Word: colombian
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...When the Colombian military made its controversial incursion into neighboring Ecuador two months ago, it may well have removed more than just a camp full of leftist Colombian guerrillas. The raid may wind up taking out a $70 million U.S. Air Force base as well. On Monday, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa said he's "convinced" the U.S. aided Colombia in the March 1 attack and reiterated his suspicions that U.S. intelligence agencies had infiltrated Ecuador's armed forces and police - remarks that seem to all but assure that the small South American nation will not renew the lease...
...that climate, there has been guarded hope that the FARC wants to discuss the release of the Americans and its more than 700 Colombian military, police and civilian hostages. U.S. Representative Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, who is involved with the campaign to free the Americans, says, "The FARC seems engaged on this issue for the first time ever." Since the start of the year, the group has handed six hostages - including a Colombian congresswoman and a former vice-presidential candidate - over to Chavez. But Colombia now accuses Chavez of supporting the FARC financially. (He denies...
...Stansell, Gonsalves and Howes have children in the U.S. Howes, from Massachusetts, has eased his depression by adopting a stray dog. Gonsalves, of Connecticut, spends his days lifting makeshift weights and reading a Spanish Bible. The men cannot receive letters but do hear news of their families broadcast on Colombian radio...
...turf. In March 2003, three Grumman employees died in a single-engine-plane crash during a search for the hostages. (The U.S. now requires that twin-engine aircraft be used there.) But the hostages' families ask why the Bush Administration didn't provide more military backup on the contractors' Colombian missions. "Did they really never think this sort of thing could happen?" asks Gonsalves' mother Jo Rosano, of Bristol, Conn. "They sent civilians into a place they knew the rebels would be, and we get the impression they don't care." Rosano and others credit the new U.S. ambassador...
...Americans' captivity is part of the broader haggling between the Colombian government and the FARC over how to revive peace talks in a four-decade-old civil war that has left some 40,000 dead and millions more displaced. Racked by social inequities, Colombia has endured internecine violence for much of the past 100 years. "The FARC are like fish born in a tank that remains their entire world," says Colombia's Foreign Minister Fernando Araujo, who was a hostage for six years before escaping in 2006. "They're convinced they have the right to violently terrorize others...