Message from discussion Colombian fascist at Nat'l Press Club Sept 7

From: Colombian Labor Monitor <xx...@prairienet.org>
Subject: Colombian fascist at Nat'l Press Club Sept 7
Date: 1999/09/06
Message-ID: <7qvjl3$a4k$1@dipsy.missouri.edu>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 521561115
Distribution: na
Approved: m...@pencil.math.missouri.edu
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
X-Complaints-To: news@dipsy
X-Trace: dipsy.missouri.edu 936595939 10388 128.206.72.46 (6 Sep 1999 05:32:19 GMT)
Organization: ?
NNTP-Posting-Date: 6 Sep 1999 05:32:19 GMT
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
Originator: dae...@pencil.math.missouri.edu

	[NOTE: Thanks to a press-realease from the U.S. lunatic
	fringe group led by lunatic-in-chief Lyndon LaRouche,
	we now know that the Colombian fascist General Bedoya
	will be speaking at the National Press Club in 
	Washington, DC. Bedoya's speech will probably be on
	CSPAN as well, so contact CSPAN to find out when.  -DG]

_____________________________
Executive Intelligence Review
              larouchepub.com

News release                           For more information:
--------------                         Gretchen Small
For Immediate Release                  (703) 777-9451 ext 272

 FORMER COLOMBIAN DEFENSE MINISTER HAROLD BEDOYA IN WASHINGTON:

             SEEKS AID TO DEFEAT NARCO-TERRORISTS,

           DESPITE APPEASEMENT OF PRESIDENT PASTRANA

                    * Press Conference *

   1:30 PM, Tuesday                       National Press Club
   September 7, 1999                      529 14th St. NW
   Zenger Room                            Washington, DC

     The former defense minister and commander of Colombia's
armed forces, General (ret.) Harold Bedoya, is coming to
Washington to seek increased U.S.-Colombian cooperation in
defeating the billionaire drug-trafficking terrorist
organizations which are dismembering that nation.

     Gen. Bedoya is visiting Washington to meet with members of
Congress and others to discuss ways in which the United States
and Colombia can strengthen their cooperation against the drug
trade. He will conduct a press conference Tuesday, Sept. 7, at
1:30 PM, at the National Press Club.

     Gen. Bedoya just concluded a widely-publicized tour of
Argentina, Uruguay, and Peru, where he spoke with government
officials, media, and large meetings of the public about
Colombia's rapidly deteriorating situation.

        Gen. Bedoya argues that the "peace" policy of Colombian
President Andres Pastrana, of negotiating with the "Third Cartel"
of the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) and the
National Liberation Army (ELN), is a demonstrable failure, which
has only succeeded in handing over nearly half of the country's
territory to the drug mob, and providing it protection.

        Neither the FARC nor the ELN has given the slightest
indication that it is willing to demobilize. And the former
defense minister calls it wrongheaded to insist, as some in the
U.S. do, that the two organizations are waging "a 40-year
political insurgency," and that they will negotiate in good
faith with just a few more concessions from the government.

     Colombia's War on Drugs has not been helped by Richard
Grasso, the president of the New York Stock Exchange, who went to
Colombia in June to meet with "Comandante" Raul Reyes of the
drug-running FARC to discuss the "economic future" of Colombia.
Nor has it been aided by the International Monetary Fund's (IMF)
demand that Colombia include illicit drugs in its GNP
calculations.

        Despite budget restrictions and political attacks,
Colombia's armed forces have shown themselves capable of stopping
the FARC-ELN offensive, when given national and international
support. But Gen. Bedoya believes it is time to acknowledge that
the Pastrana government's "policy of negotiation" is a strategic
blunder which cannot win, and that it is time to abandon the
absurd insistence that the FARC and ELN constitute a "legitimate
political force," rather than what they are, a drug mafia.

        For the sake of the whole world, says Gen. Bodoya, the
U.S. and other nations must increase their training-,
intelligence- and, equipment-assistance to Colombia's armed
forces, as well as help foster Colombia's economic development.
As U.S. anti-drug czar Gen. Barry McCaffrey admitted recently,
you cannot win a war on drugs when 20 per cent or more of the
population is unemployed.

****************************************************************
* CLM-NEWS is brought to you by the COLOMBIAN LABOR MONITOR at *
*                http://www.prairienet.org/clm                 *
*                Email us at c...@prairienet.org                *
*     To subscribe send request to listp...@prairienet.org     *
*                 subscribe clm-news Your Name                 *
****************************************************************