U.S. clears millions to Colombia

WASHINGTON -- The State Department cleared the way Monday for providing $41.6-million in military aid to Colombia after certifying that that the country's armed forces had met human rights standards in three areas.

Release of the funds was contingent upon a department finding that the Colombian military had suspended personnel guilty of grave human rights violations, cooperated with civilian prosecutors in rights cases and was severing ties with right-wing paramilitary groups.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said that while the certification signifies "real progress" in Colombia, "much more needs to be done to improve the human rights performance of the armed forces."

Congress insisted on the three human rights conditions when it approved military assistance for Colombia in December. A certification in May led to the release of $61-million.

Colombia's defense minister, Martha Lucia Ramirez, said the certification underscored "the commitment of our security forces to respect human rights."

"It is important that we here in Colombia shed ... the belief that our security forces violate human rights in Colombia," Ramirez said at a news conference in Bogota, the Colombian capital.

She insisted that Colombia's military and police fight an outlawed right-wing paramilitary group with as much vigor as they combat leftist guerrillas.

Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage formally certified Colombian compliance Monday morning, prompting a strong objection from William Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International USA.

"To say that Colombia has complied with human rights conditions is nothing short of a farce," Schulz said, alleging that the Colombian military has not made significant progress in any of the three areas.

A State Department official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, said 16 Colombian military personnel have been suspended for human rights violations in recent months, including six officers. Twenty-nine others were dismissed for trying to cover up the deaths of two civilians.

In addition, the official said, a Colombian general, Rodrigo Quinones, was removed from his command based on allegations that he did nothing to prevent the massacre of 21 civilians by a paramilitary unit. The official said a second massacre in which Quinones has been implicated involved the deaths of 27 civilians.

As for the paramilitary units, known by their Spanish initials AUC, the official said 416 members were arrested during the first eight months of this year compared with 590 in all of 2001. He said another 160 others were killed in combat.

The AUC, considered a terrorist organization by Washington, is made up of militias that are accused of carrying out most of the massacres in Colombia's bloody civil war.

Their links with the Colombian military have been a sore point for years, particularly among human rights groups.

Schulz said the ties between the AUC and the Colombian military persist.

"These brutal groups have ties to Colombian military and units that have benefited from U.S. funding in the past, making the U.S. party to the injustices suffered by Colombian civilians on a daily basis," Schulz said.

Delegation aims to spur political talks in Caracas

CARACAS, Venezuela -- Delegates from the Organization of American States, the United Nations and the Carter Center began a mission Monday to revive talks between President Hugo Chavez and his opposition -- a dialogue that has all but collapsed since a failed coup five months ago.

The three-member delegation planned to meet with senior government officials, opposition politicians, church leaders and journalists. The delegates began arriving Monday, but meetings were not expected to start until today. The four-day visit came at the invitation of the government and a coalition of opposition parties, but many Venezuelans were skeptical the two sides would be able to prevent more violence. Last week, assailants tossed a grenade at the house of a pro-Chavez congresswoman in western Venezuela and National Guardsmen clashed with opposition protesters in a northern state.

Opposition politicians have agreed to meet with the international mission, but refuse to renounce their chief objective: ousting Chavez before his term ends in 2007. They insist that early presidential elections be a central theme of the negotiations.

The government refuses to enter talks under those conditions.

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