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[Translation of an article from Estadão of São Paulo, Brazil, for September 2. See the original here.]

by Patrícia Campos Mello

I went to Brasilia yesterday to interview the new president of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos. This trip to Brazil is Santos’ first official visit to a foreign government. The former defense minister has “excellent chemistry” with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, his advisors say. Santos says he is satisfied with Lula’s condemnation of terrorism in the region, although the Brazilian president made no direct mention of the FARC. Lula confirmed in a speech during lunch with Santos in Itamaraty that nothing justifies terrorism and that he supports the Colombian people’s struggle. (more…)

[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City for August 14 based on Deutsche Presse-Agentur, Agence France Presse and Reuters dispatches. See also “Colombia: FARC proposes dialogue with Santos” posted here on August 1.]

Bogotá, August 13 – A day after the explosion of a car bomb for which no organization has claimed responsibility, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos rejected the possibiliity of peace talks with guerrilla forces because “the conditions are not right” and prohibited any gesture leading to such talks.

“We haven’t thrown the key to dialogues into the sea but the door is closed and will stay closed until those who want a dialogue on peace show their real motives in a clear and credible way,” Santos said in Popayán, capital of the department of Cauca, the scene of clashes between soldiers and combatants of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC).

“Until we have a very clear demonstration of the real intentions for a dialogue for peace, with concrete steps like those we have mentioned, that they free the hostages, that they give up terrorism, that they release the children they have recruited by force, that they give up extortion, that they stop acting like terrorists, until we see that, the key will be carefully hidden away,” he said. (more…)

[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City for August 6.]

by Blanche Petrich

Bogotá, August 5 – In the view of a wide sector of Colombian society – 70 percent according to the polls – President Álvaro Uribe, who will move out of the Casa de Nariño [the presidential residence] this Saturday, is practically a hero, who defeated “narco-terrorism,” eliminated insecurity in the major cities and restored the citizens’ ability to travel on the South American country’s highways without the risk of kidnapping or extortion, with which the guerrillas and the paramilitaries had ravaged the country until just a few years ago.

An aura of legendary proportions built up around Uribe moved his former adviser, José Obdulio Gaviria – known as his “musketeer” – to express himself in exalted language in his article in El Tiempo last Wednesday: “Heaven has granted us a superior intellect, a guide to lead his people across the desert,” he declares. (more…)

FARC leader Cano says US military presence is “an indignity”

[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City for July 31.]

Bogotá, July 30 – In a 30-minute video posted Friday on its web site, the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), the oldest guerrilla force in the country, has proposed to President-elect Juan Manuel Santos that a dialogue be initiated to seek a political solution to the internal armed conflict.

Meanwhile, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez announced last night that his country has deployed military units on the border in response to “a threat of war” by Colombia because outgoing President Álvaro Uribe is “capable of anything.”

“What we are proposing, once again, is that we talk. We are still determined to seek political solutions. We are hoping for the new government to reflect and not to deceive the country any longer,” said Guillermo Sáenz, known as Alfonso Cano, leader of the insurgency, in a video recorded in July in the Colombian mountains. (more…)

Social organizations repudiate Colombia’s policies, support Venezuela

[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City for July 27.]

By Stella Calloni

Buenos Aires, July 26 – President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner met tonight with the president-elect of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos, who is on a tour of the region in the midst of a severe crisis with Venezuela and while an emergency meeting of the Unión de Naciones Sudamericanas (Unasur – Union of South American Nations) is being planned for Quito, Ecuador.

During the afternoon, thousands of demonstrators gathered in the Plaza de Mayo to reject Colombia’s policies and the Colombian visitor and to support Venezuela, a country they consider to be the target of “generalized activity by the United States that threatens all of Latin America.”

The meeting between Fernández de Kirchner and Santos, which lasted an hour, included a broad review of the situation in the region. It included the participation of Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman, the foreign minister designate of Colombia, María Angela Holguín and the Colombian ambassador in Buenos Aires, Álvaro Eduardo García Giménez. (more…)

Military killed between 2,000 and 3,000 youths, claiming they were rebels

[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City for June 16.]

By Blanche Petrich

Soacha, Cundinamarca, Colombia, June 15 – A 21-year-old man who said he was “addicted to video games” joined a Colombian prosecutor’s witness-protection program in the trial over the extrajudicial executions of 13 young men from Soacha, a suburb of the capital. He confessed to the judges that for every man he “contacted” he collected 300,000 pesos (a little more than 150 dollars). Los Paisas, a bar with a bad reputation, was his center of operations.

The recruits, Alexander Carreteros and John Jairo Muñoz, now in jail, received twice that much for transporting the deceived youths, considered human merchandise, to the vicinity of the 15th infantry batallion in the city of Ocaña, in the department of Santander, 800 kilometers away. A 20-hour trip by bus. (more…)

[Translation of an article from the Brazilian newspaper Hora do Povo for June 9. José Serra is the presidential candidate for the Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira, the Brazilian Social Democrat Party, who will face Dilma Roussef of the Partido dos Trabalhadores, the Workers’ Party, in the October 3 vote. Colombian Juan Manuel Santos, former defense minister in the administration of Álvaro Uribe, is the likely winner in the June 29 runoff election to replace Uribe.]

The candidate for the presidency José Serra has again attacked Bolivia and offered effusive praise for the Colombian government, against which several accusations involving drug trafficking have been made. His statements were delivered during a debate in São Paulo on Tuesday. He said that the Uribe government, in contrast with that of Bolivia, “was not soft” in its fight against the supply of drugs to Brazil. (more…)