armed men
by Yopal, provincial capital of Casanare.
(SFC, 5/17/99, p.A10)
1999 May 21, In Colombia Piedad
Cordoba, an opposition senator, was kidnapped in Bogota by suspected
ELN rebels. They said she would be freed with a message about the peace
process. Carlos Castano, head of the United Self-Defense Forces later
admitted that he ordered the abduction.
(SFC, 5/22/99, p.A16)(SFC, 5/24/99, p.A13)
1999 May 30, In Colombia suspected
ELN rebels kidnapped some 140 churchgoers in Cali and later abandoned
at least 84.
(SFC, 5/31/99, p.A8)(SFC, 6/1/99, p.a6)
1999 Jun 4, In Colombia at least
2,000 people crossed the border into Venezuela to escape heavy fighting
in northern Santander province.
(SFC, 6/5/99, p.A12)
1999 Jun 5, In Colombia rebels
released 5 Catholic hostages. An estimated 55 were still held from the
May 30 kidnapping.
(SFEC, 6/6/99, p.A24)
1999 Jun 6, In Colombia 150,000
people rallied in Cali to protest the kidnapping or churchgoers by
leftist rebels.
(SFC, 6/7/99, p.A11)(SFC, 7/12/99, p.A8)
1999 Jun 7, In Colombia a rebel
chief apologized for the abduction of a church congregation as other
rebels kidnapped 11 people on a fishing trip near Barranquilla.
(WSJ, 6/7/99, p.A1)
1999 Jun 15, In Colombia leftist
rebels of the ELN released 33 hostages from the church group kidnapped
17 days earlier. At least 20 others were kept captive.
(SFC, 6/16/99, p.B3)
1999 Jun 19, Colombia’s government
agreed to start formal peace talks with the 15,000 strong FARC on July
7.
(SFC, 6/21/99, p.A10)
1999 Jun 21, In Colombia FARC
guerrillas attacked the paramilitary United Self Defense Forces (AUC)
in the Nudo de Paramillo mountain range. At least 68 people were
reported killed in the fighting.
(SFC, 6/24/99, p.A10)
1999 Jun 26, In Colombia Richard
Grasso, chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, met with Paul Reyes,
leader of the FARC, to discuss peace and the promise of capitalism.
(SFC, 6/28/99, p.A10)
1999 Jun 27, Colombia devalued its
currency by lowering its trading band by 9%.
(WSJ, 6/29/99, p.A1)
1999 Jun, Children, residents,
fish and farm animals of Rioblanco de Sotara, a Yanacona Indian village
in Colombia’s high Andes, were affected by a government spraying
campaign to eradicate heroin poppy.
(SFC, 5/1/00, p.A12)
1999 Jul 8, In Columbia heavy
fighting in Gutierrez between the government and FARC killed as many as
78 soldiers.
(SFC, 7/9/99, p.A14)(SFC, 7/10/99, p.A10)
1999 Jul 10, In Colombia the
government declared a dawn-to-dusk curfew across over 30% of the
country as guerrillas attacked security forces, raided 15 towns and
bombed energy infrastructure. 64 guerrillas, 6 civilians and 3
policemen were reported killed in the last 24 hours.
(SFEC, 7/11/99, p.A19)
1999 Jul 11, In Colombia the
leftists offensive continued. An army statement said 202 guerrillas, 19
policemen, 4 soldiers and 9 civilians had been killed. Rebel sources
said 68 security force members were killed and 32 rebels.
(SFC, 7/12/99, p.A10)
1999 Jul 12, In Colombia fighting
subsided after a 4-day guerrilla blitz.
(SFC, 7/13/99, p.A10)
1999 Jul 17, In Colombia FARC and
government negotiators failed to agree on observers for peace talks and
the talks were put on hold.
(SFC, 7/19/99, p.A12)
1999 Jul 23, In Colombia a US
anti-narcotics reconnaissance airplane crashed with 5 US Army personnel
and 2 Colombians.
(USAT, 7/26/99, p.7A)
1999 Jul 30, In Colombia a
powerful car bomb exploded in Medellin outside an anti-kidnapping unit
that had arrested 7 suspected members of FARC just hours earlier. At
least 10 people were killed.
(SFC, 7/31/99, p.A8)
1999 Jul, Colombia’s military
reported a total of 300 guerrillas killed this month, mostly from air
attacks.
(SFC, 2/19/00, p.A10)
1999 Aug 1, In Colombia a weekend
attack by rebels killed at least 17 people in Narino, 100 miles
northwest of Bogota.
(SFC, 8/2/99, p.A12)
1999 Aug 3, In Colombia fighting
died down in Currulao with 15 FARC rebels and one soldier dead. 2
Pentecostal pastors were reported killed near Lejanias.
(SFC, 8/4/99, p.A9)
1999 Aug 13, In Bogota, Colombia,
Jaime Garzon (39), radio co-host and satirist, was shot and killed by a
motorcycle gunman.
(SFC, 8/14/99, p.A11)
1999 Aug 17, In Colombia suspected
rightist gunmen shot and killed at least 13 villagers in Zambrano
including a girl age 13.
(SFC, 8/18/99, p.C2)
1999 Aug 22, In Colombia at least
36 peasants were killed by paramilitary fighters near the Venezuelan
border.
(SFEC, 8/29/99, p.A21)
1999 Aug 23, It was reported that
the US was training a 950-man Colombian army counter narcotics
battalion to regain control of guerrilla controlled territory.
(SFC, 8/23/99, p.A10)
1999 Aug 27, In Colombia Alistair
Taylor, an oil engineer for Weathorford Int’l., was kidnapped by ELN
rebels, who demanded a $3 million ransom. He was released July 5, 2001.
(SSFC, 5/27/01, p.A12)(SFC, 7/7/01, p.A9)
1999 Aug 31, In Colombia rebels
seized a hydroelectric plant near Buenaventura and held 100 employees
on the 1st day of a nationwide strike. 1.5 million workers protested
government austerity moves.
(WSJ, 9/1/99, p.A1)
1999 Aug, Colombia’s government
granted the U'wa Indians an expansion of their official reservation
boundaries in an effort to placate the anti oil drilling protests.
(SFC, 2/10/00, p.A10)
1999 Aug, US authorities
intercepted a 1.2 kg package of heroine, valued at $700,000, mailed by
Laurie Hiett (36) in Bogota. She was the wife of James Hiett, a US Army
colonel in charge of the military’s anti-drug operation in Colombia. In
2000 Mrs. Hiett was sentenced to 5 years in prison.
(SFC, 4/4/00, p.A2)(SFC, 5/6/00, p.A7)
1999 Sep 1, Colombia took delivery
of 6 refurbished Vietnam-era US military helicopters for use in the
drug war.
(WSJ, 9/2/99, p.A1)
1999 Sep 16, In Venezuela a
Colombian delegation met with the largest guerrilla group to revive
peace talks.
(WSJ, 9/17/99, p.A1)
1999 Sep 21, In Columbia the
government gave approval to Occidental Petroleum to drill a test well
near the boundary of the 3,600 U'wa Indians.
(SFC, 9/22/99, p.A14)
1999 Oct 13, In Colombia drug
police arrested 30 cocaine traffickers including Medellin cartel leader
Fabio Ochoa and reputed distribution boss Alejandro Bernal-Madrigal.
Some 1,290 traffickers were also arrested in Mexico, Ecuador, the US
and other countries over the last 2 weeks in operation Millennium.
(WSJ, 10/14/99, p.A1,22)(SFC, 10/14/99, p.A14)(SFC,
11/22/99, p.A12)
1999 Oct 24, In Colombia the
government began formal negotiations with the Marxist FARC guerrilla
group as millions marched to demand an end to civil war.
(SFC, 10/25/99, p.A11)(WSJ, 10/25/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 29, In Colombia it was
reported that Luis Eduardo Garavito (42) had confessed to the abduction
and killing of some 140 children over a 5-year period. In Dec.
Garavitor was convicted and sentenced to 52 years in prison for the
1996 murder of one boy and raping another.
(SFC, 10/30/99, p.A14)(SFC, 12/18/99, p.A20)
1999 Nov 2, In Panama suspected
Colombian rebels hijacked 2 helicopters.
(SFC, 11/3/99, p.C2)
1999 Nov 11, In Bogota, Colombia,
a car bomb killed 7 people and injured 19.
(SFC, 11/12/99, p.A16)
1999 Nov 14, In Colombia the 3rd
bomb blast in a week injured a worker at El Tiempo newspaper in Cali.
(SFC, 11/16/99, p.E4)
1999 Nov 21, In Colombia Jaimi
Orlando Lara (30) was extradited to the US for smuggling heroine to the
US. He was the first drug offender to be extradited since 1990.
(SFC, 11/22/99, p.A12)
1999 Nov, In Colombia U'wa Indians
purchased 2 farms that covered the proposed Occidental oil drill site
and organized a sit in to prevent drilling.
(SFC, 2/10/00, p.A10)
1999 Dec 13, In Colombia leftist
rebels attacked a naval base at Jurado near Panama and 23 marines were
killed and dozens wounded.
(SFC, 12/14/99, p.B2)
1999 Dec 20, In Colombia the
biggest rebel group called a holiday truce through Jan 9. The last week
of fighting killed some 220 soldiers and guerrillas.
(WSJ, 12/21/99, p.A1)
1999 The Plan Colombia program
began as the US under Pres. Clinton deployed a small air force to
Colombia to spray coca plants and help Colombia fight insurgents and
shut down processing plants for cocaine. At this time traffickers had
some 463,322 acres of coca plant cultivation and produced 90% of the
world’s cocaine. By 2009, despite 10 years of eradication efforts,
Colombia had some 575,750 acres under coca plant cultivation and still
produced 90% of the world’s cocaine.
(SSFC, 3/15/09, Insight
p.H8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Colombia)
1999 Colombia reported 2,945
kidnappings in this year; 7% were children.
(SFC, 5/6/00, p.A10)
1999 In Colombia there were some
5,000 killings this year in Medellin. Some 220 gangs with 8,500 gang
members fought turf battles on a daily basis.
(SFC, 11/23/00, p.A20)
2000 Jan 4, In Colombia Red Cross
work shut down after peasant refugees took 40 hostages in Bogota and
demanded homes.
(WSJ, 1/5/00, p.A1)
2000 Jan 12, In Colombia rebels
ended a holiday truce and 24 people were feared dead in attacks on
southern mountain towns.
(WSJ, 1/13/00, p.A1)
2000 Jan 15, In Colombia the
government military claimed to have killed 44 guerrillas. 6 soldier and
police also died as well as 8 civilians in a town 30 miles southeast of
Bogota.
(SFC, 1/18/00, p.A9
2000 Jan 16, In Colombia at least
13 guerrillas were killed in Bolivar state. Rebel bombings of power
lines left Medellin out of power for several hours. Rebels blew up 22
high-voltage pylons that took out power in Antioquia, Choco and Cordoba
provinces.
(SFC, 1/18/00, p.A9)(WSJ, 1/18/00, p.A1)
2000 Jan 26, In Colombia
government soldiers carted off 26 U'wa Indians in helicopters and
militarized a drill site on a farm owned by the U'wa.
(SFC, 2/10/00, p.A10)
2000 Feb 18, In Colombia at least
9 villagers were killed over 3 days near Ovejas by suspected right-wing
gunmen.
(SFC, 2/19/00, p.A10)
2000 Feb 18-2000 Feb 19, At El
Salado over 300 right-wing paramilitary executed at least 36 people
whom they accused of collaborating with leftist guerrillas. Nearby
military and police made no effort to stop the slaughter.
(SFC, 7/15/00, p.A12,14)(Econ, 7/23/05, p.33)
2000 Feb 24, In Bogota, Colombia,
an auto-free day was held as declared by Mayor Enrique Penalosa.
(SFC, 2/25/00, p.D3)
2000 Mar 1, In Colombia ELN
guerrillas kidnapped 3 teenagers from a school in Cali.
(SFC, 5/6/00, p.A10)
2000 Mar 21, In Colombia rebel
bombings caused a blackout in most of Bogota and large portions of the
central and northeast regions.
(SFC, 3/22/00, p.A12)
2000 Mar 26, In Colombia Pres.
Pastrana pressured Armando Pomorica, president of the lower house of
Congress, to take responsibility for a corruption scandal.
(WSJ, 3/27/00, p.A1)
2000 Mar 30, In Colombia a truck
bomb exploded in Cachipay. 4 people were killed and at least 14 were
injured.
(SFC, 3/31/00, p.A21)
2000 Apr 1, In Colombia leftist
rebels stormed the Modelo jail in Cucuta and freed 74 prisoners.
(SFC, 4/3/00, p.A9)
2000 Apr 3, Leftist rebels of the
national Liberation Army kidnapped 23 motorists in Colombia’s northern
Cesar state after calling for a transportation strike.
(SFC, 4/4/00, p.A12)
2000 Apr 6, In Colombia suspected
rightist paramilitaries killed 21 unarmed residents of Tibu.
(SFC, 4/7/00, p.D2)
2000 Apr 12, In Colombia police
and US drug agents swept over 4 cities in “Operation Millennium II” and
made 49 arrests in the country’s largest heroin ring.
(SFC, 4/13/00, p.A16)
2000 Apr 24, In Colombia Pres.
Pastrana reached a preliminary agreement with the ELN to withdraw
government troops from a northern region as a condition for peace
talks. Meanwhile FARC rebels announced a campaign to kidnap
millionaires and corporate executives who refuse to pay tribute.
(SFC, 4/25/00, p.A11)(SFC, 4/27/00, p.A11)
2000 Apr 25, Dagoberto Ospina (9)
was kidnapped by gunmen outside of Cali, Colombia. Some 60 children and
teenagers were reported abducted in the 1st 3 months of this year.
(SFC, 5/6/00, p.A10)
2000 Apr 27, In Colombia a riot
broke out at Bogota’s El Modelo federal prison after an inmate’s
mutilated body was found in a sewer pipe. 26 people were killed over
the next 24 hours in fighting between paramilitary and common criminals.
(SFC, 4/29/00, p.A12)
2000 Apr 29, Colombian police
agents shot and killed one of the alleged kidnappers of Dagoberto
Ospina in a Cali shopping center.
(SFC, 5/6/00, p.A11)
2000 May 15, Near Chiquinquira,
Columbia, Elvia Cortez (53) and Jairo Lopez, a bomb technician, were
killed by explosives placed on her neck by kidnappers who claimed to be
members of FARC and demanded $7,500.
(SFC, 5/16/00, p.A13)(SFC, 5/17/00, p.A14)
2000 Jun 19, In Colombia Guillermo
Valencia Cossio, the brother of peace negotiator Fabio Valencia Cossio,
was abducted. Carlos Castano, head of the feared Self-Defenses Forces,
later confirmed that he ordered the kidnapping.
(SFC, 6/22/00, p.A1)
2000 Jun 23, In Colombia Guillermo
Valencia was freed after 4 days. Luisa Cano (5) was also freed by
guerrillas after being kidnapped Apr 15.
(SFC, 6/24/00, p.A13)
2000 Jul 15, In Colombia 13 police
officers were executed by rebels following their surrender to a missile
attack in Roncesvalles.
(SFC, 7/17/00, p.A13)
2000 Jul 29, In Colombia rebels
attacked the town of Arboleda and claimed to have killed nearly 2 dozen
police officers. Troops and national police were flown to the site the
next day aboard US-supplied helicopters.
(SFC, 7/31/00, p.A12)
2000 Aug 5, In Colombia
congressman Oscar Tulio Lizcano was abducted by the FARC. He was freed
by a military operation in 2008.
(AP, 10/26/08)
2000 Aug 6, In Colombia rightist
paramilitary killed 6 men in Vilanueva.
(SFC, 8/9/00, p.A14)
2000 Aug 7, It was reported that
another 16 people were killed by rebels in northern Colombia and that
Occidental Petroleum had halted production at its 2nd largest field due
to rebel attacks.
(WSJ, 8/7/00, p.A1)
2000 Aug 7, In Colombia rightist
paramilitary killed 7 villagers in San Diego.
(SFC, 8/9/00, p.A14)
2000 Aug 15, Colombian authorities
and US Secret Service agents captured 10 leaders of a counterfeiting
ring that had sent over $40 million in bogus bills to the US over the
last 2 years.
(SFC, 8/17/00, p.A15)
2000 Aug 15, In Colombia 6
students were killed after they were caught in a cross fire between
leftist rebels and government troops. The students were on a field trip
with teachers. An investigation followed and a military coverup was
suspected. 5 officers and 36 soldiers were suspended for the deaths.
(SFC, 8/16/00, p.A18)(SFC, 8/17/00, p.A15)(WSJ,
8/17/00, p.A1)(SFC, 8/19/00, p.A10)
2000 Aug 17, In Colombia a bomb,
planted by the Revolutionary Armed Forces Colombia, exploded in the
village of Carmen de Bolivar and 2 children were killed.
(SFC, 8/19/00, p.A10)
2000 Aug 18, Alberto Orlandez
Gamboa, a drug cartel leader known as “The Snail,” was extradited from
Colombia to the US to stand trial for drug trafficking and money
laundering.
(SFC, 8/19/00, p.A10)
2000 Aug 27, In Colombia gunmen
killed at least 17 people in 2 massacres at Cienaga and Buenaventura.
(SFC, 8/28/00, p.A12)
2000 Aug 29, A videotape by Pres.
Clinton sought to calm fears over a $1.3 billion aid package expected
to escalate the guerrilla war in Colombia. Pres. Clinton was scheduled
to arrive the next day. Plan Colombia was America’s 3rd largest
military aid package after Israel and Egypt.
(SFC, 8/30/00, p.A14)(SSFC, 11/11/07, p.M5)
2000 Aug 30, It was reported that
many professional and entrepreneurs were leaving Colombia due to the
civil war.
(WSJ, 8/30/00, p.A1)
2000 Aug 30, Pres. Clinton stopped
in Colombia and pledged that US aid would not lead to military
escalation in the drug war. The recent $1.5 billion military aid
package was part of a broader $7.5 billion Colombian plan to fight
drugs, help refugees and strengthen government institutions.
(SFC, 8/31/00, p.A1)
2000 Aug, US Special Forces
trainers arrived in Colombia to train a 2nd anti-narcotics military
battalion.
(SFEC, 8/6/00, p.C15)
2000 Sep 2, A US-made warplane
crashed and 7 airmen were killed during heavy fighting with rebels in
Colombia. Another 8 soldiers were killed along with 12 rebels in the
combat on Mount Montezuma, 155 miles west of Bogota. A rebel assault on
a police station at Tomarrazon in Guajira state left 7 police officers
dead.
(SFEC, 9/3/00, p.A15)(SFC, 9/4/00, p.A9)
2000 Sep 6, In Colombia police
found a 100-foot submarine under construction by cocaine smugglers 18
miles from Bogota.
(SFC, 9/8/00, p.A1)
2000 Sep 17, In Colombia
government troops engaged FARC rebels at Dabeiba. The offensive had
started Sep 13 and high casualties were reported. ELN rebels kidnapped
about 54 people from roadside restaurants near Cali.
(SFC, 9/18/00, p.A9)(SFC, 11/1/00, p.A17)
2000 Sep 18, In Colombia gunmen
released 23 captives from as many as 80 in the highlands outside Cali.
(SFC, 9/19/00, p.A9)
2000 Sep 20, In Colombia ELN
rebels released 12 of 55 hostages seized near Cali. They still held 43.
(SFC, 9/21/00, p.A13)
2000 Sep 26, Colombia’s Mayor
Julio Hernandez Rodriquez Rovelo was shot to death in Rovira.
(SFEC, 10/29/00, p.A22)
2000 Oct 12, In Ecuador suspected
Columbian FARC guerrillas kidnapped 5 Americans and 5 other foreign oil
workers, hijacked a helicopter, and crossed back to Columbia. It was
later suspected that the kidnappers were Ecuadoran criminals rather
than Colombian guerrillas.
(SFC, 10/13/00, p.A17)(SFC, 10/20/00, p.D8)
2000 Oct 20, FARC guerrillas near
Dabeiba, Colombia, killed 54 members of the army and national police.
22 were killed in the crash of a US-made Black hawk helicopter hit by
gunfire.
(SFC, 10/21/00, p.A12)
2000 Oct 24, In Colombia political
abductions rose to 5 over the last 3 days. Rebel and right wing
paramilitaries were suspected in the kidnapping of the opposition
Liberal Party members.
(SFC, 10/25/00, p.A16)
2000 Oct 25, Europe with support
from Canada and Japan announced a $280 million support package for
Colombian efforts to make peace with leftist rebels.
(SFC, 10/26/00, p.D8)
2000 Oct 31, In Colombia ELN
rebels began freeing 24 hostages from the Sep. 17 kidnapping near Cali.
15 rebels had died and 25 were captured in fighting since the
kidnapping.
(SFC, 11/1/00, p.A17)
2000 Nov 10, A car bomb in Cali,
Colombia, injured 11 civilians. The ELN was blamed.
(SFC, 11/11/00, p.C18)
2000 Nov 15, Gustavo Ruiz (39), a
radio reporter, was shot to death in Pivijay, Colombia. The murder
appeared to be in retaliation for reports on local vigilante squads.
(SFC, 11/17/00, p.D6)
2000 Nov 16, Colombian police and
US Secret Service cracked a billion dollar counterfeiting operation in
Versalles. One man was arrested. The operation was believed to be
master-minded by Ramiro Sepulveda.
(SFC, 11/18/00, p.A14)
2000 Nov 19, In Colombia weekend
clashes with leftist rebels left at least 28 dead.
(WSJ, 11/20/00, p.A1)
2000 Nov 28, In Colombia the
mayor-elect of Sibundoy was wounded by gunfire.
(SFC, 11/30/00, p.C7)
2000 Nov 29, In Colombia gunmen
killed the mayor-elect of a town in the Putumayo region.
(SFC, 11/30/00, p.C7)
2000 Dec 5, Fernando Araujo (44),
development minister under President Andres Pastrana, was kidnapped by
FARC rebels while exercising in Cartagena. Araujo escaped captivity in
Jan 2007 during a raid to free him. A marine and six guerrillas died in
the battle to free Araujo.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2000 Dec 6, A FARC attack in
Granada, Colombia left at least 29 dead.
(SFC, 12/9/00, p.A18)
2000 Dec 7, Colombia announced an
imminent prisoner exchange with leftist guerrillas. FARC held over 500
police and soldiers.
(SFC, 12/8/00, p.A21)
2000 Dec 15, Two people were
killed in Bogota, Colombia, when right-wing paramilitary gunmen
attacked and wounded Wilson Borja, president of the Federation of State
Workers. Borja had been organizing peace talks between the government
and leftist rebels.
(SFC, 12/16/00, p.A20)
2000 Dec 17, In Colombia gunmen
killed 11 people in the village of Chipaque. Leftist rebels were
suspected.
(SFC, 12/19/00, p.B2)
2000 Dec 18, The mayor of Quipile,
Colombia, became the 19th mayor assassinated this year.
(WSJ, 12/19/00, p.A1)
2000 Dec 23, In Colombia rebels
freed 42 police officers and soldiers.
(SSFC, 12/24/00, p.B4)
2000 Dec 25, Colombia’s Pres.
Pastrana announced a draft for an agreement with the ELN to pull
government troops from areas in Bolivar state.
(SFC, 12/26/00, p.C2)
2000 Dec 29, In Colombia gunmen
killed Rep. Diego Turbay, a peace envoy, along with 6 other people. A
FARC unit was blamed.
(SFC, 12/30/00, p.A8)
2000 Colombia passed legislation
creating the National Commission for the Seeking of Disappeared People
and authorized it to build a "unified registry" of the missing.
(AP, 8/1/06)
2000 In Colombia kidnappings for
the year reached a record 3,706.
(WSJ, 12/27/01, p.A1)
2000-2009 In Colombia over 7,000 fell victim to
landmines during this period, most of them planted by the FARC.
(Econ, 8/29/09, p.33)
2001 Jan 4, In Colombia a
right-wing death squad killed 11 people in a northeast town.
(WSJ, 1/05/01, p.A1)
2001 Jan 10, In Colombia soldiers
rescued 56 hostages held by ELN guerrillas outside Barbosa.
(SFC, 1/11/01, p.A14)
2001 Jan 14, In Colombia 8 people
were killed by at least 40 gunmen outside Valledupar in Cesar state.
Right-wing paramilitaries were blamed.
(SFC, 1/15/01, p.A15)
2001 Jan 17, In Colombia 25 men
were hacked to death by some 50 AUC right-wing paramilitary at Chengue.
30 homes were set on fire and 7 men taken as hostages. Residents had
called for protection 23 months earlier.
(SFC, 1/18/01, p.A14)(SSFC, 1/21/01, p.D3)
2001 Jan 28, In Colombia gunmen
killed at least 10 people in Hato Nuevo.
(SFC, 1/29/01, p.A14)
2001 Jan, In Colombia at least 50
suspected guerrilla sympathizers were murdered this month in
Barrancabermeja by paramilitary groups.
(SFC, 2/12/01, p.B1)
2001 Feb 6, In Colombia gunmen
killed 14 people in a northern battle zone.
(WSJ, 2/7/01, p.A1)
2001 Feb 8, Colombia’s Pres.
Pastrana met with FARC leader Manuel Marulanda at Los Pozos.
(SFC, 2/9/01, p.A16)
2001 Feb 9, Colombia’s Pres.
Pastrana and FARC commander Marulanda agreed to resume peace
negotiations.
(SFC, 2/10/01, p.A10)
2001 Feb 11, In Colombia 9 young
hikers, 6 men and 3 women, were found killed execution style in
southwest Purace National Park. FARC later admitted to killing the 8
hikers.
(SFC, 2/15/01, p.A12)(WSJ, 3/19/01, p.A1)
2001 Feb 26, It was reported that
Interpol estimated some 25,000 Colombian women were being trafficked
per year in the int’l. sex trade.
(SFC, 2/26/01, p.A10)
2001 Mar 5, In Colombia rightists
vowed to prevent the formation of a 2nd leftist sanctuary and fought
rebels in a battle that left 24 dead.
(WSJ, 3/6/01, p.A1)
2001 Mar 7, In Colombia it was
reported that Bogota Mayor Antanas Mockus called on women to take a
night out and leave men at home to do the chores.
(SFC, 3/7/01, p.A9)
2001 Mar 10, In Colombia gunmen
pulled Sintramienergetica union local president Valmore Locarno and his
deputy, Victor Orcasita, off a bus and killed them. The US Drummond Co.
was later charged with paying paramilitaries for the executions. In
2007 a civil trial before a federal jury opened in Birmingham, Ala.
(AP, 7/7/07)
2001 Mar 17, Colombia suspended
meat and livestock imports from Argentina for 60 days due to fears of
foot-and-mouth disease. Only Israel and Russia still imported Argentine
meat.
(SFC, 3/19/01, p.A9)
2001 Mar 26, In Colombia Juan
Gonzalez, head of the right-wing Calima Front of the United
Self-Defense Forces, was killed with 3 others in a bar shootout.
(SFC, 3/28/01, p.D4)
2001 Mar, Bernardo Velez, brother
of Colombia's education minister, was kidnapped by FARC rebels. In 2004
leftist rebels killed Velez even though his family paid a ransom twice.
(AP, 7/8/04)
2001 Mar, In Colombia Valmore
Locarno (38) and Victor Orcasita (37) were killed by members of a
right-wing paramilitary group in La Loma, as they returned from work at
a Drummond Co. coal mine.
(WSJ, 10/6/03, p.A1)
2001 Apr 1, In Colombia weekend
fighting between leftist rebels and right-wing paramilitary groups left
at least 35 people dead.
(WSJ, 4/3/01, p.A1)
2001 Apr 10, In Colombia an arrest
warrant was issued for Tomas Medina, commander of FARC.
(SFC, 4/11/01, p.C3)
2001 cApr 15, In Colombia’s
southwest 32 peasant bodies were pulled from a fresh shallow grave and
a right-wing death squad was accused of the killing.
(WSJ, 4/16/01, p.A1)
2001 Apr 16, In Colombia’s Arauca
state a leftist rebel group seized some 100 contract employees of a US
oil firm. All the workers were later released.
(SFC, 4/18/01, p.A13)(WSJ, 4/20/01, p.A1)
2001 Apr 21, Luiz Fernando da
Costa (33), a Brazilian drug lord, was arrested in Colombia after his
plane was forced down by the Colombian air force. He was accused of
selling arms to FARC in exchange for cocaine.
(SFC, 4/23/01, p.A12)
2001 Apr 30, In Colombia Carlos
Alberto Trespalacios (33), information director for the Medellin sports
institute, was slain in the El Poblado district.
(SFC, 5/2/01, p.A9)
2001 May 7, In Colombia leftist
FARC guerrillas used dynamite to free 61 prisoners in Caloto.
(SFC, 5/9/01, p.C5)
2001 May 11, In Colombia an army
offensive against FARC began in 7 states. After 3 days of fighting 41
rebels and 3 soldiers were dead.
(SFC, 5/14/01, p.A12)
2001 May 15, In Colombia
paramilitary forces kidnapped some 207 workers as they returned home in
the state of Casanare.
(SFC, 5/17/01, p.A10)
2001 May 16, In Colombia Ronald de
Jesus Arrollave, a La Terraza leader, was dragged from his Medellin
home and shot to death by 15 hooded gunmen. FARC rebels kidnapped
Lothar Hintze, a German businessman, at a tourist complex that he was
building in Prado. He was released April 5, 2006.
(SFC, 5/19/01, p.A12)(AP, 4/6/06)
2001 May 17, In Colombia the
United Self-Defense Forces (AUC) freed 201 recently abducted
farmworkers. In Medellin a car bomb killed 7 people and injured 138.
The criminal band “La Terraza” was blamed.
(SFC, 5/18/01, p.A14)(SFC, 5/19/01, p.A8)
2001 May 21, In Colombia a stolen,
US-made MK-82, 500-pound bomb was planted by right-wing paramilitaries
next to a communist newspaper office in Bogota. It was discovered by a
security guard and removed.
(SFC, 5/30/01, p.A10)
2001 May 25, In Colombia 2 bombs
exploded in front of Bogota’s National Univ. and 4 people were killed.
(SFC, 5/26/01, p.A9)
2001 May 27-2001 May 28, In
Colombia FARC guerrillas killed at least 24 residents of villages near
Tierralta.
(SFC, 6/1/01, p.D3)
2001 Jun 1, In Colombia newspapers
speculated that Carlos Castano, head of the right-wing United
Self-Defense Forces (AUC), had resigned over internal divisions.
(SFC, 6/2/01, p.A9)
2001 Jun 2, Colombia’s government
and FARC guerrillas agreed to swap sick prisoners followed later by a
swap of healthy prisoners.
(SSFC, 6/3/01, p.A16)
2001 Jun 6, In Colombia the AUC
acknowledged that Carlos Castano had left the 9-man ruling command
council and was reassigned to manage its political affairs.
(SFC, 6/7/01, p.C2)
2001 Jun 11, The Colombia AUC
named a new 9-man command council to lead its fight against rebel
guerrillas.
(SFC, 6/12/01, p.A9)
2001 Jun 11, In northern Colombia,
thousands turned out to protest a US-backed program to aerially
eradicate coca crops. They wanted the government to manually eradicate
the plant used to make cocaine instead of spraying the countryside.
(AP, 6/11/03)
2001 Jun 16, Colombia’s government
and FARC rebels swapped dozens of prisoners.
(SSFC, 6/17/01, p.A20)
2001 Jun 23, In Colombia the army
reported that recent clashes with rebels left 30 soldiers and 26
guerrillas dead. Separately 5 inmates were killed during a FARC
arranged prison escape at the La Picota prison in Bogota.
(SSFC, 6/24/01, p.A20)(SFC, 6/25/01, p.A9)
2001 Jun 28, In Colombia rebels
freed 242 prisoners in a boost to peace talks.
(WSJ, 6/29/01, p. A1)
2001 Jul 1, In Colombia the body
of Alma Jaramillo, an advisor to a peace group, was found in Morales.
She had been abducted Jun 29. Rightwing paramilitary militia were
blamed.
(SFC, 7/5/01, p.A10)
2001 Jul 2, In Bogota, Colombia, a
firefight erupted between rival gangs at the La Modelo penitentiary and
10 inmates were killed.
(SFC, 7/4/01, p.A12)
2001 Jul 15, In Colombia FARC
guerrillas kidnapped Alam Jara, former governor of Meta state.
(SFC, 7/17/01, p.A7)
2001 Jul 23, In Colombia retired
Gen. Rito Alejo del Rio was arrested on charges of helping create
right-wing paramilitary groups.
(SFC, 7/24/01, p.A12)
2001 Jul 31, In Colombia 4 rebels
and 2 soldiers were killed in fighting in southern and northwestern
areas.
(SFC, 8/1/01, p.A9)
2001 Jul, In Colombia Maria del
Rosario, a regional prosecutor, was shot to death in Cucuta.
(SFC, 11/2/01, p.D5)
2001 Aug 2, Colombia reported a
big victory over rebels at Juan Jose. 60 rebels were killed along with
13 soldiers.
(SFC, 8/3/01, p.D3)
2001 Aug 7, Colombia’s Pres.
Pastrana announced that he was suspending talks with the 5,000 ELN
rebels.
(SFC, 8/8/01, p.A8)
2001 Aug 9, In Colombia an
explosion killed 3 children and injured 35 in the northern town of San
Francisco. Police blamed the ELN.
(SFC, 8/10/01, p.A18)
2001 Aug 11, In Bogota, Colombia,
3 members of the Irish Republican Army were arrested after spending 5
weeks training FARC rebels in explosives and terrorist tactics.
(SFC, 8/14/01, p.A7)
2001 Aug 16, In Colombia Pres.
Pastrana signed legislation giving the military broad new powers to
wage war with less scrutiny from human rights monitors. Gunmen in Santo
Tomas killed 12 people for being members in the ELN.
(SFC, 8/17/01, p.A12)(SSFC, 8/19/01, p.A16)
2001 Aug 19, In Colombia thousands
of soldiers pursued FARC rebels near San Jose del Guaviare. 20
guerrillas were reported killed including Urias Cuellar, a high-ranking
commander.
(SFC, 8/20/01, p.A9)
2001 Aug 22, In Colombia Felix
Chitiva Carrasquilla, one of the top men of the North Valley Cartel,
was arrested.
(SSFC, 8/26/01, p.A16)
2001 Aug 23, A suspected ELN car
bomb killed a woman and wounded over 20 people in Marinilla, Colombia.
Separately 15-20 suspected ELN members were killed when explosives in
their truck went off in Santander state.
(SFC, 8/24/01, p.D2)
2001 Aug 25, In Colombia police in
Bogota reported that they had found $35 million stashed in the walls of
2 Bogota apartments. The apartments had been used as private banks by
the North Valley Cartel.
(SSFC, 8/26/01, p.A16)
2001 Aug 29, In Colombia Yolanda
Paternina (50), a government prosecutor, was shot and killed while
returning home in Sincelejo. She had been investigating a January
paramilitary massacre and 2 of her colleagues were missing since June.
(SSFC, 9/2/01, p.A20)
2001 Aug 30, In Colombia Salvatore
Mancuso was being considered as the new head of the AUC, though he had
not yet accepted the position. Former commander Carlos Castano said the
AUC would operate as a decentralized confederation.
(SFC, 8/31/01, p.D3)
2001 Sep 2, In Colombia Ramiro
Carranza, director of the foreign branch of the secret police (DAS),
was abducted near Quetame.
(SFC, 9/5/01, p.A9)
2001 Sep 6, In Colombia gunmen
killed a congressman who headed a peace commission.
(WSJ, 9/7/01, p.A1)
2001 Sep 7, Fabio Ochoa, former
leader of the Medellin cartel, was extradited from Colombia to the US
to stand trial for shipping cocaine to the US.
(SFC, 9/8/01, p.A8)
2001 Sep 8, In Colombia police
arrested 4 FARC guerrillas who allegedly planned to kill presidential
candidate Alvaro Uribe.
(SSFC, 9/9/01, p.A17)
2001 Sep 10, The Bush
administration designated the Colombian paramilitary group, the United
Self-Defense Forces (AUC), as a terrorist group.
(SFC, 9/11/01, p.B1)
2001 Sep 19, Guambiano Indians in
Colombia’s Cauca state attacked Paez Indians and 7 people were killed
with at least 19 wounded.
(SFC, 9/21/01, p.D3)
2001 Sep 19, In Colombia Yolanda
Ceron, a Catholic nun active in human rights work, was shot and killed
in Tumaco.
(SFC, 9/21/01, p.D3)
2001 Sep 23, In Colombia 2 men
were arrested in connection with a plot to assassinate Pres. Pastrana
in July in the town of Armenia.
(SFC, 9/26/01, p.C2)
2001 Sep 24, In Colombia Consuelo
Araujo (62), the wife of the attorney general, was kidnapped along with
10 others near Valledupar. Araujo was found shot to death on Sep 30.
(SFC, 9/25/01, p.A12)(SFC, 10/1/01, p.A8)
2001 Sep 29, In Colombia FARC used
armed road blocks and military attacks to disrupt a planned march into
their territory by pres. candidate Horacio Serpa.
(SFC, 10/1/01, p.A8)
2001 Oct 8, In Bogota, Colombia,
Luis Alfredo Colmenares, a representative from Arauca, was assassinated
by gunmen on a motorcycle.
(SFC, 10/9/01, p.B4)
2001 Oct 10, In Colombia AUC
paramilitary massacred 24 men in the village of (Alaska) Buga. The
bodies of 6 fishermen were recovered near Cartagena, where they had
been kidnapped earlier in the week. A cab driver, who drove outside
news correspondents, was also slain.
(SFC, 10/12/01, p.D2)(WSJ, 10/12/01, p.A1)
2001 Oct 11, In Colombia AUC
paramilitary shot and killed 5 men in the town of Samaniego.
(SFC, 10/13/01, p.C1)
2001 Oct 12, In Colombia AUC
paramilitary shot and killed 5 men and 2 women in the town of Piamonte.
The army reported that it had discovered14 bodies in a single grave in
the town of Albania.
(SFC, 10/13/01, p.C1)
2001 Oct 20-2001 Oct 21, In Penol,
Colombia, a bomb in a hot dog cart killed 5 people in an apartment
where several police families lived. In Alejandria 10 peasants were
killed by paramilitary gunmen. In La Guajira province FARC rebels
bombed a gas pipeline and 4 brothers (5-9) were killed. FARC fighters
killed 5 men and a woman in El Habra. In Valle del Cauca rebels dragged
4 men and a woman from their car and killed them.
(SFC, 10/22/01, p.B2)
2001 Oct 26, US ambassador Anne
Patterson said the US would provide counter-terrorist aid: “Colombia
has 10% of the terrorist groups in the world.”
(SFC, 10/27/01, p.A9)
2001 Oct 30, Colombia extradited
Alejandro Bernal to the US for smuggling up to 30 tons of cocaine a
month to the US in the late 1990s.
(SFC, 10/31/01, p.C12)
2001 Nov 1, In Colombia Carlos
Arturo Pinto (53), a regional prosecutor, was shot to death in Cucuta
by 2 men on motorcycle. Pinto had replaced Maria del Rosario, who was
shot to death in July.
(SFC, 11/2/01, p.D5)
2001 Nov 3, In Colombia FARC
fighters besieged the town of Paujil and killed 3 police officers. 8
truck drivers were abducted in Casanare province at a roadblock and 3
technicians in the same region.
(SFC, 11/5/01, p.A13)
2001 Nov 4, In Colombia gunmen
abducted a judge and 3 lawyers in Antioquia province. Glen Heggstad
(Heregestard) of California was released Dec 7.
(SFC, 11/5/01, p.A13)(SFC, 12/10/01, p.A5)(SFC,
12/11/01, p.A4)
2001 Nov 7, In Colombia FARC
rebels kidnapped Mireya Mejia Araujo, a local peace counselor and
demanded $217,000 in ransom.
(SSFC, 11/11/01, p.A15)
2001 Nov 10, In Colombia AUC
paramilitary killed 12 villagers in El Choco for collaboration with the
ELN.
(SFC, 11/12/01, p.A14)
2001 Nov 16, In Colombia some
300-600 leftist rebels attacked the Andean town of Bolivar. 23 police
defended the town until their ammunition ran out. Townspeople prevented
the rebels from taking away 5 captured officers.
(SSFC, 11/25/01, p.A16)
2001 Nov 19, In Colombia the
right-wing AUC militia said that it held 6 mayors hostage in Antioquia
state. The mayors were released Nov 20.
(SFC, 11/20/01, p.A17)
2001 Nov 22, In Colombia At least
47 people were confirmed dead following a mud slide at a condemned gold
mine site in Filadelfia.
(SFC, 11/23/01, p.A17)(SSFC, 11/25/01, p.A18)
2001 Nov 23, A crew dug for bodies
and survivors under mud after a huge landslide swept over gold miners
illegally digging into the side of a mountain in western Colombia,
killing at least 28 people.
(AP, 11/23/02)
2001 Dec 16, In Colombia a 5-day
battle over cocaine-producing plantations left up to 44 leftist
guerrillas and right-wing paramilitary fighters dead in Antioquia state.
(SFC, 12/17/01, p.A7)
2001 Dec 30, Colombia seized $41
million in counterfeit US currency.
(WSJ, 12/31/01, p.A1)
2001 Dec, Colombia’s Carlos
Castano published “Mi Confesion” (My Confession), an biographical
account of his rise in the AUC along with details of his “dirty war”
against leftist guerrillas.
(SFC, 2/15/02, p.H2)
2001 Shakira, Colombian pop star,
made a hit with her “Laundry Service” album, mostly in English, selling
13 million copies. Her previous 4 albums in Spanish sold some 12
million copies.
(Econ, 7/23/05, p.62)
2001 In Colombia Andres Felipe
Perez (12), who had unsuccessfully pleaded to see his father held by
FARC, died from cancer.
(SSFC, 4/7/02, p.A8)
2002 Jan 9, In Colombia Pres.
Pastrana gave FARC 48 hours to retire from their designated safe haven.
(SFC, 1/10/02, p.A8)
2002 Jan 10, Colombia’s Pres.
Pastrana sent troops to the demilitarized zone occupied by the FARC.
(SFC, 1/11/02, p.A6)
2002 Jan 12, Colombia’s Pres.
Pastrana rejected a last minute FARC proposal to save the peace process.
(SSFC, 1/13/02, p.A19)
2002 Jan 14, In Colombia the
government and FARC rebels agreed to salvage peace talks.
(SFC, 1/15/02, p.A9)
2002 Jan 15, In Colombia FARC
rebels staged attacks in Puente Quetame, Ibague, Guayabal and Cubarral
following an accord to continue peace talks. At least 4 people were
killed.
(SFC, 1/16/02, p.A8)
2002 Jan 18, Five Colombian police
officers died while protecting a downed UH-1N helicopter. The US
helicopter was destroyed to keep it out of rebel hands.
(SFC, 1/25/02, p.A15)
2002 Jan 21, In Colombia FARC and
government negotiators agreed to a timetable for cease-fire talks.
(SFC, 1/21/02, p.A11)
2002 Jan 25, A bomb in Bogota,
Colombia, killed 4 police officers and a girl (5). FARC rebels were
blamed.
(SSFC, 1/27/02, p.A19)
2002 Feb 5, US officials announced
plans to train and arm Colombian troops to protect the key Cano Limon
oil pipeline.
(SFC, 2/7/02, p.A12)
2002 Feb 11, In Colombia suspected
FARC rebels sent 2 bombs into a southern army garrison and killed 10
sleeping soldiers.
(SFC, 2/12/02, p.A10)
2002 Feb 20, Colombia’s Pres.
Pastrana ended peace talks with the FARC and ordered his military to
retake the southern rebel haven.
(SFC, 2/21/02, p.A10)
2002 Feb 21, The Colombia Air
Force dropped 1,500 and 500 pound bombs on FARC rebel sites.
(SFC, 2/22/02, p.A1)
2002 Feb 22, Colombia began to
airlift some 34,000 soldiers of the elite Rapid Deployment Force into
San Vicente del Caguan, the largest town in the FARC territory.
(SFC, 2/23/02, p.A9)(SSFC, 2/24/02, p.A18)
2002 Feb 23, In Colombia FARC
rebels kidnapped Ingrid Betancourt (40), a presidential candidate, near
La Montanita enroute to San Vicente del Caguan. She was the author of
“Until Death do us Part: My Struggle to Reclaim Colombia.” Clara Rojas
(37) was also kidnapped. Rohas gave birth to a son in 2004 from whom
she was separated. Betancourt and other hostages were freed in a
military operation in July, 2008.
(SFC, 2/25/02, p.A6)(Econ, 3/20/04, p.37)(SFC,
12/19/08, p.A1)
2002 Feb 24, In La Macarena,
Colombia, 7 civilians were reported killed by retreating rebels.
(SFC, 2/27/02, p.A7)
2002 Feb 26, In Colombia 7 people
were killed in various attacks blamed on the FARC. A rebel bombing
campaign against infrastructure continued.
(SFC, 2/27/02, p.A7)
2002 Mar 2, In Colombia the bodies
of Sen. Martha Catalina Daniels, her driver, Carlos Lozano, and Ana
Maria Medina, the wife of a local politician, were found outside
Zipacon, 35 miles north of Bogota. FARC was suspected.
(SFC, 3/4/02, p.A3)
2002 Mar 10, In Colombia voters
maintained the Liberal Party as the largest force in the 268-member,
2-chamber legislature. Poling in 15 of the nation’s 1,097
municipalities was cancelled due to rebel interference.
(SFC, 3/11/02, p.A10)
2002 Mar 16, In Cali, Colombia,
gunmen killed Archbishop Isaias Duarte Cancino (63), a critic of
leftist rebels. A hired assassin was arrested in June.
(SSFC, 3/17/02, p.A20)(SFC, 3/18/02, p.A3)(AP,
6/9/02)
2002 Mar 18, A US federal grand
jury unsealed a Mar 7 indictment against 7 men that included 3
Colombian guerrillas for smuggling planeloads of cocaine. These
included Tomas Molina Caracas, commander of the FARC 16th Front.
(SFC, 3/19/02, p.A6)
2002 Apr 5, A car bomb in Fuente
de Oro, Colombia, injured 13 people.
(SFC, 4/8/02, p.A9)
2002 Apr 6, In Colombia FARC
rebels shot and killed police officers Norberto Perez and Victor Manuel
Marulanda as they tried to escape.
(SSFC, 4/7/02, p.A8)
2002 Apr 7, In Colombia 2
bombs killed 12 people in Villavicencio and FARC rebels were suspected.
One bomb was used to attract people when the was 2nd detonated.
(SFC, 4/8/02, p.A9)
2002 Apr 9, A bomb killed 2
policemen near Bogota, Colombia.
(WSJ, 4/10/02, p.A1)
2002 Apr 11, In Colombia rebels
kidnapped 13 lawmakers in Cali. A legislator and 4 aides were rescued
and 1 police officer was killed.
(SFC, 4/12/02, p.A9)
2002 Apr 14, In Barranquilla,
Colombia, a bomb exploded near the motorcade of Alvaro Uribe (49), a
presidential candidate. 3 bystanders were killed.
(SFC, 4/15/02, p.A10)
2002 Apr 19, In Colombia a
Russian-made Antonov jet, used to transfer inmates, crashed near
Popayan airport and at least 2 prison officials were killed.
(SFC, 4/20/02, p.A15)
2002 Apr 22, Colombia rebels
kidnapped a governor and ex-defense minister during a peace march.
(WSJ, 4/23/02, p.A1)
2002 Apr 30, A US grand jury
indicted Colombia’s rebel FARC army and 6 of its members on charges of
murdering 3 Americans.
(SFC, 5/1/02, p.A10)
2002 May 1, Government soldiers
from Colombia’s Caqueta state were pulled from a bus at a FARC
roadblock. Their bodies were reported found on May 12.
(SFC, 5/13/02, p.A6)
2002 May 3, In Colombia 2 days of
fighting left as many as 60 people dead in the region around Bojaya
after FARC fired mortars into a Bojaya church. The death toll was soon
raised to 119 including 40 children.
(SFC, 5/4/02, p.A11)(SFC, 5/7/02, p.A11)(SFC,
5/8/02, p.A1)(SFC, 5/13/02, p.A6)
2002 May 10, Colombia’s Gen.
Gustavo Socha was removed from his job as head of anti-narcotic efforts
for the National Police after $2 million in US funds was discovered
missing from a special police administrative account.
(SFC, 5/11/02, p.A12)
2002 May 14, In Colombia leftist
rebels attacked army-backed right-wing paramilitaries at Alto de Minas
and left at least 80 people dead 180 miles NW of Bogota.
(WSJ, 5/17/02, p.A1)(SFC, 5/18/02, p.A13)
2002 May 18, It was reported that
the US-funded Plan Colombia had caused widespread crop damage in
Ecuador. The coca leaf fumigation affected some 10,000 Ecuadorians
along the Colombia border where the RoundupUltra herbicide was spread
by Colombian airplanes.
(SFC, 5/18/02, p.A11)
2002 May 21, In Medellin,
Colombia, fighting between security forces and guerrillas left at least
9 people dead including 2 children.
(SFC, 5/22/02, p.A15)
2002 May 23, Pedro Carmona (60),
CEO of Industrias Venoco CA and Venezuela‘s recent 2-day president,
escaped house arrest and sought refuge in the Colombian Embassy.
(SFC, 5/24/02, p.A16)(WSJ, 3/10/08, p.A5)
2002 May 25, In Colombia
presidential elections were held. Alvaro Uribe received 53% of the
vote, over 20 more than rival Horacio Serpa.
(SSFC, 5/26/02, p.A1)(SFC, 5/27/02, p.A1)
2002 May 31, Colombia’s Pres.
Pastrana suspended talks with the ELN.
(SFC, 6/1/02, p.A11)
2002 Jun 3, In Chigorodo,
Colombia, 9 people were killed. Police suspected leftist rebels. At
least 49 people were killed in weekend fighting outside a former
rebel-held zone in the south.
(WSJ, 6/4/02, p.A1)
2002 Jun 5, Colombia ratified the
Rome Statute, the treaty that created an Int’l. Criminal Court.
(SFC, 6/6/02, p.A10)
2002 Jun 6, In Colombia a bomb
exploded at the La Churreria restaurant in Bogota and 1 woman was
killed.
(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.A18)
2002 Jun 8, Colombian police in
Cali arrested John Fredy Jimenez, the alleged hired assassin who gunned
down Roman Catholic Archbishop Isaias Duarte as he left a wedding March
16.
(AP, 6/9/02)
2002 Jun 14, Colombia's first
female defense minister said Friday she will strengthen the army and
seek more military aid from the United States and other nations to
fight leftist rebels. Protests began in Arequipa over the sale of 2
state utilities to a Belgian company.
(AP, 6/14/02)(SFC, 6/18/02, p.A7)
2002 Jun 17, In Colombia troops
took control of Arequipa to support a new government ban on public
protests.
(SFC, 6/18/02, p.A7)
2002 Jun 18, In Colombia workers
at the state oil company declared a two-day strike to protest the
assassination of one of their union officials, who have allegedly been
threatened by a right-wing paramilitary group.
(AP, 6/18/02)
2002 Jun 20, Colombian
President-elect Alvaro Uribe pressed President Bush for more help in
fighting drugs, while Bush cautioned him to respect human rights as he
combats leftist rebels who rely largely on drug trafficking for their
income.
(AP, 6/21/02)
2002 Jun 22, The mayors in the
western Colombian state of Antioquia resigned en masse after receiving
threats from FARC rebels that they would be killed if they did not quit.
(AP, 6/22/02)(SSFC, 6/23/02, p.A22)
2002 Jun 27, In Colombia more than
100 government officials defied rebel death threats, withdrawing their
resignations and agreeing to go back to work. Authorities confirmed
that Rigo Calvo, mayor of La Sierra, was abducted.
(AP, 6/27/02)(SFC, 6/28/02, p.A12)
2002 Jun 28, In Bogota, Colombia,
a Catholic priest, critical of leftist rebels, was gunned down in front
of a church where he had just performed mass.
(AP, 6/28/02)
2002 Jul 11, In Colombia
authorities confirmed that the mayors of 28 cities and towns resigned
this week after leftist rebels threatened to kill mayors if they didn't
step down.
(AP, 7/11/02)
2002 Jul 12, A Colombia army
spokesman said clashes across Colombia this week left at least 52
rebels and government soldiers dead.
(AP, 7/12/02)
2002 Jul 18, In Colombia rebels
attacked a central Colombian town and clashed with police in an hours
long battle, leaving four civilians and four rebels dead and destroying
dozens of houses and government buildings.
(AP, 7/18/02)
2002 Jul 20, Omar Bernal, rebel
commander of the 63rd front of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia, or FARC, surrendered Saturday to soldiers in southern
Colombia, saying he had lost faith in the decades-old guerrilla
uprising.
(AP, 7/20/02)
2002 Jul 23, In Colombia a bomb
exploded in front of a Medellin restaurant where politicians and
journalists traditionally gather, killing a former congressman and
injuring nine other people.
(AP, 7/23/02)
2002 Jul 24, A truck bomb exploded
in San Juan de Rioseco, Colombia, and 2 police officers were killed.
(SFC, 7/25/02, p.A13)
2002 Jul 25, Some 5,000 women
gathered from all over Colombia, traveling hours by bus, all with one
message: They wanted an end to 38 years of civil war.
(AP, 7/25/02)
2002 Jul 29, In Colombia a small
bomb exploded outside a hardware store in downtown Bogota, killing a
17-year-old girl and injuring 10 other people.
(AP, 7/29/02)
2002 Aug 1, In Colombia a
helicopter crashed while on an army medical evacuation mission in a
rebel zone killing six people. Also a 14-year-old girl died and five
other people were wounded when suspected rebels threw a grenade at a
bakery in the village of Venecia, 40 miles south of Bogota.
(AP, 8/2/02)
2002 Aug 7, In Colombia a
remote-controlled mortar attack killed 21 people during the
inauguration of Pres. Alvaro Uribe. 69 people were wounded.
(AP, 8/8/02)(SFC, 8/8/02,
p.A1)(www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=2519)
2002 Aug 8, In Colombia President
Alvaro Uribe pressed ahead with Plan Meteor to equip 1 million citizens
with radios to report on rebel activity.
(AP, 8/9/02)(SFC, 8/9/02, p.A20)
2002 Aug 9, In Colombia fighting
among outlaw groups for control of a gold mine and cocaine crops in the
mountainous north killed 50 fighters. 4 policemen were killed in a
rebel ambush in central Colombia in the town of Paz de Ariporo. Army
soldiers killed two rebels in the southern town of San Vicente del
Caguan.
(AP, 8/9/02)
2002 Aug 9, In central Colombia
hundreds of soldiers attacked the Metro Block right-wing paramilitary
force, killing and capturing dozens of fighters outside Segovia.
Paramilitary commander Rodrigo later said that an army soldier executed
24 paramilitary men along a roadside near Segovia.
(AP, 8/10/02)(SSFC, 8/11/02, p.A16)(AP, 8/18/02)
2002 Aug 12, In Colombia Pres.
Alvaro Uribe, declared a limited state of emergency to fight what the
government described as a "regime of terror" following an upsurge of
violence that has left 100 people dead since he took office.
(AP, 8/12/02)
2002 Aug 19, In Colombia rebels
kidnapped over 2 dozen tourists inside Ensenada Utria national park.
The ELN was blamed.
(SFC, 8/22/02, p.A10)
2002 Aug 23, In southern Colombia
a bus veered off a mountain road in Papagayo after one of its tires
burst, plunging 1,000 feet and killing at least 12 people.
(AP, 8/24/02)
2002 Aug 27, In northern Colombia
government forces clashed with rebels, killing eight guerrillas. The
eight were among 14 people killed in scattered fighting across the
insurgency-plagued nation.
(AP, 8/27/02)
2002 Aug, The US resumed aerial
spraying to eradicate coca growing in Colombia and hoped to destroy
some 300,000 acres of coca growth. The US state Dept. said the spraying
does not endanger people or the environment.
(SFC, 9/4/02, p.A13)(SFC, 9/6/02, p.A18)
2002 Sep 4, Colombian authorities
reported the break up of an international kidnapping ring organized by
the nation's second-largest rebel group to fund its insurgency. The
leader of the ring was captured in July, and authorities have arrested
his successor and other rebels within the last couple of days, said
Gen. Reynaldo Castellanos. The crime network was run out of Bogota by
members of the National Liberation Army. It included leftist groups
from Chile, Ecuador, Peru and Mexico that kidnapped people and stole
cars, among other crimes.
(AP, 9/5/02)
2002 Sep 5, In Colombia gunmen on
motorcycles killed Fernando Mancilla, the new chief of secret police
for Antioquia province, as he drove his car in Medellin.
(AP, 9/6/02)(SFC, 9/6/02, p.A17)
2002 Sep 9, The US State
Department cleared the way for giving $41.6 million in arms and
equipment to Colombia, certifying that the country's military has met
human rights requirements in three areas.
(AP, 9/9/02)
2002 Sep 10, Colombia stepped up
its emergency powers to battle growing insurgency violence, announcing
it can detain people without warrants, restrict travel and impose
curfews.
(AP, 9/10/02)
2002 Sep 19, In Colombia Army
troops killed 21 guerrillas on 23 fronts and freed 2 kidnapped
civilians. A 3rd hostage died in the fighting.
(SFC, 9/20/02, p.A12)
2002 Sep 19- 2002 Sep 20, The
Colombian air force bombarded two rebel camps in northwest Colombia,
killing an estimated 200 insurgents.
(AP, 9/20/02)
2002 Sep 26, In Colombia
prosecutors accused 71 police officers, including a former top
anti-drug official, of taking more than $2 million in U.S. aid.
(AP, 9/26/02)
2002 Oct 6, In Colombia Jose
Arroyave, a regional commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia (FARC), was among 7 rebels killed in a military offensive.
(AP, 10/7/02)
2002 Oct 8, In Colombia heavily
armed police in tanks and on foot raided one of Medellin's most
dangerous neighborhoods in an effort to regain control from leftist
rebels and their rivals, the right-wing paramilitaries.
(AP, 10/9/02)
2002 Oct 16, In Colombia more than
1,000 police and soldiers backed by helicopter gunships stormed Comuna
13, a violence-plagued neighborhood in Medellin, exchanging heavy fire
with leftist rebels. Authorities said at least nine people were killed,
including a 16-year-old boy. In 2009 Diego Fernando Murillo, a
Colombian warlord awaiting sentencing in New York City after pleading
guilty to drug-trafficking charges, said former army chief Gen. Mario
Montoya mounted the joint operation with his illegal, far-right militia.
(AP, 10/16/02)(SFC, 10/17/02,
p.A16)(www.colombiajournal.org/colombia137.htm)(AP, 3/3/09)
2002 Oct 18, In Columbia FARC
rebels shot and killed Luis Antonio Motta (42), the mayor, and two town
councilmen of Campoalegre, after earlier telling them to resign or face
execution.
(AP, 10/20/02)
2002 Oct 21, In Colombia Air Force
planes bombed guerrillas on their way to attack a western town, killing
70 of them.
(AP, 10/21/02)
2002 Oct 22, In Colombia a bomb
exploded outside police headquarters in Bogotá, killing two
people and wounding nearly a dozen more.
(AP, 10/22/02)
2002 Oct 22, The Colombian navy
seized 2.75 tons of cocaine when officials intercepted a speedboat on
the high seas.
(AP, 10/22/02)
2002 Oct 26, In Colombia 5
civilians were killed by rebels near Bogotá.
(AP, 10/27/02)
2002 Oct 28, In Colombia a car
bomb set in front of a school killed 2 police officers and wounded 11
others, just hours before President Alvaro Uribe visited Arauca.
(AP, 10/28/02)
2002 Oct 29, In Colombia suspected
rebels killed seven people, including a teenage girl, in scattered
attacks over two days.
(AP, 10/29/02)
2002 Nov 7, In Concordia,
Colombia, some 500 men and women sacked the buildings of the local
government offices, political offices, and state phone operations in
response to the murder of mayoral candidate Eugenio Escalante (47) by
the AUC.
(SFC, 11/19/02, p.A12)
2002 Nov 9, In Colombia a teenager
(17) hurled a grenade at a bar in Medellin, killing two people and
injuring 18 others.
(AP, 11/10/02)
2002 Nov 11, Jorge Enrique
Jimenez, one of Latin America's leading bishops, was kidnapped along
with Rev. Desiderio Orejuela as they went to hold a religious service
in central Colombia.
(AP, 11/11/02)
2002 Nov 11, Colombian soldiers
killed 4 members of a right-wing paramilitary group and seven leftist
rebels during fighting in separate incidents.
(AP, 11/12/02)
2002 Nov 15, In Colombia Bishop
Jorge Enrique Jimenez and Rev. Desiderio Orjuela were freed by army
troops in a gun battle that left one rebel captor dead and 2 captured.
(AP, 11/16/02)
2002 Nov 24, The Central Colombian
Pipeline, known by its Spanish acronym Ocensa, had to be shut down
after an attack near the town of Aguazul.
(AP, 11/25/02)
2002 Nov 29, In Colombia the AUC,
the largest right-wing paramilitary group, announced that it would
begin a unilateral cease-fire Dec 1.
(AP, 11/29/02)
2002 Dec 1, Colombia's largest
right-wing paramilitary group began a unilateral cease-fire in its
long-running battle against leftist rebels.
(AP, 12/1/03)
2002 Dec 4, Jesus Antonio
Nunez, mayor of the western Colombian town of Ambalema, was
assassinated, apparently after going to a meeting with the country's
main rebel group. He was the 13th mayor killed this year.
(AP, 12/5/02)
2002 Dec 8, The Colombian air
force bombed a rebel camp and claimed about 40 guerrillas were killed.
(AP, 12/8/02)
2002 Dec 9, In Bogotá,
Colombia, a car bomb exploded near a police command post, during lunch
hour, injuring at least 58 passers-by.
(AP, 12/9/02)
2002 Dec 10, The Colombian army
reported that at least 8 right-wing militia members were killed by
leftist guerrillas near Tierradentro. A local clinic reported at least
28 militia members dead along with 2 rebels.
(SFC, 12/11/02, p.A13)
2002 Dec 13, In Colombia 2 bombs
exploded in Bogotá, one targeting a senator in his office and
another hitting a luxury residential hotel where lawmakers stay. At
least 16 people were wounded in the bombings.
(AP, 12/14/02)
2002 Dec 20, Colombia's senate
extended a measure that gives the government emergency powers in its
battle against outlawed armed groups. Suspected ELN rebels opened fire
on a police station and set off a car bomb in an attack in eastern
Colombia that left four people dead and 17 wounded.
(AP, 12/21/02)
2002 Dec 22, Suspected Colombian
rebels blew up a bus carrying workers to a U.S.-run oil field, killing
two and wounding 11.
(AP, 12/23/02)
2002 Dec 24, Suspected members of
Colombia's largest paramilitary group (AUC) killed two police officers
and wounded another in southwest Colombia.
(AP, 12/25/02)
2002 Dec 31, In Colombia at least
12 people, including eight civilians, were killed in attacks by
suspected rebels around the country.
(AP, 1/1/03)
2002 Robin Kirk authored “More
Terrible Than Death,” an account of the violence in Colombia.
(WSJ, 1/16/03, p.D8)
2002 The Colombia coffee
federation, set up in 1927, began opening local coffee shops under the
Valdez name. Juan Valdez, an idealized coffee farmer, and his mule
Conchita became the public face of Colombian coffee in the 1960s.
(Econ, 10/1/05, p.37)
2003 Jan 7, In Colombia rebels
ambushed a police convoy near the capital, killing at least 8 officers
and wounding 5 in a bold, daylight attack.
(AP, 1/7/03)
2003 Jan 9, In northeast Colombia
rebels detonated a car bomb that killed 4 people in a 2nd attack in 2
days.
(WSJ, 1/10/03, p.A1)
2003 Jan 16, In Colombia a car
bomb exploded outside the attorney general's office in Medellin,
killing three people and wounding at least 19. Gunmen entered the tiny
village of Dos Quebradas and killed a dozen people, leaving surviving
villagers terrified and waiting for government forces to arrive. At
least 16 people were killed by FARC rebels in villages around San
Carlos.
(AP, 1/16/03)(AP, 1/18/03)(AP, 1/19/03)
2003 Jan 18, In southern Colombia
FARC guerrillas blew up every home in the hamlet of La Union.
(AP, 1/19/03)
2003 Jan 19, Colombian AUC gunmen
kidnapped three Americans (Robert Y. Pelton, Mark Wedeven and Megan A.
Smaker) just north of the Colombian border in Panama. The writer and 2
hikers were released Jan 23.
(AP, 1/22/03)(SFC, 1/24/03, p.A14)
2003 Jan 20, In northern Colombia
FARC rebels ambushed a pickup truck carrying policemen, killing 6
officers and their civilian driver in a hail of gunfire and grenades.
(AP, 1/20/03)
2003 Jan 20, An Organization of
American States report accused Nicaragua of negligence for authorizing
a deal that allowed 3,000 Kalashnikov rifles meant for Panama to go to
a Colombian paramilitary militia.
(AP, 1/21/03)
2003 Jan 21, Colombian rebels in
Arauca state kidnapped an American photographer and a British reporter,
the first time foreign journalists were abducted in Colombia's
four-decade-long civil war. Scott Dalton and Ruth Morris were freed Feb
1.
(AP, 2/1/03)(AP, 1/21/04)
2003 Feb 7, In Bogotá,
Colombia, a car bomb tore through the El Nogal social club, killing 36
people, wounding 162. FARC rebels were blamed.
(AP, 2/8/03)(SFC, 2/8/03, p.A12)(AP, 2/7/04)
2003 Feb 11, The private plane
carrying Colombian Minister of Social Welfare, Juan Luis Londono, was
found crashed in the mountains north of the town of Cajamarca, 85 miles
west of Bogotá. It had disappeared 5 days earlier.
(AP, 2/11/03)
2003 Feb 13, In southern Colombia
a U.S. government plane carrying 5 people crashed short of an airport
in rebel territory, and those on board may have been spirited away by
leftist rebels. 2 days later an American and a Colombian were executed
at close range.
(AP, 2/13/03)(AP, 2/15/03)
2003 Feb 14, In Colombia a massive
explosion rocked the southern city of Neiva as police searched a house
for explosives. 15 people died and about 30 were wounded.
(AP, 2/14/03)
2003 Feb 18, In Colombia
heavy fighting left at least 29 leftist rebels and right-wing
paramilitary dead.
(WSJ, 2/19/03, p.A1)
2003 Feb 26, A Colombian
army Black Hawk helicopter carrying 23 crewmembers and elite troops
crashed in the northern mountains. All aboard were feared dead.
(AP, 2/27/03)
2003 Mar 5, In northeastern
Colombia a bomb set off by suspected rebels ripped through a shopping
center in Cucuta, killing 7 people, injuring at least 20 and setting
the complex on fire.
(AP, 3/5/03)
2003 Mar 18, In Colombia gunmen
killed Luis Eduardo Alfonso Parada (27), print and radio journalist,
outside his office in the eastern state of Arauca. Alfonso had reported
on alleged corruption in Arauca and said he was receiving death
threats. On Dec 30, 2009, prosecutors ordered the preventative
detention of Jose Ruben Pena Tobon, a paramilitary commander of the
right-wing paramilitary bloc that killed Alfonso.
(AP, 3/19/03)(AP, 12/30/09)
2003 Mar 19, Mudslides in a city
in Colombia's mountainous coffee-growing region left at least 11 people
dead and destroyed dozens of houses.
(AP, 3/20/03)
2003 Mar 25, A light plane
carrying 3 Americans crashed in southern Colombia while searching for 3
other Americans captured by rebels last month.
(AP, 3/26/03)
2003 Mar 27, In Colombia FARC land
mines killed 11 soldiers near Aracataca, the birthplace of Nobel
laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
(AP, 3/27/03)
2003 Apr 3, The Colombia
government said it is handing over about 14,000 acres of farmland
seized from drug traffickers to poor farmers, marking Pres. Alvaro
Uribe's first effort at agrarian reform. Efforts to cancel the property
rights of drug traffickers were to be stepped up along with the
transfer of some 750,000 acres of their property to peasants.
(AP, 4/3/03)(WSJ, 4/4/03, p.A1)
2003 Apr 7, Juan Emeterio Rivas,
Colombia radio journalist for station Calor Estereo, was shot and
killed by gunmen after he told his police body guards to take time off.
Rivas' body and that of an engineering student were discovered in a
rural area outside Barrancabermeja. Julio Cesar Ardila, the mayor of
Barrancabermeja, was later charged with ordering the murder. He was
among three men convicted in the murder of Jose Emeterio Rivas. In 2009
Ardila was sentenced to 28 years in prison for ordering the murder.
(AP, 4/7/03)(AP, 7/12/03)(AP, 1/22/09)
2003 Apr 19, In Colombian rebels
kidnapped eight people on Mucura Island.
(AP, 4/20/03)
2003 Apr 20, In Colombia the army
said it killed 16 members of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia) in eastern Antioquia state.
(AP, 4/20/03)
2003 Apr 23, Colombia and
Venezuela agreed Wednesday to build a $120 million pipeline to deliver
natural gas to northeastern Colombia and western Venezuela.
(AP, 4/23/03)
2003 Apr 26, A Colombian school
teacher was found shot to death, days after she was kidnapped,
allegedly by leftist rebels who sought to force her father to kill an
enemy fighter.
(AP, 4/26/03)
2003 Apr 28, In Colombia Rafael
Rojas, a 20-year veteran of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
(FARC) and the commander of the group's 46th Front, surrendered and
urged his former comrades to do the same.
(AP, 4/28/03)
2003 Apr 29, In Colombia the high
court has stripped President Alvaro Uribe of the emergency powers he
assumed last year to battle leftist rebels.
(AP, 4/30/03)
2003 May 5, In Colombia rebels
killed Guillermo Gaviria, a state governor, Gilberto Echeverri, a
former defense minister and 8 other hostages as army troops tried to
rescue them; three hostages survived. In 2008 a court sentenced 9 rebel
leaders in absentia to 40 years in prison for the killings.
(SFC, 5/6/03, p.A3)(AP, 4/9/08)
2003 May 10, In Colombia rebels in
overnight attacks bombed a reservoir and energy towers, killing 3
security guards and cutting water to Cali and power to Buenaventura.
(AP, 5/10/03)
2003 May 22, In Colombia
Government troops killed at least 29 rebels in a two-day battle in
eastern Colombia.
(AP, 5/22/03)
2003 May 24, In Colombia Capt.
Leonardo Moore disappeared while driving from Bogota to the southern
city of Cali. He was freed in 2007 following a skirmish with ELN rebels.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2003 May 27, In Colombia police
arrested Saul Nieto, known by the nom de guerre "Ezequiel." He was in
charge of a group of urban fighters of the National Liberation Army, or
ELN, in Medellin. 10 other rebels were also detained.
(AP, 5/28/03)
2003 Jun 14, A Colombian air force
commander said leftist rebel camps were bombarded and that an estimated
67 insurgents were killed in southern Meta and Cauca state.
(AP, 6/14/03)
2003 Jun 16, In Colombia Pres.
Alvaro Uribe helped deploy the nation's latest weapon in a nearly
40-year civil war, sending 10,000 peasant soldiers back to their
villages to confront rebels and paramilitary fighters.
(AP, 6/17/03)
2003 Jun 19, Thousands of
Colombians marched on the presidential palace to defend their jobs
against what they described as a drive to turn the country's public
services into multinational corporations.
(AP, 6/19/03)
2003 Jun 24, In central Colombia
the bullet-riddled bodies of industrialist Helmut Bickenbach (68) and
his wife Doris Gil (65), Miss Columbia (1957), were found by an army
patrol lying in a ditch, with their hands bound. They had been
kidnapped 6 months earlier.
(AP, 6/25/03)
2003 Jul 15, The Colombian
government and right-wing paramilitary fighters agreed to begin peace
talks.
(AP, 7/16/03)
2003 Jul 16, Salvatore Mancuso,
head of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, said the largest
paramilitary group agreed to lay down weapons because of the
government's success in retaking control of wide swaths of land from
leftist rebels.
(AP, 7/18/03)
2003 Aug 8, In eastern Colombia
suspected rebels set off a car bomb near the Saravena airport, killing
five civilians, including two children.
(AP, 8/8/03)
2003 Aug 22, Suspected FARC rebels
killed Carlos Benavidez (25), a journalist and wounded another, after
the vehicle in which the reporters were traveling failed to stop at a
roadblock in southern Colombia.
(AP, 8/24/03)
2003 Aug 24, In central Colombia a
rebel bomb exploded as passengers were disembarking from a boat,
killing six people, including the woman carrying the device.
(AP, 8/24/03)
2003 Sep 4, British and Colombian
authorities said they had seized nearly $7 billion in securities in
London from an international drug and money-laundering ring.
Authorities arrested 14 alleged members of the ring, 10 in England, two
in Colombia and two in Ecuador.
(AP, 9/4/03)
2003 Sep 6, In central Colombia
soldiers killed at least 25 suspected rebels and paramilitary fighters
in three military operations.
(AP, 9/6/03)
2003 Sep 7, Fighting in northeast
Colombia killed seven army soldiers and at least eight rebels.
(AP, 9/8/03)
2003 Sep 10, In northeast Colombia
a bomb strapped to a horse exploded in a plaza in a small town, killing
at least eight people, including a toddler, and injuring 20 others.
(AP, 9/10/03)
2003 Sep 12, In Colombia 4
Israelis, 2 Britons, a German and a Spaniard were kidnapped near
archaeological ruins high in the Sierra Nevada, about 465 miles north
of Bogota. 2 of the tourists were freed Nov 24. The other 4 were
released Dec 22. In 2004 the German government billed Reinhilt Weigel
$17,630 to cover the cost of a helicopter used to bring her part of the
way home, after she was released by rebels. In 2009 she lost her appeal.
(AP, 9/15/03)(WSJ, 11/25/03, p.A1)(AP,
12/23/03)(SFC, 5/29/09, p.A2)
2003 Sep 15, The Colombian army
reported that its forces in Operation Scorpion killed at least 17
suspected members of a rebel special forces unit.
(AP, 9/15/03)
2003 Sep 18, A human rights group
estimated that 11,000 children are fighting in Colombia's civil war.
(SFC, 9/19/03, p.A15)
2003 Sep 21, A US DynCorp plane
crashed while fumigating cocaine-producing crops in volatile northern
Colombia, killing the American pilot: "preliminary information
indicates the aircraft was struck by hostile ground fire." The military
contractor said it was the 5th shot down by rebels.
(AP, 9/22/03)(WSJ, 9/23/03, p.A1)
2003 Sep 28, In Colombia a
remote-controlled bomb on a motorcycle exploded as revelers left a
disco in a Florencia, killing at least 13 people and wounding 48 others.
(AP, 9/29/04)
2003 Sep 30, In Colombia assassins
riding a motorbike killed Jose Castillo, a candidate for mayor in
Soledad, marking the 15th candidate killed as elections approach.
(AP, 9/30/03)
2003 Oct 6, In southeastern
Colombia FARC guerrillas assassinated two town mayors, Orlando Hoyos
and Jaime Zambrano, after they met with rebels in a mountain hideout.
(AP, 10/8/03)
2003 Oct 8, In Colombia a car bomb
exploded in a black-market shopping district in downtown Bogota,
killing at least six people and wounding 12.
(AP, 10/8/03)
2003 Oct 10, Near Genova,
Colombia, suspected leftist guerrillas gunned down two candidates for
upcoming state and mayoral elections. Police found the bodies of Jairo
Gomez, a mayoral contender in the city of Genova, and Julio Cesar
Castennanos, the next day.
(AP, 10/11/03)
2003 Oct 12, In Colombia
government forces battled rebels and right-wing paramilitaries in
several locations in heavy fighting that killed 27 gunmen and two
soldiers.
(AP, 10/13/03)
2003 Oct 16, In northern Colombia
suspected paramilitary gunmen shot and killed Esperanza Amaris
(40), a women's rights activist.
(AP, 10/17/03)
2003 Oct 19, Colombian military
killed Edgar Gustavo Navarro, the No. 2 leader of FARC, along with 10
others. The guerrilla commander was accused of kidnapping 3 US military
contractors and carrying out a string of assassinations and bombings.
(AP, 10/21/03)
2003 Oct 21, In Colombia police
and soldiers rounded up at least 29 politicians, ahead of local
elections, with suspected ties to leftist guerrillas in pre-dawn raids
across Arauca state.
(AP, 10/21/03)(WSJ, 10/22/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 22, In Colombia a bomb
attached to a motorcycle exploded damaging the state prosecutor's
offices outside Medellin.
(AP, 10/22/03)
2003 Oct 25, In Colombia voting
began on a referendum proposed by Pres. Uribe that aimed to cut
government spending, reduce the size of Congress and fight political
corruption. Guerrillas attacked an army base, ambushed police and
launched other attacks, killing 13 people. The referendum was seen as a
test of President Alvaro Uribe's support.
(AP, 10/25/03)
2003 Oct 26, Colombians elected
state and municipal leaders despite the bloody campaign period in which
dozens of candidates were killed. Bogota residents elected Eduardo
Garzon, a former Communist union leader, as their mayor in municipal
elections. The victory was seen as a further headache for hardline
Pres. Alvaro Uribe, coming a day after he suffered a defeat in a
sweeping referendum.
(AP, 10/27/03)(Econ, 11/1/03, p.35)
2003 Nov 2, Colombian troops
killed Luis Alexis Castellanos Garzon a FARC regional rebel commander,
the fifth guerrilla leader slain in less than a month.
(AP, 11/4/03)
2003 Nov 8, In Colombia Arcangel
Clavijo, a member of the Liberal Party, was shot and killed in a
nightclub near Cali.
(AP, 11/9/03)
2003 Nov 9, Martha Lucia Ramirez,
Colombia's first woman defense minister, resigned and she refused to
take questions from reporters.
(AP, 11/10/03)
2003 Nov 11, Colombia's housing
and environment minister stepped down, becoming the 3rd member of
President Alvaro Uribe's Cabinet forced out in a week.
(AP, 11/11/03)
2003 Nov 11, The commander of the
Colombian National Police and five other senior police officers
resigned following evidence that the lawmen in Medellin dined in the
most exclusive restaurants, bought expensive jewelry and staged lavish
parties, all on government money.
(AP, 11/12/03)
2003 Nov 11, In Colombia a radio
talk show host was shot dead outside her home in the coastal city of
Santa Marta.
(AP, 11/11/03)
2003 Nov 12, In Colombia Gen.
Jorge Enrique Mora, commander of the armed forces, became the latest
senior official to quit his post. President Alvaro Uribe chose an old
friend, Jorge Alberto Uribe, as the new defense minister.
(AP, 11/13/03)
2003 Nov 14, In Colombia some 800
members of the Cacique Nutibara block of the AUC paramilitary said they
would lay down their arms on Nov 25.
(SFC, 11/15/03, p.A3)
2003 Nov 15, In Colombia suspected
FARC rebels threw grenades at two crowded bars in Bogota’s "Zona Rosa,"
or Pink Zone nightclub district, injuring at least 42 people. In 2004
Arturo Montano (26) was convicted of terrorism by Bogota's 5th Penal
Court for the attacks.
(AP, 11/16/03)(AP, 10/13/04)
2003 Nov 21, In Colombia Rev. Jose
Rubin Rodriguez, a Catholic priest who was missing for a week, was
found shot to death. The army captured a suspected rebel who it says
coordinated the kidnapping of eight foreign backpackers two months ago.
(AP, 11/22/03)
2003 Nov 25, In Colombia 800
fighters of a feared right-wing militia piled their weapons and
ammunition on the floor in a disarmament ceremony touted by the
government as a first step toward ending four decades of war. The army
recovered a body believed to be that of a Japanese businessman abducted
more than three years ago.
(AP, 11/25/03)
2003 Nov 25, In Colombia Abelardo
Forero (91), a journalist and politician who tried to soothe a nation
wracked by violence, died. In 1978, Forero launched a television show,
"The Past in the Present," that brought to life Colombia's tumultuous
history. The award-wining program ran for 15 years.
(AP, 11/26/03)
2003 Dec 7, A group of 160
Colombian paramilitary fighters handed over their weapons, becoming the
second faction of outlawed right-wing militias to do so in less than
two weeks.
(AP, 12/8/03)
2003 Dec 15, In northern Colombia
rebel leaders said they will release four Israelis and a Briton during
the next several days, after holding the foreigners hostage for three
months.
(AP, 12/16/03)
2003 Dec 19, Colombia's attorney
general charged the crew of a military helicopter with involuntary
manslaughter for killing 17 civilians with a bomb during a 1998 clash
with rebels.
(AP, 12/21/03)
2003 Dec 22, Colombian rebels
freed four Israelis and a Briton held hostage for 101 days.
(AP, 12/22/04)
2003 Dec 23, In Colombia a bus
explosion that killed at least four people and injured more than 30
others was called an accident.
(AP, 12/24/03)
2003 Dec 30, In northern Colombia
leftist rebels attacked Pozo Azul, a village in Bolivar state
controlled by right-wing paramilitaries, killed 39 militia fighters and
a villager.
(AP, 12/31/03)
2003 Colombia’s Pres. Uribe
launched the “Patriot Plan“ to clear FARC rebels from the mountains
around Bogota.
(Econ, 7/17/04, p.36)
2003 The Kankuamo Indians of
northern Colombia, numbering about 6,000, lost 56 members to
paramilitaries, FARC and criminals.
(Econ, 9/18/04, p.44)
2004 Jan 1, In Colombia Luis
Eduardo Garzon took the helm as the first leftist mayor of Bogota.
(AP, 1/2/04)
2004 Jan 3, Ecuadorian authorities
captured Ricardo Ovidio Palmera Pineda, aka Simon Trinidad, one of the
7 members who make up the ruling secretariat of the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia, or FARC. He was arrested at dawn in a medical
clinic in Ecuador.
(AP, 1/3/04)
2004 Jan 7, In Colombia FARC
rebels killed 8 peasant farmers because they refused to sell them their
coca crops.
(AP, 1/9/04)
2004 Jan 9, In Colombia a FARC
rebel, aka Jeremias, suspected of killing a Japanese hostage last year
died in a shootout with the army outside Bogota.
(AP, 1/9/04)
2004 Jan 10, Panamanian officials
arrested Arcangel de Jesus Henao Montoya, a top leader of the Colombian
Norte de Valle drug cartel, in the southern city of Torti and took him
to Panama City. He was soon handed over to US officials.
(AP, 1/11/04)(SFC, 1/15/04, p.A1)
2004 Jan 12, In northwest Colombia
suspected FARC rebels using a grenade launcher and guns killed at least
five paramilitary fighters inside a bar in Anza.
(AP, 1/13/04)
2004 Jan 29, In Colombia gunmen
shot and killed Marta Lucia Hernandez, the director of one of
Colombia's most famous national parks. It was the second high-profile
attack in the coastal city of Santa Marta this week.
(AP, 1/30/04)
2004 Feb 21, Colombian troops
clashed with leftist rebels and outlawed paramilitaries in separate
offensives, killing 38 fighters. Ten soldiers were also killed.
(AP, 2/23/04)
2004 Feb 22, At least 66 people
died in weekend clashes among Colombian troops, leftist rebels and
right-wing paramilitary forces.
(AP, 2/23/04)
2004 Feb, Marc Gonsalves, Tom
Howes and Keith Stansell were captured by the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia (FARC), when their surveillance plane went down in a
rebel stronghold in the country's south.
(AP, 3/10/07)
2004 Mar 9, Colombian troops
killed at least 12 leftist guerrillas and captured 40 others in
separate offensives across the country.
(AP, 3/10/04)
2004 Mar 16, In Colombia Luis
Hipolito Ospina, a senior member of the leftist Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia, or FARC, was arrested in Bogota.
(AP, 3/17/04)
2004 Mar 19, In southwest Colombia
soldiers searching for rebels accidentally ambushed a police unit,
killing seven police officers and four civilian prisoners.
Investigators looked into all possibilities, including whether the
platoon, the police unit, or both, were involved in criminal activities
(AP, 3/21/04)(AP, 4/9/04)
2004 Mar 24, In Colombia warplanes
preparing to bomb a paramilitary camp abandoned their mission after
members of the outlawed Central Bolivar Bloc (BCB) used villagers as
human shields. A soldier and 14 paramilitary gunmen were killed in
subsequent firefights.
(AP, 3/26/04)
2004 Mar 25, In Colombia attackers
shot and killed three retired police officers, at least two of whom
were suspected of having links to drug traffickers.
(AP, 3/26/04)
2004 Apr 1, A Colombian man,
Carlos Gamarra-Murillo (53), was arrested for allegedly trying to buy
$4 million in machine guns, grenade launchers and other weapons for a
leftist rebel group. The suspect wanted to pay in cocaine and cash.
(AP, 4/2/04)
2004 Apr 1, In Colombia gunmen
riding a motorcycle killed Carlos Bernal, a regional leader of
Colombia's main left-leaning political party.
(AP, 4/2/04)
2004 Apr 10, In Colombia a patrol,
searching for rebels of the FARC, gunned down a peasant family carrying
a sick baby to hospital. Three youths, aged 14 to 17, and the
six-month-old were among the dead.
(AP, 4/13/04)
2004 Apr 12, In Colombia
government soldiers accidentally killed three fellow troops after
mistaking them for outlawed paramilitary gunmen near Puerto Gaitan.
(AP, 4/13/04)
2004 Apr 14, Colombian President
Alvaro Uribe launched a campaign to persuade Congress to amend the
constitution to allow him to run for a second term in 2006.
(AP, 4/15/04)
2004 Apr 15, Colombian police
seized dozens of estates and homes belonging to reputed drug kingpin
Diego Montoya.
(AP, 4/15/04)
2004 Apr 19, The annual
environmental Goldman Prizes were awarded in SF. Winners included Libia
R. Grueso Castelblanco of Colombia for her work in securing territorial
rights for rural communities.
(SFC, 4/19/04, p.B5)
2004 Apr 28, In Colombia a
construction crew's backhoe tumbled down a hillside onto a school bus
on the highway below, killing 21 children and two adults and injuring
36 others.
(AP, 4/29/04)
2004 Apr, In Colombia Jesus
Ignacio Roldan killed Carlos Castano, right-wing paramilitary leader,
near the town of Valencia. In 2006 Roldan says he killed Castano on the
order of Castano's older brother, Vicente Castano. [see Sep 1, 2006]
(AP, 9/1/06)
2004 May 2, In Colombia 2 small
bombs exploded outside the Ministry of Social Affairs in Bogota,
injuring nine people and shattering windows.
(AP, 5/2/04)
2004 May 4, In Bogota Famed
Colombian painter Fernando Botero opened a new exhibition that
graphically depicts the bloodshed of his nation's war and the cruel
crime of kidnapping.
(AP, 5/4/04)
2004 May 13, Colombia's outlawed
right-wing paramilitary groups agreed to move into a special zone as
they negotiate eventual demobilization.
(AP, 5/13/04)
2004 May 18, Colombia, Ecuador and
Peru opened negotiations in Cartagena for a free trade accord with the
United States as anti-riot police clashed with protesters who say the
pact would lead to job losses in the South American nations.
(AP, 5/18/04)
2004 May 18, Colombian troops near
La Salina seized 800 bullets soaked in liquid cyanide after clashes
with FARC rebels left 2 guerrillas dead.
(AP, 5/20/04)
2004 May 20, In Colombia 3 bombs
exploded in 2 parts of Medellin, killing at least four people and
wounding 15. A wave of attacks marked the 40th anniversary of FARC.
(AP, 5/21/04)(AP, 5/22/04)
2004 May 22, A bomb planted by
suspected rebels exploded in a crowded discotheque in northwest
Colombia, killing at least six people and wounding 82.
(AP, 5/23/04)
2004 May 28, In Colombia Carlos
Mauricio Garcia, also known as "Rodrigo" or "Double Zero," was shot in
the head five times by assassins as he left a Santa Marta supermarket.
The former right-wing paramilitary leader objected to the militia's
involvement in drug trafficking.
(AP, 5/30/04)
2004 Jun 4, In Colombia Francisco
Galan, jailed leader of the ELN, was granted a 1-day parole to address
the Senate. He denounced the problem of landmines and called for an end
to the country’s violence.
(Econ, 6/12/04, p.36)
2004 Jun 15, In Colombia suspected
leftist rebels raided a ranch near La Gabarra in one of the biggest
cocaine-producing regions, tied up 34 coca pickers with the hammocks
they had been sleeping in, and gunned them all down.
(AP, 6/16/04)(Econ, 6/19/04, p.38)
2004 Jun, Chiquita Brands Int’l.,
a Cincinnati-based banana company, sold its Colombian banana operations.
(SFC, 3/15/07, p.A5)
2004 Jul 10, In northwest Colombia
suspected leftist guerrillas shot and killed seven rural peasants in an
attack on a small village.
(AP, 7/12/04)
2004 Jul 23, In northwest Colombia
police seized 4 1/2 tons of cocaine with an estimated street value of
$90 million.
(AP, 7/23/04)
2004 Jul 25, Colombia's ELN rebel
group kidnapped Misael Vaca Ramirez, the Catholic Bishop of Yopal, but
planned to set him free bearing a political message for the government.
(AP, 7/26/04)
2004 Jul 28, In Colombia Marxist
guerrillas freed a Roman Catholic bishop. 3 top commanders of
right-wing death squads spoke before Congress under safe-conduct passes
and professed commitments to peace talks.
(AP, 7/28/04)(SFC, 7/29/04, p.A13)
2004 Jul 30, In Colombia Maria
Elena Rios (25) was shot to death in the head and back in a hillside
slum of Medellin. An internal army investigation absolved Capt. Jhon
Jairo Cano and four soldiers of any wrongdoing. The investigation was
reopened in 2007 along with 130 other investigations of killings of
civilians presented as deaths of leftist rebels in action, as the US
Congress refuses to ratify a bilateral trade pact over concerns about
human rights in Colombia.
(AP, 6/10/07)
2004 Aug
3, A car bomb planted by suspected Colombian rebels ripped apart three
passing police vehicles, killing nine officers.
(AP, 8/4/03)
2004 Aug 11, In northeast Colombia
suspected rebel gunmen lined up and killed nine coca pickers on a
remote ranch.
(AP, 8/12/04)
2004 Aug 13, In Colombia 3
outlawed paramilitary factions agreed to disarm immediately.
(AP, 8/13/04)
2004 Aug 26, In Colombia a bomb
exploded in front of a beauty salon in Bogotá as a police car
drove by, killing two officers and wounding two other people.
(AP, 8/27/04)
2004 Aug 27, In eastern Colombia
rebels killed a mayor and a former town council member after abducting
them at a roadblock.
(AP, 8/28/04)
2004 Sep 4, A gunfight broke out
in a church in a cocaine-producing region of southern Colombia, leaving
at least three people dead and 14 wounded.
(AP, 9/5/04)
2004 Sep 6, Colombia’s attorney
general's office ordered the arrest of a military officer and two
soldiers in connection with the killing of three union officials last
month.
(AP, 9/6/04)
2004 Sep 14, More than 35,000
Colombian Indians marched in a violence-wracked region to protest
attacks against Indians and a free-trade pact pursued by the US.
(AP, 9/14/04)
2004 Sep 17, Backed by 4,000
police officers, the Colombian government seized control of the
nation's largest pharmacy chain, saying its creation and expansion had
been funded by cocaine trafficking.
(AP, 9/17/04)
2004 Sep 26, Colombia's army
killed at least 13 right-wing fighters during sustained combat with a
renegade paramilitary group that has refused to participate in
government peace talks.
(AP, 9/27/04)
2004 Oct 3, In southwest Colombia
suspected drug dealers opened fire on a rival gang at a ranch, killing
at least 10 people, including a toddler and a pregnant woman.
(AP, 10/4/04)
2004 Oct 24, Colombia blew up its
remaining 6,800 stockpiled land mines, winning the praise of Jordan's
visiting Queen Noor who said the move took courage given that the
nation is still fighting an internal conflict.
(AP, 10/25/04)
2004 Nov 12, In southern Colombia
suspected Marxist rebels gunned down Mario Canal (43), a state
attorney, who had been prosecuting captured guerrilla commanders.
(AP, 11/13/04)
2004 Nov 22, Pres. Bush traveled
to Colombia following the summit in Chile.
(WSJ, 11/22/04, p.A1)
2004 Nov 22, In southern Colombia
army troops killed Humberto Valbuena, head of the Teofilo Forero unit
of FARC blamed for a string of high-profile attacks and kidnappings.
(AP, 11/23/04)
2004 Dec 4, Colombian drug kingpin
Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela was flown to the US, becoming the most
powerful Colombian trafficker ever extradited to face US justice.
(AP, 12/4/04)
2004 Dec 11, Ramiro Velez,
regional leader of the National Liberation Army, or ELN, the smaller of
Colombia's two rebel groups, was arrested during an operation in
Chachaui. He is suspected of masterminding the May 30, 1999, kidnapping
of an entire church congregation from a Roman Catholic church in Cali.
(AP, 12/12/04)(SFC, 12/13/04, p.A3)
2004 Dec 13, Rodrigo Granda, the
principle international spokesperson for the most powerful
revolutionary guerrilla group in Latin America, the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia (FARC), was kidnapped in broad daylight (4pm) in the
center of Caracas.
(www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=10216)(Econ,
1/22/05, p.36)
2004 Dec 16, A Colombian court
convicted three IRA-linked men of training Colombian rebels in
terrorist tactics and sentenced them to up to 17 1/2 years in prison.
(AP, 12/16/04)
2004 Dec 17, Colombian authorities
revealed that they had lost track in June of three IRA-linked men,
convicted this week of training Marxist rebels in terrorist tactics.
(AP, 12/18/04)
2004 Dec 24, A church official
said Marxist rebels in western Colombia had killed Javier Francisco
Montoya, a Catholic priest who disappeared earlier this month on a
pastoral mission in a rebel-controlled jungle region.
(AP, 12/24/04)
2004 Dec 24, Marxist FARC rebels
abducted at least eight Colombian tourists celebrating Christmas at a
lakeside spa in the northwest.
(AP, 12/26/04)
2004 Dec 28, In Colombia police
captured a reputed leader of the Norte del Valle drug cartel.
(AP, 12/28/04)
2004 Dec 31, Ricardo Palmera (54)
became the first leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia,
or FARC, to be sent to face prosecution in a U.S. federal court.
(AP, 1/1/05)
2004 Dec 31, In Colombia suspected
Marxist rebels massacred 16 peasants, including women and children, in
a remote area in lawless Arauca province.
(AP, 1/1/05)
2004 Steven Dudley authored
“Walking Ghosts: Murder and Guerrilla Politics in Colombia,” a history
of the FARC.
(Econ, 4/10/04, p.71)
2005 Jan 1, Colombia was forecast
for 3.7% annual GDP growth with a population at 46 million and GDP per
head at $2,130.
(Econ, 1/8/05, p.93)
2005 Jan 11, Gunmen on a motorbike
in northern Colombia killed Julio Hernando Palacios, a radio journalist
known for his tough talk against corruption.
(AP, 1/11/05)
2005 Jan 13, A Black Hawk
helicopter crashed during a counternarcotics mission in the jungles of
southwest Colombia, killing all 20 soldiers aboard.
(AP, 1/13/05)
2005 Jan 14, A mentally disturbed
soldier killed five of his fellow troopers during a shooting spree at
an army base in southwest Colombia.
(AP, 1/14/05)
2005 Jan 14, Venezuela’s President
Hugo Chavez said that diplomatic and commercial relations with Colombia
would be put on hold until it apologizes for paying bounty hunters to
abduct rebel leader Rodrigo Granda from inside Venezuela.
(AP, 1/14/05)(Econ, 1/22/05, p.36)
2005 Jan 18, More than 900
right-wing paramilitary fighters surrendered their weapons, but a
leading international rights group criticized the demobilization
process and said the Colombian government is letting war criminals off
the hook.
(AP, 1/19/05)
2005 Jan 28, Colombia and
Venezuela announced a settlement in a bitter dispute over the capture
of a Colombian rebel on Venezuelan soil.
(AP, 1/29/05)
2005 Jan 29, In Colombia
government troops discovered one of the biggest FARC rebel munitions
factories in the jungles of southern Guaviare state.
(AP, 2/2/05)
2005 Jan 30, In Colombia a
126-member unit of the United Self-Defense Forces (AUC) disbanded in
Ciudad Bolivar, 155 miles northeast of Bogota, bringing to at least
4,700 the number of fighters who have demobilized in the past two years.
(AP, 1/30/05)
2005 Feb 1, In southwest Colombia
leftist rebels attacked a Colombian Marine post with homemade rockets,
killing at least 14 soldiers and wounding about 25.
(AP, 2/1/05)
2005 Feb 2, Marxist rebels in
southern Colombia ambushed an army convoy with explosives and gunfire,
killing 8 soldiers and wounding 4 others.
(AP, 2/3/05)
2005 Feb 8, In northwest Colombia
Marxist rebels killed at least 17 soldiers during clashes, the
military's heaviest battle toll in two years. At least 11 guerrillas
also died in the fighting.
(AP, 2/9/05)(Econ, 2/26/05, p.36)
2005 Feb 13, Floods and landslides
in Colombia and Venezuela over the past few days cut a trail of
destruction through small Andean towns and killed at least 64 people.
(AP, 2/13/05)(WSJ, 2/14/05, p.A1)
2005 Feb 18, Colombia’s army chief
said troops had killed between 70 and 80 Marxist guerrillas over the
past 3 weeks in a region where the rebels operate cocaine production
factories.
(AP, 2/19/05)
2005 Feb 21, In Colombia deadly
weekend attacks left 9 people dead as rebels blacked out towns, shut
down a highway, blew up a hotel and shattered notions that the nation's
main insurgent group was on its knees.
(AP, 2/21/05)
2005 Feb 21, In Colombia 8
civilians including 3 young children and a teenage girl were massacred
near Apartado. A former mayor and a priest later blamed government
troops for the massacre. UN officials later called for an investigation.
(AP, 3/3/05)
2005 Feb 22, In Colombia
government soldiers killed eight rebels over the past 2 days and
discovered a large cache of weapons in dense southern jungles.
(AP, 2/22/05)
2005 Feb 23, Colombia's Supreme
Court authorized the extradition to the US of Miguel Rodriguez
Orejuela, who along with his brother Gilberto helped found the Cali
drug cartel. In central Colombia a leftist rebel deserter killed 7 of
his comrades before fleeing his clandestine camp.
(AP, 2/23/05)
2005 Feb 25, President Alvaro
Uribe on authorized the extradition to the US of a female commander
with Colombia's largest rebel group who was allegedly a chief of
finances for the armed organization.
(AP, 2/25/05)
2005 Feb, Sabino Mobile, an
Italian tourist visiting Colombia with his family, was kidnapped and
murdered by paramilitary gunmen. Police later arrested 9 people,
including right-wing paramilitary leader Ruben Oliverio Vera Roldan.
(AP, 3/2/05)
2005 Mar 9, Colombia extradited to
the United States a top member of the South American country's main
rebel group, a woman known by the nom de guerre of Sonia and accused of
running the insurgents' drug trafficking business.
(AP, 3/9/05)
2005 Mar 11, In Colombia Miguel
Rodriguez Orejuela, co-founder of the Cali drug cartel, was sent in
handcuffs on a plane to the US to face trial for drug trafficking and
related charges. The cartel at its peak ruled the world's cocaine
industry.
(AP, 3/11/05)
2005 Mar 23, In southern Colombia
Communist rebels ambushed a military convoy, killing 10 soldiers in a
hail of gunfire and explosions.
(AP, 3/23/05)
2005 Mar 26, A twin-engine
commercial Czech-built Let-410 airplane, crashed while taking off from
the tiny Colombian island of Old Providence, killing 8 people,
including a 3-year-old boy, and injuring six other passengers.
(AP, 3/26/05)
2005 Mar 29, Colombian President
Alvaro Uribe sought international help to end 40 years of civil war in
his country, telling the leaders of Venezuela, Brazil and Spain that
the violence is too fierce to confront without their aid.
(AP, 3/29/05)
2005 Apr 6, Colombia's president
met top Chinese leaders during a visit to boost trade, seek financing
for an oil pipeline and to promote sales of Colombian coal to fuel
China's booming economy.
(AP, 4/6/05)
2005 Apr 6, Marxist rebels
ambushed a Colombian military convoy on Wednesday, killing 17 soldiers,
the latest in a spate of bloody attacks that have undermined government
claims the rebels are being defeated.
(AP, 4/6/05)
2005 Apr 17, In Colombia FARC
rebels with homemade rockets attacked Toribio, the same town they
bombarded three days earlier, killing at least one police officer.
(AP, 4/18/05)
2005 Apr 22, In Colombia FARC
guerrillas hit the village of Jambalo with mortars and gunfire in
combat that began overnight and ended at dawn. Clashes have spread
across a 14-mile-long strip along the western face of the Central
Cordillera of the Andes.
(AP, 4/23/05)
2005 Apr 29, In Colombia
government troops consolidated their grip on Tacuejo, a mountain town
retaken from leftist rebels, and the town's Indian residents slowly
began to return despite fears of more violence.
(AP, 4/29/05)
2005 May 5, Two American soldiers
accused of arms trafficking emerged from jail and were handed over to
US officials, but a top Colombian official tried to delay their
deportation, saying a treaty granting them immunity might be invalid.
(AP, 5/5/05)(WSJ, 5/5/05, p.A1)
2005 May 12, It was reported that
Colombia’s Pres. Alvaro Uribe is creating a political party to formally
unite his followers, who until now have been known simply as
"Uribistas." The plan is being resisted by the opposition and even some
of his supporters, who worry about a political party based on one man's
hardline ideals.
(AP, 5/12/05)
2005 May 12, Alberto Santofimio,
Colombia's former justice minister, was arrested in connection with the
1989 assassination of Luis Carlos Galan, leading presidential candidate
and anti-corruption crusader killed at a campaign rally.
(AP, 5/12/05)
2005 May 12, More than 13.5 tons
of cocaine stored in underground chambers was seized near Colombia's
southwest coast.
(AP, 5/13/05)
2005 May 13, John Jairo Velasquez,
the man who directed hit teams for drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, said
that Alberto Santofimio Botero, a former top politician, was behind the
1989 assassination of Colombia’s leading presidential candidate Luis
Carlos Galan.
(AP, 5/13/05)
2005 May 19, Colombian rebels
ambushed a police convoy and fought government forces along the border
with Ecuador in separate attacks, killing at least 13 police.
(AP, 5/20/05)
2005 May 24, In Colombia suspected
leftist guerrillas carrying assault rifles swept into a southern town
and attacked government offices, killing six town councilors and five
others.
(AP, 5/24/05)
2005 May 27, In Colombia Diego
Fernando Murillo, a right-wing (AUC) paramilitary leader accused of
killing a state congressman, surrendered after a four-day, nationwide
manhunt.
(AP, 5/27/05)
2005 Jun 10, Torrential rains in
northwestern Colombia unleashed mudslides on an impoverished
mountainside neighborhood in Colombia's coffee-growing region, killing
at least 6 people.
(AP, 6/10/05)
2005 Jun 14, Colombia unveiled its
own version of a deck of cards for its most wanted insurgent leaders.
Army officials planned to distribute 5,000 of the decks to soldiers
battling the rebels across the country.
(AP, 6/14/05)
2005 Jun 15, Diego Murillo, a
brutal paramilitary warlord who made a fortune in Colombia's drug
trade, demobilized more than 400 of his AUC fighters at a ceremony
under a peace deal critics say could let him get away with murder.
(AP, 6/15/05)
2005 Jun 22, Colombia’s Congress
passed a bill granting reduced punishments to right-wing warlords who
disarm, a key step in Pres. Uribe's strategy to wind down a
decades-long conflict.
(AP, 6/22/05)
2005 Jun 25, In Colombia leftist
rebels killed at least 25 soldiers in two clashes.
(AP, 6/26/05)
2005 Jun 27, Colombia's main
leftist rebel group offered to swap three kidnapped American defense
contractors for two guerrilla leaders jailed in the United States, but
the US government immediately rejected the proposal.
(AP, 6/28/05)
2005 Jun 28, Colombia began a
2-day operation in which 12 members of Colombia's navy were arrested in
raids that uncovered drug-making chemicals and documents linking them
to cocaine smuggling groups.
(AP, 6/29/05)
2005 Jul 14, In Colombia commandos
acting on a tip seized Jose Aldemar Rendon, as he was jogging outside
Medellin. Rendon was a suspected leader of the Norte del Valle cartel
drug cartel believed to have trafficked half the cocaine sold in the
United States in the 1990s. In Maria la Baja the local paramilitary
group disbanded and handed over its weapons under a peace agreement
with the government.
(AP, 7/15/05)(Econ, 3/24/07, p.41)
2005 Jul 23, The Colombian
government offered to buy farmers' illegal crops of coca, in the latest
effort to stem illegal drug production in this South American nation.
Pres. Alvaro Uribe said in a speech that farmers would have to sign a
document promising to never again cultivate illegal crops in order to
get the money. The government would destroy the purchased crop.
(AP, 7/24/05)
2005 Jul 30, Leaders of a
Colombian right-wing paramilitary faction, believed to be one of the
most heavily involved in drug trafficking, demobilized their troops and
said they wanted to form a political party. Nearly 700 fighters in the
"Southern Liberators" unit of the paramilitary United Self-Defense
Forces turned in their weapons at a ceremony in Tamiango.
(AP, 7/30/05)
2005 Aug 1, In Cristales,
Colombia, more than 2,000 outlawed paramilitary fighters, from the
"Heroes of Granada" faction of the AUC, laid down their arms in return
for amnesty. Commander Diego Murillo, an accused drug lord indicted on
trafficking charges in the US, stood by and watched. In 2008 Murillo
(47) was extradited to the US and pleaded guilty to drug-smuggling
charges.
(AP, 8/1/05)(WSJ, 6/18/08, p.A2)
2005 Aug 1, In northern Colombia a
roadside bomb exploded as a police convoy traveled down a rural
highway, killing at least 15 officers.
(AP, 8/2/05)
2005 Aug 5, It was reported that 3
men linked to the Irish Republican Army, who were convicted of training
rebels in Colombia, have returned surreptitiously to Ireland, eight
months after going on the run. Colombia demanded their extradition.
(AP, 8/5/05)
2005 Aug 12, A small boat
overloaded with 113 illegal immigrants capsized and sank in rough
waters off Colombia's Pacific coast. An Ecuadoran fishing boat found 9
survivors 2 days later. In Nov. Ecuadoran police arrested a married
couple for being part of a gang of 11 human traffickers who charged as
much as $12,000 per person for passage to the US.
(AP, 8/18/05)(AP, 11/15/05)
2005 Aug 15, In northeast Colombia
suspected rebels killed two Catholic priests, ambushing their car with
gunfire and explosives as they drove down a country road.
(AP, 8/15/05)
2005 Aug 18, In rural Colombia
gunmen dragged a Catholic priest out of a classroom and shot him to
death, bringing to 3 the number of clergy killed there this week.
(AP, 8/19/05)
2005 Aug 19, Eleven Colombian
soldiers were ordered arrested in the killing of an Indian tribal
leader who was dragged from his home and later found shot to death.
(AP, 8/20/05)
2005 Aug 20, In Colombia a leftist
rebel group acknowledged that its fighters killed two Catholic priests
earlier this week, but said the killing was a mistake and promised to
punish those responsible.
(AP, 8/21/05)
2005 Aug 24, In northwest Colombia
suspected leftist guerrillas killed at least 14 peasant farmers who
were cultivating coca near Puerto Valdivia.
(AP, 8/25/05)
2005 Sep 5, Suspected rebels
dynamited six energy pylons, leaving more than 2.3 million people in
southwestern Colombia without electricity.
(AP, 9/6/05)
2005 Sep 7, In Colombia leftist
rebels and right-wing paramilitary fighters battled in La Esmeralda
village, leaving 15 people dead, including two children, in a fight
over territory and the cocaine trade.
(AP, 9/8/05)
2005 Sep 12, In Colombia Porfirio
Ramirez (42) and his son, Linsen Ramirez (22), hijacked a
Colombian airline. The father in a wheelchair dodged a checkpoint and
smuggled grenades onto a plane. All passengers and crew were eventually
freed unharmed. The elder hijacker said he hijacked the plane to bring
attention to a case in which he was partially paralyzed by a police
bullet during a raid on his house some 14 years ago and had
unsuccessfully sought government compensation.
(AP, 9/13/05)
2005 Sep 13, Julio Cesar Turbay
(89), former Colombian President (1978-1982), died. He negotiated the
release in 1980 of dozens of diplomats held hostage by leftist rebels
for 61 days.
(AP, 9/13/05)
2005 Sep 14, The US Coast Guard,
acting on Colombian intelligence, intercepted a ship towing an unmanned
submarine-like vessel that held more than 2 tons of cocaine.
Separately, 2.5 tons of cocaine were discovered hidden in the oil tanks
of a ship docked in the Colombian Pacific port of Buenaventura.
(AP, 9/15/05)
2005 Sep 15, Colombian authorities
seized $4.5 million worth of counterfeit American currency during a
raid on a clandestine printing workshop in south Bogota. The network
had been sending the money to Ecuador and Venezuela, where the U.S.
dollar is widely accepted as legal tender.
(AP, 9/15/05)
2005 Sep 19, Colombian troops
raided a sprawling clandestine drug laboratory run by a paramilitary
group that was capable of producing 10 tons of cocaine a month. In a
separate operation, the military seized six tons of marijuana allegedly
belonging to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the
country's main leftist rebel group.
(AP, 9/21/05)
2005 Sep 22, In Colombia suspected
rebels killed 10 police officers driving down a remote highway outside
La Cruz, ambushing their truck with gunfire and homemade gas cylinder
bombs.
(AP, 9/22/05)
2005 Sep 22, Alberto Giraldo (70),
the journalist who spent five years in jail for his role in the Cali
cocaine cartel's funding of former Colombian President Ernesto Samper's
election campaign, died. Viviana Leon, his 2nd wife, said that before
his death Giraldo wrote a book, yet to be published, detailing how Cali
cartel bosses Miguel and Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela donated $5 million
to Samper's successful 1994 run for the presidency.
(AP, 9/22/05)
2005 Sep 23, Colombia's
2nd-largest rebel group, the ELN, accepted an offer from Venezuela to
host peace talks between the guerrillas and the Colombian government.
(AP, 9/24/05)
2005 Sep 27, In Colombia
government spraying of coca plant killer was reported to be driving
growers and traffickers out of their usual territory into national
parks where spraying is banned. Here they are burning thousands of
acres of virgin rain forest and poisoning rivers with chemicals.
(AP, 9/27/05)
2005 Sep 28, In Colombia a man in
a wheelchair who hijacked an airliner two weeks ago was ordered
released from jail on a court technicality, a decision that sent
officials scrambling to issue a new arrest warrant. Porfirio Ramirez
and his 17-year-old son Linsen armed with hand grenades, seized the
Aires airliner with 24 people aboard on Sept. 12, surrendering five
hours later at a Bogota airport without injuring anyone. A judge
ordered the release saying that prosecutors had presented insufficient
evidence at a hearing to keep holding the man.
(AP, 9/29/05)
2005 Oct 2, In western Colombia
leftist FARC rebels attacked a police station in an isolated jungle
town, killing at least five police officers.
(AP, 10/3/05)
2005 Oct 2, The US ambassador
urged Colombia to spray weed killer inside the country's spectacular
nature parks to destroy cocaine-producing crops, insisting the
chemicals will not cause widespread damage to the reserves' ecosystems.
(AP, 10/2/05)
2005 Oct 2-2005 Oct 3, In Colombia
suspected leftist rebels (FARC) killed at least 13 coca harvesters near
Vistahermosa as part of a struggle with far-right paramilitary gangs
for control of the lucrative cocaine trade.
(AP, 10/5/05)
2005 Oct 3, In Colombia a bomb
packed inside a pickup truck and apparently meant to target government
forces killed 3 members of a family, including two children, when it
exploded as they passed by in Florida County, a FARC stronghold.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, In Colombia a judge
ordered the re-arrest of a man in a wheelchair who hijacked a Colombian
airliner, but said he could remain under house arrest due to his
failing health.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 4, Colombia granted
political asylum to former Ecuadorian President Lucio Gutierrez, who
has said he faces treason charges in his homeland.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 6, In Colombia right-wing
paramilitary groups suspended their demobilization process with the
government to protest President Alvaro Uribe's decision to jail a
paramilitary leader who is wanted in New York on drug trafficking
charges.
(AP, 10/6/05)
2005 Oct 6, In Colombia an intense
rainstorm triggered a landslide that buried part of Bello, a shantytown
on the outskirts of the northwestern city of Medellin, killing at least
26 people, many of them children.
(AP, 10/7/05)
2005 Oct 10, Clashes broke between
Colombian police and Indians protesting a planned free trade accord
with the US, leaving one Indian dead and at least 15 wounded.
(AP, 10/10/05)
2005 Oct 11, Colombia's navy
seized $188 million worth of cocaine, believed to have belonged to
rebels, that was hidden in underground chambers next to a river deep in
southwestern jungles.
(AP, 10/11/05)
2005 Oct 12, Tens of thousands of
trade union workers and Indians took to the streets of Colombia's main
cities to protest a proposed free trade pact with the US, accusing
President Alvaro Uribe of selling out the country.
(AP, 10/12/05)
2005 Oct 12, In Costa Rica the
InterAmerican Human Rights court, announced that it has ordered
Colombia to pay damages in the 1997 massacre of dozens of Mapiripan
villagers by right-wing paramilitary fighters.
(AP, 10/12/05)
2005 Oct 19, Colombia's highest
court approved a law allowing presidents to run for second terms.
(AP, 10/19/05)
2005 Oct 21, US and Colombian
authorities shut down a drug trafficking and money laundering operation
that exported about $1 million worth of cocaine every week to the
United States, Europe and Asia.
(AP, 10/22/05)
2005 Oct 23, In Colombia suspected
rebels launched homemade bombs at a police station and nearby homes in
a southwest town near the border with Ecuador, killing 7 people.
(AP, 10/24/05)
2005 Oct 25, President Alvaro
Uribe accepted the resignation of Colombia's secret police chief and
fired the agency's No. 2 amid reports of bitter infighting between the
two.
(AP, 10/25/05)
2005 Oct 26-2005 Oct 27, Intense
fighting between rebels and paramilitary groups for control of the
cocaine trade in the jungles of western Colombia left at least 20
outlawed fighters dead.
(AP, 10/28/05)
2005 Oct 29, Colombian authorities
captured Jhon Cano, an alleged top leader of the powerful Norte del
Valle cocaine cartel, who is wanted by a New York court for drug
trafficking and money laundering.
(AP, 10/30/05)
2005 Oct 29, Hurricane Beta
battered the mountainous Caribbean island of Providencia, Colombia,
ripping roofs off wooden homes and forcing people to seek shelter in
brick shelters on high ground.
(AP, 10/29/05)
2005 Nov 5, In Colombia police
seized more than 2 tons of cocaine hidden on a beach on the Caribbean
coast and arrested five suspected traffickers who were apparently
preparing to load the drugs aboard a speedboat bound for Central
America or Mexico.
(AP, 11/6/05)
2005 Nov 11, Colombia's highest
court approved a law that clears the way for popular President Alvaro
Uribe to run for a second term next year.
(AP, 11/11/05)
2005 Nov 11, In Colombia a man in
a wheelchair who hijacked a Colombian airliner using hand grenades was
sentenced to eight years of house arrest.
(AP, 11/11/05)
2005 Nov 14, Hundreds of Colombian
television actors and workers marched through the streets to protest a
proposed free trade deal with the US that they claim could hurt the
local TV industry.
(AP, 11/15/05)
2005 Nov 16, Two dozen Colombian
rebels laid down their arms in the 1st group demobilization ceremony of
leftist guerrillas since Pres. Alvaro Uribe took office 3 years ago.
(AP, 11/17/05)
2005 Nov 18, In Colombia Indians
who have seized control of 18 large farms vowed to stage protests
across the country after land reform talks with President Alvaro Uribe
ended without any agreements.
(AP, 11/18/05)
2005 Nov 20, A helicopter carrying
a Colombian congressman and five others crashed Sunday in a storm in
the mountains north of Bogota, killing all aboard. Conservative Party
congressman Roberto Camacho, Cundinamarca state deputy Efren Bejerano
and former Cundinamarca deputy governor Adolfo Leon were among those
killed.
(AP, 11/20/05)
2005 Nov 23, In Colombia soldiers
near Villa Hermosa captured Arcesio Lamus, leader of the Bolshevik
Front of the National Liberation Army, suspected of carrying out more
than a dozen kidnappings and other terrorist attacks over the past two
decades.
(AP, 11/24/05)
2005 Nov 24, Colombian President
Alvaro Uribe met with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez to try to help bridge
differences in Latin America.
(AP, 11/24/05)
2005 Nov 24, In southwestern
Colombia the Galeras volcano became active at dawn and dumped heaps of
ash on the city of Pasto, 12 miles away.
(AP, 11/24/05)
2005 Nov 27, Colombian President
Alvaro Uribe formally announced that he will run for a second term in
next year's elections, saying he needed four more years to accomplish
his goals of restoring security to the country and spurring economic
growth.
(AP, 11/27/05)
2005 Nov 29, Spain announced it
plans to sell planes and helicopters to Colombia.
(WSJ, 11/30/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov, Colombia announced a
5-fold increase in its aid budget for its “desplazados,” refugees
uprooted by internal strife, to over $400 million a year.
(Econ, 2/11/06, p.38)
2005 Dec 2, In Colombia officials
said several hundred members of a right-wing paramilitary militia that
held sway for years over much of Colombia's coffee-growing region have
agreed to lay down their arms in exchange for a government amnesty.
(AP, 12/02/05)
2005 Dec 12, About 2,000
right-wing paramilitary fighters (AUC), including a warlord considered
a major drug trafficker by the US, turned in weapons and helicopter
gunships in one of Colombia's largest disarmament ceremonies in years.
(AP, 12/12/05)
2005 Dec 13, A US Navy helicopter
with 3 crew members crashed somewhere off the coast of Colombia.
(AP, 12/13/05)
2005 Dec 14, Colombian President
Alvaro Uribe accepted an EU plan to pull troops from rebel territories
to revive peace talks.
(WSJ, 12/15/05, p.A1)
2005 Dec 16, Exploratory peace
talks between Colombia and its second-largest rebel group began in Cuba
with help from the Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez
and facilitators from Spain, Norway and Switzerland.
(AP, 12/16/05)
2005 Dec 17, Hundreds of fighters
from three rebel armies united to attack the village of San Marino in
western Colombia. The bold assault that killed at least five police
officers.
(AP, 12/18/05)
2005 Dec 25, In Bogota, Colombia,
Jordan Paez (6) fell into a coverless manhole and was killed. A record
10,000 manhole covers were stolen there in 2005.
(AP, 1/1/06)
2005 Dec 27, Leftist rebels
ambushed a group of soldiers who were protecting civilians in southern
Colombia, killing 28.
(AP, 12/28/05)
2005 Colombia’s Congress increased
the maximum sentence to violators of its ban on abortion to 4 ½
years in prison. An estimated 400,00 illegal abortions were performed
annually.
(Econ, 10/8/05, p.46)
2006 Jan 5, In Colombia local TV
reported that 2 soldiers had been arrested for giving weapons to
leftist rebels, their main battlefield enemy, in exchange for cocaine.
14 FARC guerrillas and two soldiers were killed in clashes in a
coca-growing area on the edge Sierra Macarena National Park in southern
Colombia.
(AP, 1/6/06)
2006 Jan 16, Colombia's president
ordered an investigation into allegations that outlawed paramilitary
groups have infiltrated congressional campaigns using illegal drug
money.
(AP, 1/16/06)
2006 Jan 18, In Colombia some
3,000 armed troops were deployed to the Sierra Macarena National Park,
one of Colombia's most pristine national parks, as part of an operation
to clear the rebel-controlled region of coca plants and the
laboratories used to make cocaine.
(AP, 1/18/06)
2006 Jan 21, In Colombia a video,
released by Colombian guerrillas, showed 12 kidnapped lawmakers
pleading with their government to work with Venezuela's leftist
President Hugo Chavez to help obtain their release.
(AP, 1/21/06)
2006 Jan 26, Colombian authorities
led dozens of simultaneous raids across five cities in collaboration
with US officials and dismantled a false passport ring with links to
al-Qaida and Hamas militants.
(AP, 1/27/06)
2006 Jan 31, In Colombia thousands
of right-wing paramilitary fighters accused of drug trafficking by the
US turned over more than 1,000 weapons in one of the largest
disarmament ceremonies to date.
(AP, 1/31/06)
2006 Feb 1, Colombia's attorney
general charged seven soldiers in the shooting deaths of five members
of a peasant family, including a 6-month-old baby.
(AP, 2/1/06)
2006 Feb 7, Ramon Isaza (65), a
founder of Colombia's anti-rebel paramilitary movement, laid down his
weapon, ending nearly three decades of outlawed, jungle warfare. Isaza
was joined by 990 fighters from his Medio Magdalena Bloc of the United
Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, handing over 754 weapons, 15
vehicles and abundant munitions.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 13, Testimony presented
in an annual UN human rights report said Colombian security forces had
killed civilians and covered it up by dressing the bodies as Marxist
guerrillas.
(Reuters, 2/13/06)
2006 Feb 15, In southern Colombia
hundreds of paramilitary fighters handed in their weapons and renounced
violence in a ceremony. Rebels attacked a crew that was removing coca
plants from one of Colombia's national parks and killed at least six
police guards.
(AP, 2/15/06)
2006 Feb 21, The commander of
Colombia's army, Gen. Reinaldo Castellanos, resigned amid a scandal in
which 21 soldiers were allegedly beaten, branded or sexually assaulted
by their superiors.
(AP, 2/21/06)
2006 Feb 24, Colombia suspended
arrest warrants for leaders of the National Liberation Army, the South
American nation's second-largest rebel group, as part of preliminary
peace talks in Cuba.
(AP, 2/24/06)
2006 Feb 24, In northwest Colombia
Pedro Juan Moreno, a leading senatorial candidate and former adviser to
President Alvaro Uribe, was killed along with three other people in a
helicopter crash in a mountainous rainforest region.
(AP, 2/25/06)
2006 Feb 25, In southern Colombia
leftist rebels killed 9 people in an attack on a passenger bus that
defied a guerrilla-imposed traffic ban.
(AP, 2/26/06)
2006 Feb 27, In southern Colombia
rebels burst into a hotel where local government officials were meeting
and killed eight town councilors.
(AP, 2/27/06)
2006 Feb 27, The US and Colombia
reached a free trade agreement after nearly 2 years of negotiations.
The pact needed approval by the legislatures of both countries.
(WSJ, 2/28/06, p.A6)
2006 Mar 7, In Colombia the
70-member La Gaitana company of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia (FARC), handed over 63 weapons and a small aircraft during a
ceremony near Alvarado, a town 50 miles west of Bogota.
(AP, 3/7/06)
2006 Mar 9, The Colombian navy
seized a 60-foot long submarine that likely was used to haul tons of
cocaine out to sea for shipment to the United States.
(AP, 3/10/06)
2006 Mar 12, In Colombia
supporters of President Alvaro Uribe dominated the congressional
elections in which candidates defined themselves by their views of the
Colombian leader. Voters in Sucre re-elected Alvaro Garcia to the
Senate and Erik Morris to the chamber of Representatives. Both men and
another senator from Sucre were later charged with financing right-wing
paramilitary groups.
(AP, 3/13/06)(Econ, 11/18/06, p.40)
2006 Mar 18, A mudslide swept down
on a scouting expedition in central Colombia, killing nine young hikers
and leaving two others missing. The scouts had just been bathing and
practicing knots when they were carried away.
(AP, 3/19/06)
2006 Mar 22, The US government
announced charges against 50 leftist Colombian guerrilla leaders in
connection with shipments of $25 billion in cocaine to the US and other
countries.
(SFC, 3/23/06, p.A9)
2006 Apr 4, In Colombia
authorities announced the arrests of 7 active and retired police and
army officers working for one of Colombia's largest cocaine cartels,
who used commercial cargo planes to ship drugs to the US.
(AP, 4/4/06)
2006 Apr 6, In Colombia bombs
exploded on two buses in a working class district of Bogota, injuring
two dozen passengers, including three children with burns over half
their body.
(AP, 4/6/06)
2006 Apr 11, Colombia’s attorney
general said the bodies of more than 30 people had been found in a
series of mass graves in a violent area of Northern Santander province,
home to drug traffickers, far-right paramilitaries and leftist
guerrillas. Most of the villagers blamed a bloc of far-right
paramilitaries that operated there until its demobilization in 2004.
(AP, 4/12/06)
2006 Apr 12, Authorities said
Colombia's biggest right-wing paramilitary group has disbanded as part
of an ongoing peace process, but some renegade factions continued to
operate.
(AP, 4/12/06)
2006 Apr 13, In western Colombia
mudslides roared down on settlements, killing at least 10 people,
leaving dozens missing and blocking a key highway to the Pacific coast.
(AP, 4/14/06)
2006 Apr 20, In northeastern
Colombia leftist rebels ambushed a military convoy, killing 16 soldiers
and secret police officers in the deadliest attack on security forces
this year.
(AP, 4/21/06)
2006 Apr 22, In Colombia Pedro Gil
Trujillo, a city council member in Rivera, was arrested while giving a
live radio interview by telephone for allegedly masterminding a
guerrilla attack that killed nine of his colleagues on Feb 27.
(AP, 4/22/06)
2006 Apr 27, Liliana Gaviria (52),
sister of the former Colombian president Cesar Gaviria (1990-1994),
died in a botched kidnapping in the province of Risaralda, 110 miles
west of Bogota. She was real estate agent and owner of a transport
company. On Feb 26, 2010, Beatriz Villalba (25) was arrested after
being under observation for four months. She had been conducting spying
operations for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia in Bogota.
Prosecutors alleged that Villalba was in charge of buying a building
and modifying a vehicle used in the abduction and transportation of
Liliana Gaviria Trujillo. Gaviria's bodyguard was shot dead during the
kidnapping in Pereira.
(AP, 4/28/06)(AP, 2/26/10)
2006 Apr 28, Representatives of
the Colombian government and that nation's second largest rebel group
wrapped up four days of talks in Cuba without resolution, but agreed to
meet again after their country's May 28 elections.
(AP, 4/28/06)
2006 May 2, In Colombia the entire
municipal council of Villavieja resigned and fled to Neiva in Huila
province, fearing for their lives amid a spate of political killings.
(AP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 10, Colombia's top court
voted to legalize abortion in specific cases, easing a complete ban on
the procedure in this majority Roman Catholic nation.
(AP, 5/11/06)
2006 May 12, Gen. Oscar Naranjo,
the head of Colombia's judicial police, said he was shocked to learn
his brother, Juan David Naranjo (29), is suspected of involvement in a
major European drug trafficking ring.
(AP, 5/13/06)
2006 May 16, In Colombia farmers
and members of indigenous tribes clashed with police during protests
against a free-trade agreement with the US and the re-election of
President Alvaro Uribe, and protest leaders said an Indian farmer was
killed.
(AP, 5/16/06)
2006 May 22, Colombia's Interior
Minister Sabas Pretelt said the peace process with far-right
paramilitary gunmen was back on track, following days of tensions
caused by a court ruling that tossed out part of a peace pact. In
Jamundi 10 police officers in a US-trained unit were ambushed and
killed in a ferocious attack by a platoon of 28 soldiers who unleashed
a barrage of some 150 bullets and seven grenades. The attack stunned
Colombians and severely embarrassed President Alvaro Uribe. An 11th
man, an informant who led the police squad to the scene promising they
would find a large stash of cocaine, was also found dead. When
investigators removed his ski mask, they found a bullet hole in his
head. In 2008 a judge gave a 54-year prison term to a cashiered army
lieutenant colonel who was convicted of ordering the massacre of the
anti-drug police. He also slapped near-maximum sentences of 52 years on
the unit's second-in-command, and 50 years each on the other 13
soldiers involved. Senior police believed former Lt. Col. Byron
Carvajal and his troops had been protecting a drug lord.
(AP, 5/22/06)(AP, 6/17/06)(AP, 5/8/08)
2006 May 27, It was reported that
Colombia could become a net importer of oil by 2010.
(Econ, 5/27/06, p.34)
2006 May 28, President Alvaro
Uribe won Colombia's presidential elections with 62% of the vote. The
turnout was 45% of those eligible. Uribe became the first incumbent to
win re-election in Colombia in more than a century, beating his nearest
rival by more than 40 percentage points with pledges to continue
fighting crime and reducing poverty.
(AP, 5/28/06)(AP, 5/29/06)(Econ, 6/3/06, p.34)
2006 May, In Colombia brothers
Arley Vallejo Cardona and Yon Garcia Cardona disappeared in Medellin.
On July 31, 2009, a court sentenced 15 Colombian soldiers to as much as
30 years in prison for the slaying of the two brothers falsely
identified as guerrillas.
(AP, 8/3/09)
2006 Jun 14, Gunmen killed seven
coca pickers in southwestern Colombia in an attack police blamed on
leftist rebels.
(AP, 6/14/06)
2006 Jun 14, Four Andean nations
(Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru) agreed to chart new trade plans
with the United States without Venezuela.
(AP, 6/14/06)
2006 Jun 20, The UN said
production of the coca plant used to make cocaine had increased by 8%
in Colombia, to 330 square miles.
(AP, 6/20/06)
2006 Jun 29, After a two-year
search among more than 300,000 candidates nationwide, Colombia unveiled
the new Juan Valdez, Carlos Castaneda (39), as the country's iconic
coffee ambassador to the world.
(AP, 6/29/06)
2006 Jul 10, The government of
Colombia announced that it was nominating Ernesto Samper as ambassador
to France. This sparked outrage among many Colombians and allies in
Washington in the war on drugs. In a statement, Pres. Uribe said Samper
had declined the France ambassadorship so as not to harm Colombia's
national interests.
(AP, 7/12/06)
2006 Jul 11, Andres Pastrana,
Colombia's ambassador to the United States, resigned in anger over
President Alvaro Uribe's selection of Ernesto Samper, a disgraced
former Colombian leader (1994-1998) as ambassador to France.
(AP, 7/12/06)
2006 Jul 18, The UN said fighting
between the army and leftist guerrillas in western Colombia has forced
hundreds of civilians from their homes and trapped others in their
villages.
(AP, 7/19/06)
2006 Jul 24, In Colombia 13
doctors were abducted by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or
FARC. They were on a 10-day mission to remote communities and Indian
tribes in Putumayo province.
(AP, 7/25/06)
2006 Jul 31, In Colombia suspected
rebels ambushed an army patrol, exploded a car bomb in Bogota and
another bomb in the southwest, killing at least 18 people in a wave of
attacks a week before the presidential inauguration.
(AP, 7/31/06)
2006 Aug 2, In southern Colombia a
land mine planted by leftist rebels killed six coca eradicators and
injured seven others.
(AP, 8/2/06)
2006 Aug 4, In Colombia leftist
rebels were blamed for two attacks, a car bomb that killed four
officers outside a Cali police station and an attack that killed two
soldiers in a western province.
(AP, 8/4/06)
2006 Aug 7, Colombia’s President
Alvaro Uribe inaugurated an unprecedented second term, promising to
seek an elusive peace with leftist rebels while maintaining the
hardline security policies credited with a sharp drop in murder and
kidnappings.
(AP, 8/7/06)
2006 Aug 9, Masked gunmen killed
five Indians in Colombia even as UN officials marked World Indigenous
Day with a call for illegal combat groups to keep Indians out of the
country's armed conflict. Colombian rebels kidnapped two engineers and
a helicopter pilot who were part of a seismographic oil exploration
crew in Choco state. The National Liberation Army (ELN) was believed to
be responsible.
(AP, 8/10/06)
2006 Aug 10, Hector Orlando
Martinez Quinto (38) was captured in Costa Rica. He was accused of
participating in a 2002 rebel (FARQ) attack that killed 119 civilians
in Boyaya, in one of the worst tragedies in Colombia's four-decade-old
guerrilla war.
(AP, 8/11/06)
2006 Aug 10, In Chile a drug
trafficking network working on behalf of the Revolutionary Armed Forces
of Colombia (FARC) was dismantled. Police seized almost a half-ton of
cocaine and arrested 12 people.
(AP, 8/12/06)
2006 Aug 15, In Colombia the last
major paramilitary leader to enter into a peace deal with the
government handed in his weapon, even as the future of that fragile
accord was called into doubt by other ex-militia leaders. Freddy Rendon
Herrera and 745 fighters from the Elmer Cardenas bloc handed in 447
rifles in a disarmament ceremony in Unguia, a village 370 miles
northwest of Bogota.
(AP, 8/15/06)
2006 Aug 16, Colombian police
arrested 14 top paramilitary leaders for violating the terms of a peace
accord that has led to the demobilization of 30,000 right-wing
fighters. Anti-narcotics police said they chemically fumigated the
Sierra Macarena national park last week, clearing its entire 11,370
acres of coca. The spraying destroyed coca capable of producing 17.5
tons of high-grade cocaine and was likely a major blow to the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
(AP, 8/16/06)(AP, 8/17/06)(Econ, 8/26/06, p.28)
2006 Aug, In Colombia the
telenovela “Sin Tetas no hay Paraiso" (Without Breasts There's No
Paradise) premiered. It was based on a best-selling, true-to-life novel
by the same name and became very popular.
(AP, 9/19/06)
2006 Sep 1, In Colombia Jesus
Ignacio Roldan led special prosecutors and investigators to the alleged
grave of Carlos Castano, former right-wing paramilitary leader, near
the town of Valencia. Roldan says he killed Castano in April 2004 on
the order of Castano's older brother, Vicente Castano.
(AP, 9/1/06)
2006 Sep 18, In Colombia federal
prosecutor Mario Iguaran delivered a televised apology for a scandal
surrounding psychic Armando Marti. In 2005 he had hired Marti, a
self-described clairvoyant, to help his staff deal with a crushing
caseload and to improve relations. The operation was code-named
“Mission Perseus of Zeus” and it granted Marti unfettered access to the
institution, as much as $1,800 a month, and a government-issued armored
car.
(SFC, 9/20/06, p.A8)
2006 Oct 12, In Colombia hundreds
of Bari Indians, most clad in loincloths and carrying bows and arrows,
came down from the hills in their first march ever to demand that the
state-owned oil company stop drilling on sacred land abutting their
reservation.
(AP, 10/12/06)
2006 Oct 19, In Colombia a car
bomb left by a person dressed in a military uniform exploded in the
parking lot of a military university in Bogota, wounding at least 23
people, as a top general was at a conference nearby.
(AP, 10/19/06)
2006 Oct 26, The Colombian
government and the country's second-largest rebel group (ELN) agreed in
Havana, Cuba, to launch a formal peace process.
(AP, 10/26/06)
2006 Oct 29, Leaders of Colombia's
second-largest rebel group (ELN) agreed to help de-mine several rural
southern districts, marking their first concrete action since agreeing
to a peace process last week with the Colombian government.
(AP, 10/29/06)
2006 Oct 26, Spanish police
arrested Orlando Sabogal Zuluaga (40), a leading member of one of
Colombia's most feared drug-trafficking cartels, in a shopping center
on the outskirts of Madrid.
(AP, 10/31/06)
2006 Nov 1, In Colombia the
peasant-based FARC killed 16 police officers and a civilian at a remote
outpost in an attack that appeared to be part of a coordinated national
offensive.
(AP, 11/2/06)(WSJ, 11/2/06, p.A1)
2006 Nov 2, In Colombia a jeep
carrying explosives blew up south of Bogota, killing two passengers and
probably preempting a leftist rebel attack.
(AP, 11/3/06)
2006 Nov 9, Colombia's Supreme
Court ordered three legislators arrested for their alleged ties to the
country's far-right paramilitaries.
(AP, 11/10/06)
2006 Nov 22, Authorities in Italy,
Spain, the United States and several South American countries arrested
76 people as part of a major drug crackdown in which a restaurant
linked to one of Colombia's most feared warlords was seized.
(AP, 11/22/06)
2006 Nov 23, The imprisoned
leaders of Colombia's right-wing militias called for the creation of a
truth commission where they can confess their actions in the brutal
civil war.
(AP, 11/23/06)
2006 Nov 30, In northeastern
Colombia the Gabriel Galvis unit of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia (FARC) attacked an army patrol, killing 17 soldiers and
injuring four. An air force training helicopter crashed in central
Colombia, killing all five aboard.
(AP, 12/1/06)
2006 Dec 6, Far-right paramilitary
groups pulled out of a peace process with the Colombian government
following a decision by President Alvaro Uribe's administration to
transfer jailed militia leaders to a maximum security prison.
(AP, 12/7/06)
2006 Dec 9, Freddy Munoz (36), a
Colombian journalist, was charged with rebellion and terrorism for a
series of bombings in 2002, a move his news channel said was in
response to his reporting on human rights violations. Munoz worked for
the news channel Telesur, which is majority owned by the Venezuelan
government of President Hugo Chavez.
(AP, 12/9/06)
2006 Dec 15, Ecuador recalled its
ambassador to Colombia, protesting Bogota's decision to resume aerial
coca fumigation along the shared border.
(AP, 12/15/06)
2006 Dec 19, Salvatore Mancuso,
one of Colombia's most feared paramilitary warlords, testified before a
special tribunal. His confession was meant to sharply reduce his jail
time for hundreds of murders and forcing tens of thousands from their
land during a decade-long reign of terror.
(AP, 12/19/06)
2006 Dec 23, In southern Colombia
leftist rebels ambushed an army patrol and killed 14 soldiers from a
unit that rushed to the area after being warned of a possible guerrilla
takeover of a remote hamlet.
(AP, 12/23/06)
2006 Dec 24, In southern Colombia
government troops retook control of an area where leftist rebels
ambushed and killed 15 soldiers.
(AP, 12/24/06)
2006 Dec 27, Colombia's
second-largest rebel group (ELN) released two police officers taken
hostage earlier this month, a move that could revive slow-moving peace
talks with the government. Gunmen shot and killed Jaime Andres Angarita
(33), a paramilitary leader, as he was dining at a restaurant in the
western city of Medellin. Angarita was considered the right-hand man of
warlord Salvatore Mancuso, the architect of a 2003 peace deal with the
government that has led to the demobilization of 31,000 militia
fighters.
(AP, 12/27/06)(AP, 12/28/06)
2006 In Colombia 60 trade union
members were murdered this year. From 1991 to 2006 there were some
2,000 unsolved killings of trade unionists.
(Econ, 5/19/07, p.39)
2007 Jan 9, Freddy Munoz, a
reporter for a state-controlled television network in Venezuela, was
released from a Colombian jail, 52 days after his arrest on accusations
of plotting bomb attacks with leftist rebels.
(AP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 15, In Colombia Eugenio
Montoya Sanchez (37), believed by authorities to be a leader of the
Norte del Valle drug cartel, was captured following a shootout, ending
a years-long hunt for a man wanted by American officials for allegedly
smuggling tons of cocaine into the US. 2 cold-storage tanks owned by a
Nestle supplier outside the town of San Vicente de Caguan were blown up
in an attack also attributed to the FARC. Salvatore Mancuso became the
1st senior paramilitary leader to make a voluntary confession of his
involvement in kidnappings and mass murders. Sanchez was later
extradited to the US and in 2009 pleaded guilty to drug trafficking. He
was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
(AP, 1/16/07)(AP, 1/19/07)(Econ, 1/20/07, p.48)(SFC,
4/29/09, p.A4)
2007 Jan 16, Colombian police
found about $19 million belonging to a drug trafficking group buried
under a house in the southwestern city of Cali. On Jan 12 police found
$16 million hidden in a modest house in Cali.
(AP, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 17, In southern Colombia
a pickup truck carrying 660 pounds of explosives destroyed a dairy
plant owned by Swiss food giant Nestle SA, an attack police attributed
to leftist rebels.
(AP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 30, Colombia’s Supreme
Court opened preliminary investigations into four more politicians for
alleged ties to illegal right-wing militias after it was revealed they
signed a 2001 letter of understanding with the paramilitary groups.
(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Feb 1, In Colombia President
Alvaro Uribe ordered the seizure of assets belonging to demobilized
paramilitary leaders after the killing of a woman who was leading a
campaign to reclaim land stolen by the illegal
militias.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Feb 3, Police said they found
$19 million in cash under the floorboards of a house in Cali. The loot
likely belonged to Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia, among a dozen alleged
top drug kingpins whom US authorities targeted for arrest using a $5
million reward for information. In the northeast an explosion
tore through a makeshift coal mine, killing 32 miners.
(AP, 2/4/07)
2007 Feb 6, An underground
explosion in a central Colombia coal mine killed eight workers, just
days after a similar blast in the nation's northeast killed 32 miners.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, Colombia's top court
ruled that gay couples, who have lived together for more than 2 years,
should have the same rights to shared assets as heterosexual couples.
The decision by the Constitutional Court marked the first recognition
of gay couples' rights in Colombia.
(AP, 2/9/07)(Econ, 3/10/07, p.34)
2007 Feb 8, Cuba deported reputed
drug kingpin Luis Hernando Gomez Bustamante to Colombia, which plans to
extradite him to the United States to face trafficking and money
laundering charges.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 15, Five Colombian
congressmen, including the brother of the foreign minister, were
arrested in a widening scandal linking the country's political class
and far-right militias drew closer to the president.
(AP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 19, Maria Consuelo
Araujo, Colombia’s foreign minister, resigned as a growing scandal
linking the political establishment and far-right paramilitaries
claimed its first member of President Alvaro Uribe's Cabinet. 4 days
earlier her brother, a senator, was jailed on charges of colluding with
the paramilitaries and the kidnapping of a potential political rival. 2
clowns were shot and killed by an unidentified gunman during their
performance of Circo del Sol de Cali, a traveling circus, in the
eastern town of Cucuta.
(AP, 2/19/07)(Reuters, 2/22/07)
2007 Feb 21, A land mine killed
five Colombian soldiers after a patrol chasing leftist rebels stumbled
in to a mine field.
(AP, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 22, In Colombia Jorge
Noguera, a former director of the secret police under President Alvaro
Uribe, was arrested and charged in connection with the murders of labor
leaders and academics while collaborating with far-right militias
responsible for some of Colombia's worst massacres. In Cali, Colombia,
confused hit men on the lookout for two men in a white sedan gun down
the wrong people. Then they spot their intended targets, in the same
traffic jam 20 yards away. And killed them, too. It was all caught on a
traffic camera.
(AP, 2/23/07)(AP, 2/24/07)
2007 Mar 1, In Colombia a car bomb
exploded in the southern city of Neiva, injuring 8 people in an
apparent assassination attempt of the town's pro-government mayor by
leftist rebels.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 2, In Colombia
prosecutors ordered the arrest of Alvaro Araujo Noguera, a prominent
political boss, for alleged involvement in a kidnapping at the heart of
a scandal tying the country’s political elite to right-wing
paramilitary groups.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Mar 3, In Colombia 4 police
officers and a civilian were killed as officers moved a powerful bomb
allegedly planted by leftist rebels as part of an attempt to kill a
city mayor.
(AP, 3/3/07)
2007 Mar 10, In Colombia the US
Embassy confirmed that American and Colombian soldiers had conducted a
joint operation in the southern stronghold of leftist rebels who are
holding three US military contractors, captured in Feb, 2004.
(AP, 3/10/07)
2007 Mar 11, In Colombia about 150
protesters attacked riot police with rocks and metal barriers and
ripped down lampposts Bogota, just moments after President Bush landed
for a six-hour visit. Bush put fighting poverty at the top of his
agenda in Colombia and promised more aid and a trade deal for Pres.
Uribe.
(AP, 3/11/07)(WSJ, 3/12/07, p.A1)
2007 Mar 12, Interpol launched an
international call for the arrest of Alvaro Araujo Noguera (74), former
Colombian congressman and father of Colombia’s former Foreign Minister
Maria Consuelo Araujo. He was believed to have fled to Venezuela after
being accused of colluding with right-wing paramilitaries to kidnap a
political rival.
(AP, 3/12/07)
2007 Mar 13, In Colombia Trino
Luna, the governor of Magdalena province, surrendered to federal
prosecutors, becoming the first opposition politician arrested as part
of the widening scandal over links between the country's political
elite and far-right militias.
(AP, 3/13/07)
2007 Mar 14, Chiquita Brands
Int’l., a Cincinnati-based banana company, agreed to pay a $25 million
fine after admitting that it paid a Colombian terrorist group (AUC) for
protection in a volatile farming region. Chiquita sold it Colombian
banana operations in June, 2004.
(SFC, 3/15/07, p.A5)(WSJ, 8/2/07, p.A1)
2007 Mar 15, A UN report said
Colombian security forces killed civilians in several states last year
and falsely labeled many as leftist rebels slain in combat.
(AP, 3/15/07)
2007 Mar 23, In Colombia Jorge
Noguera, Pres. Alvaro Uribe's former spy chief, was freed from jail
after a judge ruled his imprisonment for alleged links to far-right
militias was illegal on procedural grounds.
(AP, 3/23/07)
2007 Mar 29, Robert Marshall
Vignola (50) of Hamden, Conn., an American entrepreneur who introduced
foreign men to "young, sexy, exotic and beautiful Latin Women" via the
Internet, was killed in the western city of Cali by gunmen on a
motorcycle.
(AP, 4/1/07)
2007 Apr 3, Colombian authorities
captured Ever Veloza, a fugitive right-wing warlord accused in
massacres and of running a murderous criminal band involved in drug
trafficking and extortion. He was arrested in the banana-growing Uraba
region on the Caribbean coast. Veloza already faces charges in the
April 11, 2001, massacre of 26 peasants in the southwestern town of
Naya.
(AP, 4/3/07)
2007 Apr 3, Interpol issued an
international arrest warrant for three Israelis accused of training
private armies of Colombian drug cartels and right-wing death squads.
Yair Klein, Melnik Ferri and Tzedaka Abraham were being sought on
charges of criminal conspiracy and instruction in terrorism.
(AP, 4/3/07)
2007 Apr 5, A bus carrying
passengers on the start of the Easter holiday crashed in northern
Colombia, igniting a blaze that killed 27 people, including six
children.
(AP, 4/5/07)
2007 Apr 12, Tens of thousands of
people marched through the streets of Cali to protest the bombing of
the city's police barracks, blamed on Colombia's largest leftist rebel
group.
(AP, 4/13/07)
2007 Apr 16, A top rebel leader of
Colombia's second-largest guerrilla group (ELN) said the group is ready
to "immediately" begin talks to reach a cease-fire with the country's
government.
(AP, 4/17/07)
2007 Apr 18, In Colombia thousands
of people were evacuated after a long-dormant volcano erupted,
provoking avalanches and floods that swept away houses and bridges. The
Nevado del Huila volcano's eruptions were its first on record since
Colombia was colonized by the Spanish 500 years ago.
(AP, 4/18/07)
2007 Apr 26, Colombia's electrical
grid collapsed, causing a nationwide blackout that briefly halted stock
trading, trapped people in elevators and left authorities struggling to
determine the cause.
(AP, 4/26/07)
2007 Apr 29, Colombia's navy made
the largest drug seizure in the nation's history as it uncovered up to
27 tons of cocaine buried along the Pacific coast.
(AP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr, In Colombia the soldiers
in Antelope Company's Third Platoon killed Leonardo Montes, a civilian
and brother to one of the platoon’s soldiers, and registered the murder
as a guerrilla kill. The brother’s pleas failed to prevent the killing.
The platoon hadn't registered a guerrilla kill in months, and without
results, they feared they wouldn't be let off base for Mother's Day. 5
soldiers faced a criminal probe in the murder, joining some 480
soldiers under investigation for about 1,000 extrajudicial killings
during the presidency of Alvaro Uribe.
(AP, 11/13/08)
2007 May 5, Colombian officials
reported that forensic teams have unearthed 211 bodies buried in dozens
of mass graves near La Hormiga in southern Colombia in the past 10
months, a legacy of fierce fighting in this coca-rich land.
(AP, 5/5/07)
2007 May 10, In southwestern
Colombia A roadside bomb planted by leftist rebels killed 10 soldiers
on patrol, the deadliest attack on security forces this year.
(AP, 5/10/07)
2007 May 14, In Colombia judicial
authorities ordered the arrest of 20 politicians and business leaders,
including five congressmen, on criminal conspiracy charges for signing
a 2001 pact with illegal right-wing militias. In the biggest shake-up
in years of the security forces, Colombia's police chief and the head
of police intelligence were forced to retire as the government alleged
that police illegally tapped calls of opposition political figures,
journalists and members of the government for the past two years.
(AP, 5/15/07)
2007 May 16, In northern Colombia
Diana Patricia Pena (36) was abducted by armed men with her husband,
Roland Erik Larson (68), at their farm. Pena soon escaped but
Larson was still missing.
(AP, 5/20/07)
2007 May 17, A Colombian warlord,
accused of spearheading civilian massacres, claimed that some US
companies who buy Colombia's bananas had made regular payments to his
illegal right-wing militias.
(AP, 5/17/07)
2007 May 18, President Alvaro
Uribe lashed out at US lawmakers for treating Colombia like a "pariah"
by refusing to pass a trade agreement amid a scandal linking his
government to murderous right-wing paramilitaries.
(AP, 5/18/07)
2007 May 23, Colombia announced
capital controls on some foreign investments to try to curb the soaring
peso, which has made greater gains against the dollar this year than
any other currency.
(AP, 5/23/07)
2007 Jun 4, Rodrigo Granda, the
highest-ranking jailed member of Colombia's main guerrilla group, was
freed by the government as part of a wider prisoner release intended to
help secure the freedom of 60 hostages, including three Americans, held
by the guerrillas.
(AP, 6/4/07)
2007 Jun 6, Colombia’s Pres. Uribe
arrived in Washington DC for his 2nd lobbying trip in a month. A US
congressional sub-committee had voted to cut aid by 10% and shift it
from military to social programs.
(Econ, 6/9/07, p.44)
2007 Jun 10, In southern Colombia
2 drunken soldiers shot and killed six civilians, including a nine-year
old boy, after arguing with guests at a party.
(AP, 6/10/07)
2007 Jun 14, Colombia’s Congress
passed a bill to give established gay couples full rights to health
insurance, inheritance and social security. This would make it the
first Latin American country to provide such rights.
(AP, 6/15/07)
2007 Jun 18, In Colombia 11
kidnapped former state lawmakers held hostage for five years were
killed after a military attack on the jungle camp where they were being
kept. The Web site of the left-wing news agency ANNCOL carried the
statement on June 28.
(AP, 6/28/07)
2007 Jun 20, Otto Roberto Herrera
Garcia, a man accused of turning Guatemala into a corridor for US-bound
cocaine, was arrested in Bogota, two years after escaping from a
Mexican prison. He offered agents $700,000 each in bribes to let him go
when he was seized.
(AP, 6/22/07)
2007 Jun 22, In Colombia a wave of
bombings in Bogota wounded 23 people. Marines defused another two bombs
the next day. Authorities blamed the bombings on rebels seeking revenge
for the killing of a regional guerrilla commander.
(AP, 6/23/07)
2007 Jun 26, Colombia’s navy
captured Edwin Alexander Torres, an alleged rebel suspected of
masterminding a wave of recent bombings that killed 3 people and
wounded dozens in Bogota.
(AP, 6/27/07)
2007 Jul 5, Over a million people
marched in Bogota, Colombia, to protest kidnappings and the recent
killing of abducted politicians.
(SFC, 7/6/07, p.A10)
2007 Jul 25, Human Rights Watch
said the escalating use of land mines by Colombian rebels is killing
and mutilating hundreds annually, making this nation the world leader
in mine victims.
(AP, 7/25/07)
2007 Aug 5, Colombia's navy seized
a 65-foot submarine that likely was used to haul tons of cocaine on
part of its journey to the United States. The blue-colored,
diesel-powered vessel had sophisticated communications systems and was
capable of carrying up to 11 tons of cocaine.
(AP, 8/7/07)
2007 Aug 7,
Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia (44), an alleged Colombian drug kingpin
wanted by the United States, was arrested in a luxury condominium on
the outskirts of Sao Paulo, Brazil.
(AP, 8/7/07)
2007 Aug 8, In southwest Colombia
families confirmed that two military officers kidnapped four months ago
by leftist rebels have died in captivity. Army Sgts. Alexander Cardona
and Jesus Sol were taken hostage by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia (FARC), while on patrol near their homes.
(AP, 8/9/07)
2007 Aug 23, More than 800
Colombian refugees crossed over the border to Ecuador from the
violence-ravaged department of Narino. The UN estimated that about 3
million Colombians have been driven from their homes by violence
without leaving the country, making it the largest internal refugee
population in the world after Sudan.
(AP, 8/25/07)
2007 Aug 27, In Colombia the
Bogota stock exchange launched the sale of up to 20% of state-owned
Ecopetrol’s shares.
(Econ, 9/1/07, p.31)
2007 Aug 30, Hundreds of Colombian
peasants returned home from Ecuador after the government promised to
protect them from leftist rebels trying to sabotage a coca eradication
campaign.
(AP, 8/30/07)
2007 Aug 31, Colombia's Alvaro
Uribe and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez agreed to allow a
representative of Colombia's largest guerrilla group to travel to
Caracas for talks aimed at freeing dozens of rebel-held hostages,
including three U.S. defense contractors.
(AP, 8/31/07)
2007 Sep 1, In Venezuela more than
two dozen Colombian prisoners arrested three years ago in an alleged
plot against President Hugo Chavez were freed in a goodwill gesture he
hopes will help facilitate a prisoner exchange in Colombia.
(AP, 9/1/07)
2007 Sep 2, In western Colombia 10
soldiers were killed in a clash with leftist FARC rebels. Five more
were missing.
(AP, 9/2/07)
2007 Sep 8, In Colombia the Red
Cross said it has recovered all 11 bodies presumed to be lawmakers who
were killed in a shootout while held hostage by leftist rebels.
(AP, 9/8/07)
2007 Sep 10, In Colombia soldiers
swarmed onto a farm and captured Diego Montoya, one of the world's most
wanted drug traffickers hiding in bushes in his underwear. He led the
Norte del Valle cartel and was captured along with an uncle and three
other cartel members. He was extradited to the US in 2008 and in 2009
was sentenced to 45 years in prison.
(AP, 9/11/07)(Reuters, 10/22/09)
2007 Oct 2, Colombia's navy seized
2 tons of cocaine, most destined for the United States, in small
packages labeled with the British flag from a truck on the country's
Caribbean coast.
(AP, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 5, Colombia’s
Constitutional Court ruled that gays may add their partners to health
insurance plans.
(SSFC, 10/7/07, p.A5)
2007 Oct 10, In Colombia police
clashed with hundreds of protesters who blocked roads and burned trucks
in demonstrations called by unions, farmers and indigenous groups who
accuse the government of ties to right-wing militias.
(AP, 10/10/07)
2007 Oct 8, In Colombia a plane
carrying 15 soldiers and three civilians disappeared. The wreckage was
spotted Oct 11 high in the Andes and the armed forces chief said there
was no chance of survivors.
(AP, 10/11/07)
2007 Oct 13, In Colombia a
landslide triggered by local residents digging for rumored deposits of
gold in an abandoned mine near Suarez killed at least 21 people and
injured another 26.
(AP, 10/14/07)
2007 Nov 8, John Walters, the
White House drug czar, said American-backed counter-narcotic programs
in Colombia and Mexico are disrupting the flow of cocaine into the
United States, driving up prices 44 percent on US streets this year.
(AP, 11/8/07)
2007 Nov 17, In Iran officials at
Niloofar Publications, which published the first edition of a novel by
Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez, known in the West as "Memories
of My Melancholy Whores," confirmed they have been forbidden to put out
a second edition. The Persian translation was titled "Memories of My
Melancholy Sweethearts."
(AP, 11/17/07)
2007 Nov 21, Colombia's government
said it was canceling Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's mediation role
with leftist rebels in a possible hostage swap, dealing a blow to
efforts to free three kidnapped US contractors and a former
presidential candidate.
(AP, 11/22/07)
2007 Nov 30, Colombian officials
released newly obtained videos of rebel-held hostages, among them three
US defense contractors and a former presidential candidate, the first
images in years providing evidence the captives may be alive.
(AP, 11/30/07)
2007 Dec 12, In Colombia 3 young
highway bandits set fire to a bus during a botched robbery near Bogota,
burning to death 10 people including 2 assailants and the bus driver.
The 3rd assailant (23) was arrested.
(AP, 12/13/07)
2007 Dec 15, Jean Oviedo (37), a
US woman, was shot and killed as she vacationed with her Colombian
husband in Bucaramanga, Colombia, in a robbery that netted $200 and a
laptop computer.
(AP, 12/16/07)
2007 Dec 25, In Colombia an elite
anti-kidnapping force in Neiva rescued a 9-year old boy, who was
snatched seven months ago by leftist rebels. Captors had demanded a
$50,000 ransom for his safe return, an amount his family was unable to
pay.
(AP, 12/27/07)
2007 Dec 27, Bayron Jimenez
Castaneda (44), suspected Colombian cocaine trafficker, was arrested in
Orlando, Florida, for the kidnapping of an undercover US agent. Three
other suspects in the kidnapping of a US Immigration and Customs
Enforcement agent on Dec. 14, 2005 remain at large. Traffickers
initially demanded a $2 million ransom, but released him after half a
day when they realized he was a US government agent.
(AP, 12/28/07)
2007 Dec 29, A series of
explosions ripped through an army base in the Colombian city of
Medellin, killing at least two people and forcing nearby residents to
flee. The first of at least six large blasts was apparently triggered
by a grenade that detonated inside a weapons arsenal.
(AP, 12/29/07)
2007 Dec 31, A Venezuelan-led
mission to rescue three hostages, including a 3-year old boy, from
leftist rebels in Colombia's jungles fell apart as the guerrillas
accused Colombia's military of sabotaging the promised handoff.
(AP, 1/1/08)
2008 Jan 7, Colombia’s army
captured Carlos Marin Guarin, who uses the nom de guerre "Pablito," a
senior commander of the ELN, Colombia’s second largest rebel group.
(AP, 1/9/08)
2008 Jan 10, Helicopters sent by
Venezuela's president picked up two hostages freed by Colombian rebels
in the jungle and flew the women across the border. Clara Rojas was an
aide to Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt in February
2002 when the two were kidnapped on the campaign trail. Rojas gave
birth in captivity to a boy fathered by one of the guerrillas.
Betancourt is still being held. The other freed hostage, former
congresswoman Consuelo Gonzalez de Perdomo, had been abducted in
September 2001. FARC, in a statement published on a pro-rebel Web site,
said the unilateral release demonstrated the group's "unquestionable
willingness" to engage the government in talks over the release of
remaining hostages. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia is
thought to still hold more than 700 others.
(AP, 1/11/08)(Econ, 1/19/08, p.39)
2008 Jan 17, In southwestern
Colombia the Galeras volcano erupted violently, spewing ash miles into
the sky and prompting the evacuation of several thousand people living
nearby.
(AP, 1/18/08)
2008 Jan 28, A US District judge
in Washington, DC, sentenced Ricardo Palmera, a Colombian rebel leader,
to 60 years in prison. Palmera admitted serving as FARC’s chief
negotiator during discussions over the release of 3 American hostages
captured in 2003.
(SFC, 1/29/08, p.A4)
2008 Jan 30, Wilber Varela, one of
Colombia's most-wanted drug lords, was found slain in Merida,
Venezuela. Varela's war with his rival within the Norte del Valle
cartel, Diego Montoya, plagued the city of Cali and much of
southwestern Colombia, killing more than 1,000 people in several years.
(AP, 2/1/08)
2008 Feb 4, Hundreds of thousands
of Colombians wearing white T-shirts marched in their homeland and
abroad to demand that FARC, the country's largest rebel group, stop
kidnapping people and release those it holds. Marchers used Facebook, a
social networking website, to help organize the event.
(AP, 2/4/08)(Econ, 2/9/08, p.41)
2008 Feb 13, In Colombia a
delegation of visiting US union leaders expressed alarm at what its
members called a steady erosion of labor rights in the world's
deadliest country for organized labor.
(AP, 2/14/08)
2008 Feb 18, In Colombia a
cashiered army lieutenant colonel and 14 soldiers were convicted of
murdering 10 elite counternarcotics police agents in an ambush that
showed how deeply drug corruption threatens Colombia's security forces.
(AP, 2/18/08)
2008 Feb 27, Two Venezuelan
helicopters left for Colombia on a mission to pick up four hostages
held by rebels for more than six years. Rebels turned over four
ex-lawmakers to representatives from Venezuela in the same region where
they released two others on Jan 10.
(AP, 2/27/08)(AP, 2/28/08)
2008 Mar 1, Colombia's defense
minister said security forces killed Raul Reyes (59), a leading
commander of the FARC rebel group, in combat and air strikes in
neighboring Ecuador. Reyes was the nom de guerre of Luis Edgar Devia.
23 other rebels were also killed and a laptop computer was seized with
documents indicating a close relationship between the rebels and
Venezuela’s Pres. Chavez. Colombia later acknowledged that an
Ecuadorean was killed during the raid. It was later reported that a
computer memory stick was acquired in the raid that held the names,
aliases and identity numbers of 9,387 rebels, including some photos.
(AP, 3/1/08)(AP, 3/5/08)(Econ, 3/8/08, p.43)(AP,
3/24/08)(AP, 9/25/08)
2008 Mar 2, Venezuela and Ecuador
ordered troops to their borders with Colombia, sharply raising tensions
after Colombia killed a top rebel leader on Ecuadorean soil. Ecuadorean
troops recovered the seminude bodies of 15 rebels in their jungle camp.
Soldiers also found three wounded women at the camp, a Mexican
philosophy student injured by shrapnel and two Colombians, who were
evacuated by helicopter to be treated.
(AP, 3/3/08)
2008 Mar 3, Ecuador's president
said that his government was in "very advanced" talks with Colombian
rebels to free 12 hostages, including former presidential candidate
Ingrid Betancourt and three US contractors, but was thwarted by
Colombia’s military raid. Venezuela and Ecuador expelled Colombia’s
diplomats and cracked down on trade across the border.
(AP, 3/4/08)
2008 Mar 5, The Washington-based
OAS declared Colombia’s attack on rebels in Ecuador a violation of
Ecuador's sovereignty and called for OAS Secretary-General Jose Miguel
Insulza to lead a delegation to both countries to ease tensions. But
the resolution stopped short of explicitly condemning the assault.
Pres. Chavez said Venezuela will search for other countries like
Ecuador, Brazil and Argentina to replace products imported from
Colombia.
(AP, 3/6/08)
2008 Mar 6, In Colombia a
guerrilla known as Rojas came to government troops with the severed
right hand of FARC rebel leader Ivan Rios (46), a laptop computer and
ID, saying he had killed his boss three days earlier. Rojas handed
himself over to the soldiers. The US State Department had a bounty of
$5 million for Rios' capture. A march protesting the Colombian
government and paramilitary death squads drew tens of thousands of
people and 6 organizers were killed.
(AP, 3/7/08)(AP, 3/14/08)
2008 Mar 6, Nicaraguan President
Daniel Ortega announced that he is breaking off relations with Colombia
because of his country's opposition to the Colombian raid on a
guerrilla base in Ecuador.
(AP, 3/6/08)
2008 Mar 6, Viktor Bout, a
suspected Russian arms dealer, was arrested at a five-star hotel in
downtown Bangkok on allegations that he supplied Colombian rebels with
arms and explosives. He had been accused of flouting UN embargoes and
was wanted by Interpol.
(AP, 3/6/08)
2008 Mar 7, At a summit in the
Dominican Republic the presidents of Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador
agreed to end a bitter dispute triggered by a Colombian cross-border
raid with testy handshakes and an apology.
(AP, 3/8/08)
2008 Mar 8, In Colombia a stadium
brawl at a soccer rivalry game left about 80 people wounded in the city
of Cali, 18 of them with stab wounds.
(AP, 3/9/08)
2008 Mar 26, Manuel "Sureshot"
Marulanda (78), co-founder and commander of the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia (FARC), died of a heart attack. On May 24 President
Alvaro Uribe announced he is willing to offer rebels who free hostages
"conditional liberty" and passage abroad. Marulanda, whose real name is
Pedro Antonio Marin, and had led the peasant-based FARC since its
founding in 1964. Alfonso Cano (Guillermo Leon Saenz), the FARC’s chief
ideologue, was expected to replace Marulanda.
(AP, 5/25/08)(Econ, 5/31/08, p.42)(AP, 3/26/09)
2008 Apr 4, Interpol issued a "red
notice" for the capture of Colombian rebel leader Rodrigo Granda,
wanted in connection with the 2004 high-profile kidnapping and killing
of Cecilia Cubas (31), the daughter of former Paraguay Pres. Raul Cubas.
(AP, 4/5/08)
2008 Apr 8, A Colombian court
sentenced nine rebel leaders to 40 years in prison for killing a state
governor, a former defense minister and eight others during a botched
hostage-rescue operation in 2003. Six Colombian soldiers were killed
after they walked into a mine field while pursuing a column of leftist
guerrillas.
(AP, 4/8/08)(AP, 4/9/08)
2008 Apr 15, Colombia's Nevado del
Huila volcano erupted in a shower of hot ash, prompting thousands of
people to leave their homes.
(AP, 4/15/08)
2008 Apr 19, Alfonso Lopez
Trujillo (b.1935), Vatican enforcer and former archbishop of Medellin,
died. In 1995, as head of the Pontifical council for the Family, he
published a “Lexicon of Ambiguous and Debatable Terms.”
(Econ, 5/3/08,
p.93)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonso_L%C3%B3pez_Trujillo)
2008 Apr 22, In Colombia former
Sen. Mario Uribe, a 2nd cousin and close political ally of President
Alvaro Uribe wanted for allegedly backing illegal militias, surrendered
to police after Costa Rica denied him political asylum. Charges
included seeking support from right-wing paramilitary gunmen in 2002
and buying land that was illegally obtained by them.
(AP, 4/23/08)(Econ, 4/26/08, p.55)
2008 Apr 29, Colombia police
killed Victor Manuel Mejia in a raid at his ranch hideout. The
government initially said it was his brother Miguel Angel. Both were
wanted for extradition to the United States, with US$5 million rewards
for their capture. In 2009 Miguel Angel Mejia was extradited to the US
on drug trafficking charges.
(AP, 4/30/08)(SFC, 3/5/09, p.A2)
2008 May 2, Colombian police
captured Miguel Angel Mejia, the second of two drug-trafficking twins
who were among the country's main cocaine shippers.
(AP, 5/2/08)
2008 May 7, Colombia extradited
Carlos Mario Jimenez, one of the country's most feared paramilitary
warlords, to the US to face drug trafficking charges.
(AP, 5/7/08)
2008 May 9, A newly disclosed set
of documents that Colombia's government says were recovered on March 1
from a slain rebel's computers indicate senior Venezuelan officials
tried to help arm Colombia's main guerrilla army. The price of crude
rose above US$126 a barrel for the first time as investors questioned
whether a Wall Street Journal report regarding the documents could lead
to a confrontation between Washington and Venezuela.
(AP, 5/10/08)
2008 May 13, Colombia extradited
14 top paramilitary warlords, many of them wanted on drug-trafficking
charges, to the United States, saying they failed to comply with the
peace pact under which they demobilized. They included Ramiro Vanoy
Murillo and Francisco Javier Zuluaga. In October Murillo (60) and
Zuluaga (38) pleaded guilty to cocaine conspiracy charges and faced at
least 2 decades in prison.
(AP, 5/13/08)(SFC, 10/10/08, p.A4)
2008 May 14, Colombian police
seized US$25 million (euro16 million) in properties from a paramilitary
warlord extradited to the U.S. on drug-trafficking charges.
(AP, 5/15/08)
2008 May 18, In Colombia Eldaneyis
Mosquera, also known as "Karina," a wanted leader of Latin America's
largest guerrilla army, handed herself over to Colombian authorities.
(AP, 5/19/08)
2008 May 24, In Colombia a
moderate earthquake shook Bogota, killing at least six people and
injuring more than 10.
(AP, 5/25/08)
2008 Jun 1, In Colombia a mudslide
following rains buried several dozen homes in a poor district of
Medellin and at least 23 people were killed.
(AP, 6/2/08)
2008 Jun 6, Colombia's
presidential spokesman said Colombia and Ecuador are restoring
diplomatic ties at the charge d'affaires level following mediation by
former US Pres. Carter.
(AP, 6/6/08)
2008 Jun 7, Canada said it had
wrapped up free trade negotiations with Colombia and reached agreement
on related labor and environmental issues.
(Reuters, 6/7/08)
2008 Jun 8, Venezuelan President
Hugo Chavez urged Colombian rebels to lay down their weapons,
unilaterally free dozens of hostages and end a decades-long armed
struggle.
(AP, 6/8/08)
2008 Jun 19, Colombia's chief
prosecutor ordered the arrest of a cashiered navy rear admiral on
charges he helped drug traffickers. Rear Adm. Gabriel Arango was fired
in August over accusations that traffickers paid him for information on
the movements of drug patrols off Colombia's Caribbean coast.
(AP, 6/19/08)
2008 Jun, Colombia’s government
created the 25,000 acre Orito Ingi-Ande Medicinal Plants Sanctuary to
protect plants, which the native Cofan people depend on for medicinal
and spiritual purposes.
(SFC, 7/8/08, p.A6)
2008 Jul 2, Colombian spies
tricked leftist rebels into handing over presidential candidate Ingrid
Betancourt (kidnapped in 2002), three US military contractors (captured
in 2003), and 10 other hostages in a helicopter rescue so successful
that not a single shot was fired. In 2009 Keith Stansell, Thomas Howes
and Marc Gonsalves authored "Out of Captivity," a memoir of their 5
½ year captivity by Colombia's leftist rebels.
(AP, 7/2/08)(AP, 2/26/09)
2008 Jul 4, Colombia's military
found more than a ton of explosives in a house in a rural area outside
the capital.
(AP, 7/6/08)
2008 Jul 7, In Colombia a
rose-laden US cargo plane headed for Miami crashed before dawn near
Bogota, killing a father and son in their home on the ground. It was
the second time in six weeks that a Boeing 747 flown by Ypsilanti,
Michigan-based Kalitta Air has crashed.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 11, Venezuela's Hugo
Chavez and Colombia's Alvaro Uribe mended relations after months of
sniping that threatened trade and unleashed a diplomatic crisis.
(AP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 17, Six prominent members
of Colombia’s largest rebel group FARC met this day with Nicaraguan
President Daniel Ortega according to Nicaragua’s La Prensa newspaper.
The members of the guerrilla organization arrived in Nicaragua in a
Cessna airplane from Venezuela. Both Ortega and Venezuela denied the
newspaper report.
(http://colombiareports.com/2008/07/23/ortega-met-with-farc-delegation-says-la-prensa/)
2008 Jul 19, In Bogota the
presidents of Brazil and Colombia vowed to boost trade and investment
between their nations ahead of crucial world trade talks next week.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 20, Well over a million
Colombians, clad in white and shouting "No more kidnapping," marked
their independence day with marches and concerts demanding freedom for
hostages still held by leftist rebels.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 25, In Colombia police
arrested Sen. Carlos Garcia, the head of one of Colombia's main
governing parties, for alleged ties with far-right paramilitaries.
(AP, 7/26/08)
2008 Jul 26, In Spain Maria
Remedios Garcia Albert (57) was arrested in San Lorenzo de el Escorial
on suspicion of belonging to Colombia's FARC rebel group.
(AP, 7/27/08)
2008 Aug 12, Spanish officials
said local police acting on a tip-off from US authorities have seized
1.4 tons of cocaine and arrested eight South American suspects, 6 from
Colombia and 2 from Venezuela.
(AP, 8/12/08)
2008 Aug 14, A bomb exploded
during a crowded street fair in northwestern Colombia, killing seven
people and wounding 17.
(AP, 8/15/08)
2008 Aug 22, Brazil extradited
Colombian drug lord Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia to the United States to
face racketeering charges.
(AP, 8/22/08)
2008 Sep 1, In Colombia a car bomb
has exploded in front of the palace of justice in Cali, killing at
least four people and injuring 20 others.
(AP, 9/1/08)
2008 Sep 4, Spanish police
arrested Vallejo-Guarin (47), a suspected Colombian drug trafficker,
listed among the most wanted by the US Drug Enforcement Administration.
(AP, 9/5/08)
2008 Oct 1, US officials said they
have seized almost two tons of cocaine from a Panama-flagged cargo ship
in international waters off Puerto Rico. The cocaine was hidden on a
ship, which was loaded with coal and had launched from Colombia.
(AP, 10/1/08)
2008 Oct 19, In Colombia Vladimir
Vanoy (32), the son of a warlord extradited to the US on drug charges,
was murdered by unidentified assailants at the gate to his condominium
outside Bogota. Earlier this month a Miami judge sentenced Ramiro Vanoy
to 24 years in prison on drug-trafficking charges.
(AP, 10/19/08)
2008 Oct 23, Colombia's director
of domestic intelligence resigned after her agency was caught spying on
a prominent political opponent of President Alvaro Uribe. At least six
small explosive devices left in trash cans detonated in Bogota,
wounding 18 people and frightening residents.
(AP, 10/24/08)
2008 Oct 24, Colombia's army chief
fired three colonels in the case of 11 men who disappeared from Soacha,
a poor district just south of Bogota. They were found dead in August
and September, months after their abduction in a war zone hundreds of
miles away. The young men appeared to have been kidnapped and
murdered to inflate the body count of dead guerrillas. On Oct 29
President Alvaro Uribe's government fired 25 soldiers, including three
generals and four colonels, over the killings of the 11 civilians.
(AP, 10/24/08)(AP, 10/29/08)(Econ, 11/1/08, p.47)
2008 Oct 26, In Colombia former
congressman Oscar Tulio Lizcano (62) walked to freedom in a
western along with the young guerrilla commander, who had been
his jailer, after eight years of captivity in the hands of leftist
Colombian rebels.
(AP, 10/26/08)
2008 Oct 28, Amnesty International
urged the United States and other nations to halt military aid to
Colombia until it stems a rise in killings of noncombatants by security
forces and heeds other UN prescriptions for ending its long-running
internal conflict.
(AP, 10/28/08)
2008 Nov 4, Gen. Mario Montoya,
the commander of Colombia's army, resigned abruptly in a widening
scandal over the killing of scores of civilians, allegedly spurred by
promotion-seeking officers to inflate rebel body counts.
(AP, 11/4/08)
2008 Nov 12, In Colombia the
investment company Proyecciones DRFE (Dinero Rapido Facil Efectivo -
Easy Money, Fast Cash) collapsed in Narino state leaving investors in
the pyramid scheme with losses estimated at some $270 million.
Investors took to the streets on rumors that owner Carlos Alfredo
Suarez had fled the country. At least 2 people died in ensuing riots. A
week later Panama extradited David Murcia Guzman, the president of DMG
Group, suspected of running the country's biggest pyramid scheme. On
Mar 13, 2009, the government announced it had recovered just $20.5
million, which would be distributed equally among some 214,000
investors, who would receive about $96 each. On Dec 16 Murcia was
sentenced to 30 years and 8 months in prison for a money-laundering
conviction and was fined $12.5 million. He is expected to be extradited
to the US soon on money-laundering conspiracy charges.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7740032.stm)(SFC, 11/15/08,
p.A9)(Econ, 11/22/08, p.49)(SFC, 3/14/09, p.A2)(SFC, 10/14/09,
p.A2)(AP, 12/16/09)
2008 Nov 20, In southwestern
Colombia the Nevado del Huila volcano erupted and loosed avalanches of
mud and ash that injured nine, destroyed bridges and trapped people in
their towns. At least 10 people died in landslides triggered by the
eruption.
(AP, 11/22/08)(SFC, 11/29/08, p.B6)
2008 Nov 21, Canada and Colombia
signed a free trade agreement, hoping to boost investment and trade
flows at a time of global economic instability.
(AP, 11/22/08)
2008 Nov 28, Tens of thousands of
Colombians marched to demand leftist rebels free hostages they have
held for as long as a decade or more.
(AP, 11/29/08)
2008 Dec 5, In northeast Colombia
suspected leftist rebels attacked a small police convoy with explosives
and automatic weapons, killing eight police officers and wounding one.
Police blamed the attack on the National Liberation Army (ELN), which
operates in the oil-producing region bordering Venezuela.
(AP, 12/5/08)
2008 Dec 12, Colombia extradited
Diego Montoya, one of its most notorious drug trafficking suspects, to
the United States to stand trial. Colombian authorities said he sent
tons of cocaine to the United States and is responsible for at least
1,500 killings in a two-decade career.
(AP, 12/12/08)
2009 Jan 8, In Spain Leonidas
Vargas (60), a convicted Colombian drug baron with links to two major
smuggling cartels, was shot dead in a Madrid hospital.
(AP, 1/8/09)
2009 Jan 15, Togo agreed to
extradite to the US Solano Cortez Jorge, an alleged druglord from
Colombia, who was arrested trying to smuggle hundreds of pounds
(kilograms) of cocaine through this West African nation last year.
(AP, 1/16/09)
2009 Jan 23, Colombia's national
police chief said that fugitive drug boss Daniel Rendon, the country's
leading drug lord, has offered assassins a bounty of $1,000 for each
police officer they kill. The defense minister said another 10
Colombian soldiers have been fired for negligence in connection with
the killings of civilians to inflate guerrilla casualty figures. A
major was the highest ranking of the 10 cashiered soldiers from the
Popa Battalion in the northern city of Valledupar.
(AP, 1/23/09)
2009 Feb 1, Colombia's battered
FARC rebels freed three police officers and a soldier held hostage for
more than a year, handing them over to the International Red Cross. A
car bomb exploded near a police post in the city of Cali, killing at
least one person and injuring at least 18 others after officers were
lured to the scene by a bogus fire alarm.
(AP, 2/2/09)
2009 Feb 3, In Colombia leftist
rebels freed their fifth hostage in three days. Ex-governor Alan Jara
(51), held for 7½ years, said that President Alvaro Uribe and
the guerrillas are equally to blame for the country's still-festering
conflict.
(AP, 2/4/09)
2009 Feb 17, Colombia's main
leftist rebel group said that it "executed" eight Indians in the
country's remote southwest, accusing them of acting as paid informants
for Colombia's military. The communique posted on a Web site
sympathetic to the rebels followed widespread but unconfirmed reports
that as many as 27 Awa Indians had been killed.
(AP, 2/17/09)
2009 Feb 26, Colombian President
Alvaro Uribe said he's no longer allowing wiretapping by the
scandal-ridden domestic intelligence agency. The announcement followed
allegations that the spy agency, or DAS, has continued illegal
wiretapping of prominent journalists, Supreme Court justices and
opposition politicians. By the end of April 33 people were dismissed
from Colombia’s Dept. of Administrative Security in the wiretapping
scandal.
(AP, 2/26/09)(SFC, 4/29/09, p.A2)
2009 Mar 5, A Colombian warlord
who has cooperated closely with prosecutors was extradited to the
United States despite human rights groups' objections that sending him
away could leave hundreds of murders unsolved. Heberth Veloza (41),
alias "HH," has admitted to personally killing more than 100 people and
acknowledged that fighters under his command killed hundreds more.
(AP, 3/5/09)
2009 Mar 6, Colombia’s
anti-narcotics police seized 5.7 tons of cocaine and cocaine base in a
jungle laboratory reportedly run by the Black Eagles, the largest of a
new generation of paramilitary groups.
(SFC, 3/7/09, p.A4)
2009 Mar 17, In Colombia Erik
Roland Larsson (69), a partially paralyzed Swede, was released by
leftist rebels after nearly two years of captivity. He was the last
known foreign hostage held in Colombia by the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia (FARC).
(AP, 3/18/09)
2009 Mar 18, Colombia extradited
former Maj. Julio Cesar Parga Rivas to the US on drug trafficking
charges.
(AP, 3/18/09)
2009 Mar 23, In southeastern
Colombia a mortar attack by leftist rebels killed 4 soldiers from an
elite counter-guerrilla unit and left 6 others missing in the
cocaine-producing jungle area of Guaviare state known as Cano Flauta.
(AP, 3/24/09)(SFC, 3/25/09, p.A2)
2009 Mar 27, In Honda, Colombia,
Arcebio Alvarez (59), a farmer and widower, was arrested on charges of
incest and sexual abuse. He was accused of incest for allegedly
fathering eight children with his daughter. He denied being the woman's
biological father.
(AP, 3/29/09)
2009 Mar 30, Banking officials
meeting in Colombia said Argentina and China have tentatively agreed to
swap $10 billion worth of their currencies to enable South America's
second-largest economy to avoid using dollars in trade between the
nations.
(AP, 3/30/09)
2009 Apr 12, In Colombia a caravan
of some 500 motorcycles completed a three-week ride dedicated to
hostages held by FARC rebels, but fell short of securing the release of
captives. At least 22 Colombian soldiers and police were held by the
FARC as political bargaining chips.
(AP, 4/12/09)
2009 Apr 15, Colombia's most
wanted drug lord was captured in a jungle raid involving hundreds of
police officers. Daniel Rendon Herrera (43), a far-right warlord known
as "Don Mario," was taken in shackles to the capital to await possible
extradition to the United States.
(AP, 4/15/09)
2009 May 8, In Colombia Jorge
Noguera, former director of the civilian intelligence service, DAS, was
charged with conspiracy and murder. He was accused of colluding with
paramilitaries and helping to plan the murders of opposition figures.
(Econ, 5/16/09, p.43)
2009 May 11, Colombian authorities
arrested a senator closely allied with President Alvaro Uribe for
alleged collusion with illegal far-right militias. Sen. Zulema Jattin
(39) had been under Supreme Court investigation for allegedly
benefitting politically from ties with militia boss Rodrigo Tovar.
Jattin called her arrest a "kidnapping" by the Supreme Court.
(AP, 5/11/09)
2009 May 19, Colombian lawmakers
approved a proposal for voters to decide in a referendum whether to
change the constitution and let President Alvaro Uribe seek a third
term.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 26, Wilmer Ignacio
Guerrero Ibanez (40), a suspected trafficker accused of smuggling
cocaine through Venezuela was deported to Colombia, where officials
took him into custody at an international bridge linking the countries.
(AP, 5/27/09)
2009 May 30, In Colombia 3
computers were seized in the Bogota home of a Adela Perez (36), a
suspected FARC operative. One computer, finally decrypted in July,
contained an hour-long video that appeared to confirm that Colombia's
largest rebel army gave money to the 2006 election campaign of
President Rafael Correa of Ecuador.
(AP, 7/17/09)
2009 Jun 19, The UN said
Colombia's coca crop shrank by nearly a fifth last year while
cultivation of the bush that is the basis of cocaine rose for a third
straight year in Peru and Bolivia, the world's two other coca-producing
nations.
(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 22, In Colombia rebels
killed at least seven members of a police counterinsurgency unit in an
ambush in the country's southwest.
(AP, 6/23/09)
2009 Jul 12, Colombia’s President
Alvaro Uribe delivered reparations totaling nearly $1 million to 279
victims of Colombia's long-running conflict.
(AP, 7/13/09)
2009 Jul 16, Colombian authorities
extradited to the United States Gerardo Aguilar (50), alias "Cesar," a
FARC rebel "jailer" captured in last year's July 2 rescue of three US
military contractors and ex-presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt.
He faced drug-trafficking charges, kidnapping and other charges on an
indictment in Washington, D.C. federal court.
(AP, 7/17/09)
2009 Jul 25, In Colombia at least
16 suspected FARC guerrillas and one soldier have been killed in
clashes over the last 24 hours.
(AP, 7/25/09)
2009 Jul 27, In Colombia three
soldiers and two civilians were killed in a rifle and grenade attack on
a boat carrying coca eradication workers on the San Juan river in Choco
state. Six people were wounded and six more were missing.
(AP, 7/28/09)
2009 Jul 27, Sweden said it was
demanding an explanation as to why Swedish-made anti-tank rocket
launchers, sold to Venezuela years ago, were obtained by Colombia's
main rebel group. Three launchers were recovered in October in a FARC
arms cache belonging to a rebel commander known as "Jhon 40" and
Colombia only recently asked Sweden to confirm whether they had been
sold to Venezuela.
(AP, 7/27/09)
2009 Jul 28, Venezuela’s Pres.
Hugo Chavez recalled his ambassador from Bogota and threatened to halt
Colombian imports after the neighboring country said anti-tank weapons
found in a rebel arms cache came from Venezuela.
(AP, 7/28/09)
2009 Jul 31, In Colombia at least
eight former officials of the domestic intelligence agency surrendered
to face criminal charges for allegedly spying illegally on opponents of
President Alvaro Uribe including judges, journalists and human rights
workers.
(AP, 8/1/09)
2009 Aug 5, In Colombia David
Murcia Guzman, a Colombian businessman, was convicted in a notorious
pyramid scheme that authorities say bilked investors out of more than
$2.4 billion. Guzman was convicted of money laundering and illegal
wealth accumulation through the company he founded, DMG Group Holdings
SA. A New York court has sought his extradition. Murcia was extradited
to the US on Jan 5, 2009.
(AP, 8/5/09)(AP, 1/5/10)
2009 Aug 8, Venezuela’s President
Hugo Chavez said he's returning his ambassador to Colombia, moving to
resolve rising diplomatic tensions after weapons sold to Venezuela were
found in a rebel cache.
(AP, 8/8/09)
2009 Aug 10, Leaders of the Union
of South American Nations (UNASUL), a 12-member group inspired by
Brazil, met in Quito, Ecuador, in an attempt to further integration.
Colombia’s Pres. Uribe did not attend, in part because Ecuador broke of
ties with Colombia last year.
(Econ, 8/15/09, p.31)
2009 Aug 22, Colombian authorities
said police have captured Jose Armando Cadena Cabrera, a guerrilla
suspected of killing a US military contractor and a Colombian soldier
after their surveillance plane crashed in the jungle in 2003.
(AP, 8/22/09)
2009 Aug 26, In Colombia hooded
men in uniforms without insignias shot and killed 12 members of the Awa
indigenous group, including five children, on a reserve in a region
plagued by the cocaine trade.
(AP, 8/26/09)
2009 Aug, Colombia’s Supreme Court
suspended further extraditions of paramilitary leaders arguing that the
gravity of the drug charges they face in the US pales in comparison
with the mass murders and other enormities that they are accused of in
Colombia.
(Econ, 10/31/09, p.46)
2009 Sep 4, Thousands of opponents
of Hugo Chavez marched against the Venezuelan president across Latin
America, accusing him of everything from authoritarianism to
international meddling. The protests, coordinated through Twitter and
Facebook, drew more than 5,000 people in Bogota, and thousands more in
the capitals of Venezuela and Honduras. Smaller demonstrations were
held in other Latin American capitals, as well as New York and Madrid.
(AP, 9/5/09)
2009 Sep 5, In Colombia a grenade
exploded in a crowd celebrating a national soccer team win in Medellin,
killing one person and wounding at least 30. Police thought a reveler
may have accidentally detonated the grenade by mishandling it.
(AP, 9/6/09)
2009 Sep 8, Colombia’s President
Alvaro Uribe signed legislation calling for a national referendum on
amending the constitution to allow him to seek re-election for a second
time.
(AP, 9/9/09)
2009 Sep 9, Colombian customs
agents said they seized $11.3 million in cash from a shipping container
in the nation's largest cargo port. Ret. Gen. Francisco Pedraza was
captured at the installations of the IV Brigade in Medellin, Antioquia.
He is being investigated for homicide, forced displacement and
terrorism as part of an investigation into the 2001 massacre of at
least 26 people in Naya, Cauca state.
(AP, 9/9/09)(AP, 9/10/09)
2009 Sep 10, Colombia’s police
said they have seized $55 million in properties and assets from drug
traffickers in a 2 day operation in five cities in Antioquia state and
six cities in Cundinamarca state. The assets included shares in a
popular soccer team.
(AP, 9/10/09)
2009 Sep 11, In Colombia two bombs
being carried by donkeys exploded, killing two coca-eradication workers
and wounding six soldiers in Norte de Santander state.
(AP, 9/11/09)
2009 Sep 13, Costa Rican
authorities detained 54 US-bound migrants from Africa and Nepal after
their boat arrived on the country's coast. Authorities also took into
custody three suspected Colombian smugglers who were traveling with
them.
(AP, 9/13/09)
2009 Sep 18, Colombia’s spy chief,
Felipe Munoz Gomez, said the domestic spy department will be dismantled
and a new agency will be set up to focus on intelligence and
counterintelligence work involving national security. This followed a
recent wiretapping scandal.
(AP, 9/18/09)
2009 Sep 19, Colombia extradited
Nancy Conde Rubio (37), a captured leftist rebel who unwittingly helped
officials rescue 15 hostages, including three American military
contractors. She was bundled aboard a plane to Florida to face charges
of terrorism in a US federal court. Colombia also sent back another
woman and eight men to face charges in the US related to drug
trafficking.
(AP, 9/20/09)
2009 Sep 24, The Colombian
military discovered a mass grave holding 16 rebels believed killed in
combat, including a nephew of a top guerrilla commander. the FARC
fighters were believed killed during fighting in July and included a
nephew of the rebel band's No. 2 leader, Jorge Briceno.
(AP, 9/25/09)
2009 Sep 25, In Colombia the chief
prosecutor's office said it has unearthed the remains of 17 peasants
tortured and killed at a ranch that belonged to the since-slain,
far-right militia leader Carlos Castano in Colombia's northwest. The
peasants were believed slain 10 to 12 years ago by men under the
command of Jesus Ignacio Roldan, alias "Monoleche," a Castano
lieutenant who later participated in the 2004 murder of the right-wing
militia leader.
(AP, 9/25/09)
2009 Sep 30, Colombian authorities
said a gunman on horseback killed German Herrera (41), a town
councilman in Castillo, and wounded an 11-year-old boy. Herrera had
been threatened by leftist FARC rebels active in the area. The national
councilman's federation said nine town councilmen have been killed in
Colombia this year, compared to 13 in all of 2008.
(AP, 9/30/09)
2009 Oct 7, In Colombia machine
gun-firing rebels on motorbikes attacked a prison, springing ELN
guerrilla rebel chief Gustavo Anibal Giraldo. One guard was killed and
another suffered multiple gunshot wounds in the daring midday raid,
which ended with Giraldo fleeing on the back of a motorcycle. Giraldo
was charged with kidnapping two journalists in 2003 on assignment for
the Los Angeles Times. Giraldo was also charged in a US indictment
unsealed in December with the 15-month kidnapping of a US helicopter
mechanic.
(AP, 10/7/09)
2009 Oct 22, Venezuela deported
Luis Cediel to the US. The Colombian man had links to a pyramid scheme
that bilked Colombians out of hundreds of millions of dollars.
(SFC, 10/23/09, p.A2)
2009 Oct 11, In Venezuela 12 men
were kidnapped from a field where they were playing soccer. On Oct 25
the bodies of 10 of the men, most of them Colombians, were found with
multiple spots in western Tachira state. A single survivor, Manuel
Cortez (19) of Colombia, was shot in the neck.
(AP, 10/26/09)
2009 Oct 27, Venezuela’s President
Hugo Chavez said two Colombian spies have been captured and will go on
trail for conducting espionage within his country. Colombia's security
agency denied sending any agents into Venezuela.
(AP, 10/28/09)
2009 Oct 30, In Colombia the US
ambassador and three Colombian ministers signed a pact in a private,
low-key ceremony, to expand Washington's military's presence, a deal
that Venezuela's Hugo Chavez has called a threat to the region's
security.
(AP, 10/30/09)
2009 Nov 8, Colombia said it will
appeal to the UN Security Council and the OAS after Hugo Chavez, the
fiery leftist president of neighboring Venezuela, ordered his army to
prepare for war in order to assure peace.
(Reuters, 11/9/09)
2009 Nov 9, In Colombia at least
nine soldiers were killed and four wounded in combat with leftist
rebels in a mountainous western region.
(AP, 11/10/09)
2009 Nov 10, Colombian authorities
said they have seized $19 million in forged US currency so far this
year, five times the amount confiscated last year. A statement from the
Presidency's press office said 16 people have been arrested in Colombia
and the US in connection with the seizures and seven illegal
counterfeiting print shops have been dismantled.
(AP, 11/11/09)
2009 Nov 14, Colombia’s government
4 soldiers from Venezuela's National Guard captured in Colombian
territory will be repatriated in a bid to ease tensions between the
South American neighbors. The Colombian navy intercepted the men Nov 13
in El Aceitico along the border.
(AP, 11/15/09)
2009 Nov 15, In Colombia DAS
intelligence agency director Felipe Munoz said Ivan Danilo Alarcon,
wanted for rebellion and drug trafficking, was detained by intelligence
agents near a university in the city of Cali. Alarcon, who posed as a
human rights activist, cried out that he was being kidnapped and 100
people surrounded and detained the agents for over an hour, threatened
them with death and took their weapons and armored vests. They freed
Alarcon from handcuffs, and he fled.
(AP, 11/16/09)
2009 Nov 19, Venezuelan
authorities captured Magally Moreno (39), a former Colombian official,
wanted for collaborating with outlawed right-wing paramilitary
fighters. Moreno was wanted by Colombian authorities on charges of
aggravated homicide and Interpol had called for her arrest.
(AP, 11/21/09)
2009 Dec 21, In Colombia at least
10 men in military uniforms abducted Gov. Luis Francisco Cuellar (69)
from his home in Florencia, capital of the southern state of Caqueta,
killing a police guard and blasting open the governor's door with
explosives. FARC was believed to be responsible. Cuellar’s body, still
clad in pajamas, was found lying at the top of a steep hill on
Florencia's outskirts the next morning. President Alvaro Uribe soberly
told Colombians that kidnappers had slit the throat of the southern
governor.
(AP, 12/22/09)(AP, 12/23/09)
2010 Jan 1, In Colombia a New
year’s Eve dessert, distributed to the homeless in Bogota’s El Calvario
neighborhood, contained ground glass and poison that caused one death
and sickened 44 others. Air and ground assaults on two rebel camps
killed 18 insurgents and captured 13, 112 miles south of Bogota. An
attack by guerrillas a few hours earlier killed a soldier and a teenage
girl at a boardinghouse 164 miles southwest of Bogota.
(AP, 1/1/10)
2010 Jan 14, Colombia extradited
William Suarez (42), a suspect in the nation's most notorious pyramid
scheme, to face trial in the United States. Suarez was the principal
partner of his brother-in-law David Murcia, creator of the company DMG,
which offered investors interest rates far above what banks offer, but
was actually a pyramid scheme that bilked Colombians out of millions of
dollars.
(AP, 1/14/10)
2010 Jan 27, Panama's national
police force killed three guerrillas from a Colombian rebel group in a
confrontation along the sparsely populated frontier between the two
countries. Two others were captured while and one escaped.
(AP, 1/27/10)
2010 Feb 24, In Colombia Mario
Uribe (60), a former senator and second cousin to President Alvaro
Uribe, was arrested by authorities on charges of colluding with
far-right death squads. Mario Uribe was imprisoned for four months in
2008 on charges of colluding with paramilitaries, but he was released
in August of the same year after Colombia's No. 2 prosecutor said there
was insufficient evidence to hold him.
(AP, 2/24/10)
2010 Feb 26, In Colombia a
Constitutional Court ruling blocked a referendum on whether Alvaro
Uribe should be allowed to seek a third consecutive term. The high
court ruled, in a 7-2 decision that is not subject to appeal, that a
law passed by Congress to set up the referendum was unconstitutional.
(AP, 2/27/10)
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Subject = Colombia
End of file