home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- THE WEEK, Page 19WORLDCross Fire
-
-
- Colombia is caught in a squeeze between guerrillas and
- traffickers
-
-
- There is a limit to just how much violence even battle-
- hardened Colombians can take. Since drug kingpin Pablo Escobar
- escaped from his maximum-security prison in July, security forces
- have rounded up or killed dozens of his cronies and relatives; in
- retaliation, traffickers assassinated 29 police officers over
- the past two weeks alone. Quite apart from the drug wars,
- leftist rebels, who so far this year have killed more than 1,000
- police, soldiers and civilians, set off a series of bomb
- explosions and terrorist attacks that left 30 dead, then
- murdered 26 police guards at a remote oil installation. The
- public outcry that followed the rebel violence prompted
- President Cesar Gaviria Trujillo to impose a 90-day national
- state of emergency that grants him extraordinary powers to
- pursue the troublemakers without first consulting Congress or
- the courts. So far, however, the bloodshed continues. Last week
- army troops killed at least 80 rebels in shoot-outs around the
- country.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-