Colombia's chief prosecutor opened preliminary investigations on Thursday into contacts between leftist rebels and prominent politicians, journalists and foreigners — including a US consultant.
The prosecutor, Mario Iguaran, also asked the Supreme Court to probe three opposition lawmakers including Senator Piedad Cordoba, who helped Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez broker the recent release of six rebel hostages. Only the court has the authority to investigate and try Colombian legislators.
The announcement came as Colombian President Alvaro Uribe grapples with two scandals: More than 30 members of Congress, mostly Uribe allies, have been jailed on charges of colluding with far-right militias and three politicians have been arrested in a bribery scandal linked to a congressional vote that enabled Uribe’s 2006 re-election.
Iguaran said the investigations were prompted by documents found on laptops that Colombian authorities recovered during a March 1 cross-border raid on a rebel camp in Ecuador that killed Raul Reyes, a top leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
The prosecutor did not specify what charges any of those under investigation might face.
Colombian Foreign Minister Fernando Araujo said the government will request the extradition of those under investigation “in the event Colombian prosecutors require the presence of these people.”
Uribe’s government says the laptop documents indicate Chavez was seeking to finance and arm the FARC, while Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa, was seeking close ties. Both neighboring presidents deny the accusations.
The foreigners placed under investigation on Thursday include two Ecuadorians, a Venezuelan and a US alternative development expert James Jones, who has been working with Democrats in the US Congress.
Jones said on Thursday that he considers the investigation of him “ludicrous.”
He said his contacts with Reyes were mediation efforts to obtain the release of hostages including three US military contractors held by the FARC since February 2003.
“I look at this and I laugh,” Jones said in a telephone interview from the US.
The Venezuelan placed under investigation on Thursday is Amilkar Figueroa, a Chavez ally and member of the Parlamento Latino whom Colombian officials have privately called a FARC operative. One document says he visited a Chinese surface-to-air-missile factory and later delivered a catalog to the FARC.
Figueroa could not be located for comment on Thursday. His office in Caracas had closed for the day.
The Ecuadorians include a member of that country’s constituent assembly, Maria Augusta Calle, whom Colombian officials accuse of being a close FARC collaborator. No one answered calls to her cellphone.
The four Colombians being probed by the chief prosecutor’s office include journalist William Parra of the Chavez-funded Telesur television network; former deputy peace commissioner Lazaro Viveros; the editor of the Colombian communist party’s weekly newspaper, Carlos Lozano; and Alvaro Leyva, a former presidential candidate and longtime go-between with the rebels.
Viveros said that as a journalist he had three interviews with Reyes and as an intermediary he was “trying to push for a prisoner swap and trying to stop this bloody war.”
“This was done with the full knowledge of the government,” he said.
Senator Cordoba told students in the western city of Cali on Thursday evening that the investigation amounted to “an attack on reason.”
She said she’s been working for a prisoner swap “because I have a mandate from the families.”
Cordoba’s close ties to Venezuelan President Chavez — and her appearance in group photos with FARC leaders — have upset conservative Colombians who overwhelmingly back Uribe’s efforts to defeat the FARC.
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the
RSS