Word: colombia
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...second propaganda setback for the U.S. in its dealings with Nicaragua since September, when the Sandinistas caught Washington off balance by abruptly accepting "in its totality and without modification" the draft of a regional nonaggression treaty. The proposed agreement had been produced by the so-called Contadora countries-Colombia, Panama, Mexico and Venezuela-and the U.S. had supported their deliberations. But Washington still has misgivings about the draft accord, namely about the lack of adequate verification and control mechanisms to ensure Nicaraguan compliance...
...going to run me out of this town," Tambs vowed. "I'm staying to continue the fight together with the Colombian government to get rid of the dope business." Nonetheless, State Department Spokesman Alan Romberg announced that the U.S. would temporarily be "reducing our official profile in Colombia." At least a dozen of the embassy's 187 U.S. employees left the country last week with their families. Americans are not the only ones at risk. Says Tambs: "I have information that all the Colombian Cabinet ministers and the President himself have received death threats ever since they launched...
...Colombian drug crackdown began to pick up speed last April, when Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla was murdered in retaliation for his strenuous antidrug efforts. The assassination, the first ever of a Cabinet-level official in Colombia's history, shocked the nation and persuaded President Belisario Betancur Cuartas to abandon his reluctance to enforce an existing extradition treaty with the U.S. Since then, 78 alleged drug traffickers have been requested by the U.S., and Betancur has signed extradition papers for six of them. According to the treaty, however, the Colombians must first face charges and serve sentences in their...
Meanwhile, Colombia confiscated 33.5 tons of cocaine in the first eight months of this year, an amount worth $7 billion at the retail level and representing nearly a third of estimated U.S. consumption of the drug. Authorities have also burned 1,953 tons of marijuana, arrested 2,648 presumed drug traffickers, closed down 147 cocaine laboratories and grounded 173 planes used to carry drugs...
...code name for the Colombia operation was Hat Trick. The plan was to deploy dozens of Coast Guard and Navy vessels across a wide sweep of the Caribbean to intercept the huge shipments of marijuana that are transported from Colombia to the U.S. at the conclusion of the pot harvest in November and December. The elaborate strategy called for Colombian soldiers to move against marijuana traffickers in the Guajira Peninsula, between the Gulf of Venezuela and the Caribbean. With Venezuelan and Panamanian soldiers guarding their respective borders, the smugglers would be forced to ship out the marijuana...