50 Colombian Police Killed This Month

Successor To Killed FARC Leader Named
9/28/2010 4:55 AM ET

(RTTNews) -

Colombia's Leftist guerrilla group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) has named a successor to one of its top military commanders who was killed in a military air strike five days ago.

Víctor Julio Suarez Rojas, also known as Jorge Briceno Suarez, was killed in an operation by government forces last week in the Macarena region of FARC stronghold.

A FARC executive committee meeting on Monday decided to replace him with 51-year-old Felix Munoz, alias Pastor Alapa.

In an online statement, the guerrilla group vowed to intensify its fight to topple the Colombian government.

President Jose Manuel Santos, who took over the Presidential reigns and fight against rebels from his predecessor Alvaro Uribe last month, described the key FARC leader's death as "the hardest blow" in the nearly half-a-century-old history of the rebel movement.

Wanted by the U.S. for killing three of its citizens, terrorism and narcotics trafficking activities, Rojas was heading FARC's strongest fighting division, the Eastern Bloc.

Colombian security forces had been on the look out for him for almost ten years. Fondly called by his followers as Mono Jojoy, the FARC leader carried a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to his arrest or conviction.

The Colombian military had killed 22 FARC guerrillas by bombing a jungle rebel camp near the Ecuadorean border last Sunday. It was the result of an operation targeting FARC rebels who killed eight policemen in an ambush earlier this month in the town of San Miguel in Putumayo province.

Around 50 policemen and soldiers were killed this month in a series of attacks by the outlawed extremists.

Founded 46 years ago, FARC is the largest Leftist guerrilla group of the South American country with an estimated cadre-strength of 17,000.

Meanwhile, Senator Piedad Cordoba, a known mediator in the conflict, was stripped of her Congressional membership for her alleged links with FARC.

Colombia's Attorney-General Alejandro Ordonez also banned her from holding public office for 18 years.

by RTT Staff Writer

A Closet Muslim President and a Clueless Secretary of State

Barack Obama and Argentina President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner







This is the Left Wing President of Argentina, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, talking about revolution to the Russians, obviously hosable, but you would not want her anywhere near a political office.

___________________________________

American neutrality on the Falklands is a symptom of US foreign policy drift

By James Corum World Last updated: February 26th, 2010
Telegraph

James Corum is Dean of the Baltic Defence College in Estonia. He has taught at American and British staff colleges and is the author of seven books on military history and counter-insurgency. He is a Lieutenant Colonel in the US Army Reserve (rtd) and has 28 years' experience as an army officer.

The Bush administration got a lot of things wrong – but at least they usually had some idea of who America’s adversaries were and who America’s friends were. For example, Bush’s policy of maintaining the special relationship with Britain was a simple recognition of the close bonds of alliance, friendship and interests that the British and Americans have had since World War I.

In contrast, Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are apparently clueless about some of the most basic aspects of foreign policy: supporting one’s friends and fencing in one’s adversaries. The declaration of neutrality on the issue of the sovereignty of the Falklands issued by the US State Department is clear proof of the uselessness of the Obama administration.

In the grand scheme of things it makes little sense for America to give moral support to the Kirchner government in Argentina. Kirchner is no friend of the US and Kirchner’s government is in deep domestic trouble for its gross mismanagement of the economy and its attempts to suppress the press criticism of the regime at home. One has to wonder what benefit America gets out of hurting Britain on this issue. Perhaps Obama thinks that the more Leftist Latin American regimes will somehow approve of the US. If that is the case, he is truly mistaken, as most Latin American nations dislike the Argentineans, and have little sympathy for the mess Argentina got into over the Falklands.

But this mess is just typical of the drift in US foreign policy – if one can say that it even HAS a coherent foreign policy these days. As I said, at the core of the problem is a simple inability to recognise and support our friends over adversaries. In his first year in office Obama made numerous apologies for America’s past to the Third World, he effusively greeted the Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, he bowed low to the Saudi ruler, and called for a “reset” of relations with Russia – all the while implying that America was at fault for all these problems. At the same time he rudely undermined the security of America’s Eastern European allies by cancelling the ballistic missile defence with no notice and no prior discussion, he failed to push for a free trade agreement with Colombia – America’s strongest ally in South America – and he supported Chavez’s allies when they tried (luckily unsuccessfully) to unseat a democratic and pro-US government in Honduras.

A big part of the problem is a Secretary of State who is a lightweight as far as foreign policy is concerned. Obama brought Hillary Clinton into the cabinet for domestic policy considerations. He needed to put Mrs Clinton – and her husband – under tight control. As a powerful senator from New York, she would probably have taken over as the de facto leader of the Democratic Party and been able to challenge Obama’s “Chicago Gang” for control of the party.

Despite the acclaim that America’s mainstream media has heaped on Hillary Clinton over the years, her foreign policy background and experience before becoming Secretary of State was to accompany her husband on foreign trips and preside over “first wives” dinners for the spouses of visiting heads of state. One learns a lot about protocol and ceremonies – but this is no preparation for the real work of making policy. Clinton has no experience or education in foreign policy. She speaks no foreign languages and has never lived abroad. She lacks the intellectual temperament to be a foreign policy leader. Like Obama, she has long surrounded herself with sycophants.

On assuming office, Obama’s vision of foreign policy was simple: he would repudiate past American policies and the whole world would melt before the president’s charm. The administration somehow thought that we really didn’t have enemies with agendas completely hostile to our own – there were just countries that had become offended by US actions and they would happily cooperate with America as soon as the evil Republicans were gone. Well, it hasn’t worked – and there was no Plan B.
With a president overwhelmed by domestic problems, Hillary Clinton has failed to step in and set a foreign policy vision. Simply put, she does not have the brains or the experience to develop a coherent foreign policy vision for America. This is how we get policy mistakes on issues such as the sovereignty of the Falklands.

Sieze the Moment in Colombia, Support Democracy in America

...She recalled how the day began, waking up at 4:30 a.m. and saying the rosary before being told by her guards that she and the other hostages were to be transferred to another location, where their detention was to continue.

"My heart broke because I did not want another transfer, another time, in captivity," she said.

But her guard, a woman, was unmoved and ordered Betancourt to cross a river to the pickup spot -- "very harsh, move, hurry up fast, as always," she said.

Soon, two white helicopters approached and several men approached the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia commanders who were overseeing their transfer, she said.

"They spoke with Commander Enrique and Cesar," she said of her captors. As she looked closer, she saw that the men from the helicopter were wearing shirts emblazoned with the likeness of Che Guevara, the Argentine hero of the Cuban revolution. "I thought, this is FARC," she said.

Placed in handcuffs, Betancourt got into the helicopter, still unaware of what was happening. "They closed the helicopter doors, the helicopter started flying and suddenly there was something happening," she said.

"Suddenly I saw the commander who, during four years, had been at the head of our team, who so many times was so cruel and humiliated me, and I saw him on the floor naked with bound eyes."

_________________________

Uribe pushes for peace after hostage release

Betancourt recalling freedom: "Helicopter almost fell because we started jumping"
Colombian military infiltrated FARC leadership, defense minister says»

BOGOTA, Colombia (CNN) -- Hours after a military operation that freed 15 hostages, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe on Wednesday night urged peace by calling on leftist rebels to release all hostages.

The Colombian military infiltrated the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and deceived its members into giving up the hostages, including former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, the country's defense ministry said.

The FARC, which has fought a long, complicated conflict with Colombia's government and right-wing paramilitary groups, has defended hostage-taking as a legitimate act of war and is believed to hold roughly 750 prisoners in the nation's remote jungles.

With Betancourt seated beside the podium from which he spoke, Uribe called the daring operation "an unbelievable military achievement and an honor to humanity."

No shots were fired in the operation.

The security forces who deceived the rebels "are entering the page of the heroes of humanity," Uribe said. Watch Uribe describe the operation to the nation »

Betancourt acknowledged she had been deceived by the mission.

Appearing healthy after being held hostage for six years in the jungle, she walked down from a Colombian military jet in Bogota hours earlier into the arms of her mother and later her husband.

"God carried out this miracle," she said. "This is a miracle because I know that all of you suffered with my family, my children, with me. This is a moment of pride for all of Colombia for such a perfect operation."

Along with Betancourt, three American contractors and 11 Colombian police and military were rescued in the operation. Late Wednesday, the Colombians were with their families and friends in Bogota, and the Americans -- Keith Stansell, Marc Gonsalves and Thomas Howes -- had arrived in the United States.

Betancourt was abducted February 23, 2002, after venturing into rebel territory in the south while campaigning for the Colombian presidency. Once one of Colombia's rising political stares, she was a reformer who fought Colombia's drug cartels as a congresswoman in the 1990s. Her platform called for a nation "free of corruption, violence and free of drugs." Watch Betancourt describe feeling guilty for being kidnapped »

Asked if she still wants to be president, Betancourt said, "If I continue with the dream to serve Colombia, yes, from the presidency, only God knows. At this moment, I just want to feel like another soldier, another soldier for Colombia, in the service of the fatherland."

She said she wanted to discuss her plans with her children and family before commiting to involvement in Colombian politics again, The Associated Press reported.

The former lawmaker said she had fallen gravely ill during her captivity, but that a nurse among the captors had diagnosed her illness and helped her recover.

She recalled how the day began, waking up at 4:30 a.m. and saying the rosary before being told by her guards that she and the other hostages were to be transferred to another location, where their detention was to continue.

"My heart broke because I did not want another transfer, another time, in captivity," she said.

But her guard, a woman, was unmoved and ordered Betancourt to cross a river to the pickup spot -- "very harsh, move, hurry up fast, as always," she said.

Soon, two white helicopters approached and several men approached the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia commanders who were overseeing their transfer, she said.

"They spoke with Commander Enrique and Cesar," she said of her captors. As she looked closer, she saw that the men from the helicopter were wearing shirts emblazoned with the likeness of Che Guevara, the Argentine hero of the Cuban revolution. "I thought, this is FARC," she said.

Placed in handcuffs, Betancourt got into the helicopter, still unaware of what was happening. "They closed the helicopter doors, the helicopter started flying and suddenly there was something happening," she said.

"Suddenly I saw the commander who, during four years, had been at the head of our team, who so many times was so cruel and humiliated me, and I saw him on the floor naked with bound eyes."

It was only then that the reality of liberation hit home.

"The chief of operations said, 'We are the national army, and you are all free,' and the helicopter almost fell because we started jumping, we screamed, we cried, we hugged. We couldn't believe it." Watch Betancourt call the operation 'perfect' »

Betancourt described the operation as "a miracle" and "a moment of pride" in Colombia.

Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos joined the welcome, embracing Betancourt and others.

Earlier, he outlined the operation for the news media, saying the operation followed a length fact-finding effort to develop intelligence in the area.

The Colombian military had infiltrated the FARC leadership and arranged for the hostages to be taken to the south of the country, where they were to be picked up by two helicopters that the rebels believed were controlled by another group, Santos said. Two FARC rebels were also captured, he added.

The operation was "100 percent Colombian," he said.

Betancourt added that she hopes that FARC commanders would not punish the guards who were fooled. It was not their fault, she said; the operation was too perfect for them to detect the deceit.

Betancourt, who holds dual French-Colombian citizenship, said she would travel to France on Thursday to meet French President Nicolas Sarkozy, saying she probably is alive because of French efforts to secure her release, AP reported.

In a televised address after Betancourt's release, Sarkozy expressed happiness and thanks to the Colombian government and urged FARC members to "stop this absurd combat, this fight."

U.S. President Bush phoned Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to congratulate him on the operation.

William Brownfield, U.S. ambassador to Colombia », told CNN's "Larry King Live" that the two countries share intelligence but that the operation was "was overwhelmingly a Colombian operation."

Julio Cesar Betrago, a member of the national police who was kidnapped a decade ago and released with Betancourt, was overjoyed at being freed. "I want to thank our glorious army," he told reporters. "For me, it's like being born again."

The freed American hostages -- Stansell, Gonsalves and Howes -- arrived around midnight at Brook Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas aboard a U.S. military flight. They were working for Northrop Grumman Corp. as part of a U.S.-funded counternarcotics effort when their plane crashed in Colombia on February 13, 2003.

The rescue operation is the latest in a series of blows that has battered the FARC this year. Since March, three members of the rebel group's seven-member general secretariat have died or been killed, including the founder and leader of the rebels, Pedro Antonio Marin, also known as Manuel Marulanda Velez, and the group's second-in-command, Raul Reyes.

The military strike that killed Reyes led to the discovery of a treasure trove of intelligence from computers taken during a raid by Colombian military forces on a FARC camp inside Ecuador, a move that led President Rafael Correa to break diplomatic ties with Colombia.

The computers included reported links between Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and the rebels.


Chavez has denied supporting the rebels and has changed his stance from calling for diplomatic recognition of them as legitimate combatants to calling for them to lay down their arms and end their military struggle.

In an interview with CNN en Espanol, Betancourt said she admires "what Chavez and Correa have done for all of us, but it is key that they support our democracy. In the same way they were elected in a democracy, they have to give the Colombians a chance to solve our problems by ourselves.

While Pelosi Dithers, Chavez Undermines Colombia

Leader and Master Pelosi

Call is a pelosis of political cowardice, ignorance, or cynical doctrinaire pandering; holding up the Colombian Free Trade Bill is playing with fire, and Hugo Chavez is there to fan the flames.

The U.S. Trade Representative's office late on Thursday released a letter to Pelosi from the ambassadors of Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras urging approval of the free trade pact with Colombia. The leaders in these countries as well as Colombia have spent considerable political capital supporting an alternative to the Chavez model. That alternative requires more US involvement and economic integration with Latin America. That is in US interests. We need to avoid a Lebanon developing in the Americas. :

Hizbollah seizes Muslim west Beirut
By Roula Khalaf, Middle East Editor Financial Times

It took Lebanon’s Hizbollah group just a few hours on Friday to seize control of Muslim west Beirut and bring the country’s western-backed government to its knees.

Timeline

• Feb 2005 Popular ‘Cedar revolution’ follows assassination of former PM Rafiq Hariri. Syrian complicity suspected

• April 2005 Syrian troops end 29-year presence in Lebanon

• July 2006 War between Israel and Hizbollah sparked by the capture of two Israeli soldiers

• Dec 2006 Power struggle deepens between Hizbollah and pro-west government after Hizbollah and Shia opposition party Amal ministers resign

• Nov 2007 Lebanon is left without a president after Emile Lahoud steps down and the divided parliament repeatedly fails to agree on a successor

• May 2008 Hizbollah seizes control of several Beirut neighbourhoods and shuts down a pro-government newspaper and television station. Sunni leader Saeed Hariri calls on Hizbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah to end the ‘siege’ of Beirut

Amid scenes reminiscent of the 1975-90 civil war, the country’s most heavily armed and disciplined force deployed its gunmen around al-Mustaqbal newspaper – owned by Saad Hariri, the leading Sunni in the pro-western governing coalition – at about 7am, setting the fourth floor of the building ablaze.

The Lebanese national army, no match for the Shia militant group and eager to stay out of the domestic battle, quickly arrived. But instead of confronting the gunmen, it turned into the negotiator, asking staff to evacuate and thus avert a storming of the building.

Could this happen in Colombia? Read on...

_________________

Chavez agreed to arm rebels, files indicate
By Sara A. Carter and Carmen Gentile
Washington Times
May 10, 2008

Documents from a captured laptop show Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez agreed to help arm the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
U.S. intelligence officials said yesterday that members of the Venezuelan government have tried to "facilitate the shipment of arms" to Colombian rebels.

The charge follows a published report that documents from a captured laptop computer show Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez agreed to help arm the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The documents appear to be authentic, U.S. intelligence officials said.

"One of the chief concerns is that the documents reveal closer links between Chavez and the FARC than had been previously been known," a U.S. intelligence official said yesterday, speaking on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the information. "It's clear that certain Venezuelan officials have tried to facilitate the shipment of arms to the FARC," the official said.

(continue)