Colombia Rebels Kidnap Entire Village

by Yadira Ferrer

People's Defender Eduardo Cifuentes confirmed reports of the mass kidnapping, and said the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia -- the main insurgent group) was using the residents of Puerto Alvira, a town of 1,200 people in the northeastern department of Meta, as "human shields."

Cifuentes told IPS he had sent a delegation to Puerto Alvira, where only 10 people were found. The rest of the residents had reportedly been forcibly taken to the towns of Chaparral, Puerto Alegre, Mocuare and Tomachip‡n, he added.

In an "unprecedented" action, the FARC "emptied Puerto Alvira," General Carlos Saavedra, the military commander in that region, told the Caracol radio station.

The police said the FARC and right-wing paramilitary militias are fighting for control of the coca crops grown near Puerto Alvira.

The mayor of Mapiripan, the municipality where Puerto Alvira is located, said the guerrillas "took the community downriver five days ago," but authorities did not find out about the incident until late yesterday, "because the few inhabitants who were left were afraid to talk."

The people's defender underlined that the taking of hostages was a grave violation of international humanitarian law. He warned that the FARC must answer for the lives and physical integrity of the residents of Puerto Alvira, who include elderly women and children, and "must immediately release them."

He also asked the army to "take every precaution" in the operations it stages in the area, in order not to endanger the civilian hostages held by the guerrillas.

Puerto Alvira is located in the same area where paramilitaries massacred 40 peasants in 1998, with the support of members of the army, according to human rights groups.

Meanwhile, 18 FARC guerrillas and two police officers were killed in fighting elsewhere today, six paramilitaries were captured, and a landowner was murdered.

Analysts say the escalation of violence could form part of a FARC offensive in the run-up to the inauguration of President-elect Alvaro Uribe, who takes office Aug. 7.

During the campaign, the right-wing Uribe promised a "strong-arm approach" to the guerrillas. However, after his May triumph at the polls, he announced that he would seek international mediation for restarting the collapsed peace talks, on the condition that the irregular armed groups first agree to a ceasefire.

The most serious incidents today took place in the towns of Carlosama, Tola and Guachucala in the southern department of Nariao, where the FARC threw homemade bombs at police stations and commercial buildings.

Ten guerrillas, two police officers and one civilian were killed in the attacks, which the security forces repelled. In addition, eight insurgents were killed in a clash between the army and the FARC in the western part of the country, and six paramilitaries were captured and handed over to the justice system in the departments of Magdalena in the north and Guaviare in the southeast.

The army also reported that seven bombs were defused today in the departments of Cundinamarca in central Colombia, Arauca, Caquet and Casanare in the northwest, and Valle in the east.