FARC (Columbia) seeks UN help in peace bid

[bin.dare]

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/2004/1228/breaking6.htm

Colombia's Marxist FARC rebels have approached the United Nations with what they says is a plan to end 40 years of fighting with government forces in the South American republic.

In a letter sent to Secretary General Mr Kofi Annan, FARC have asked to address the General Assembly to give its view of the conflict which kills thousands each year.

In the letter sent by email on behalf of the 17,000-strong force, the group asked for security for a delegation to travel to New York to discuss "peaceful solutions" to the conflict.

There was no immediate response from the UN but it has previously provided an official to use his "good offices" to contact the guerrillas and encourage peace in Colombia .

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(related story)

http://www.counterpunch.org/solo12272004.html
December 27, 2004

Colombia's Appalling Vista
Justice With Eyes Wide Open
By TONI SOLO

The circumstances around the long-running case against Niall Connolly, James Monaghan and Martin MacAuley are in many ways more significant than the case itself. The three were arrested in 2001 during the period of peace talks between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Colombian government. Accused of training FARC fighters in the use of explosives, the men insisted they were visiting to learn about the Colombian peace process under way at the time. In April this year, after nearly three years awaiting trial, the men were found innocent and released pending an appeal by the Colombian Attorney-General.

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Media Collusion

This is self-evidently so in the case of Connolly, Monaghan and MacAuley. It can surely be no accident that the verdict overturning their exoneration came within weeks of a visit to Colombia by George Bush. From the very day of their arrest the case of the three was a political totem whose changing fortunes signalled either embarrassment or schadenfreude respectively for the various actors in the Irish peace process. The men's exoneration in April was a serious embarrassment for the British government, especially Prime Minister Tony Blair, and for his Unionist allies.

A vivid indication of the manipulation of the case by the UK and Irish security services came with an article in the London Observer on December 19th. The article accuses another Irishman, Paul Damery, of helping the three escape from Colombia via Venezuela. Damery, the article states, without any evidence, is "on the run" for murdering an Irish policeman in 1996. So on the basis of total speculation, the Observer article linked Connolly, Monaghan and MacAuley to an alleged IRA member, supposedly implicated in the murder of an Irish policeman. The beauty of this smear from the Observer's point of view is that the paper is unlikely ever to face a libel claim.

The Making of Non-People

It's true there is a connection between Paul Damery and Niall Connolly. They are both men with long and honourable records of grass-roots community work in Central America. They knew each other in Honduras in the late 1980s where they worked with Salvadoran refugees on community development training schemes funded by leading aid agencies like OXFAM and Catholic Relief Services. Subsequently they worked with funding from the Irish government in El Salvador in the early 1990s, helping refugees rebuild their lives and communities in the east of the country. Connolly is a carpenter and Damery is an electrician.

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