Word: farce
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Colombia--Uribe became an especially vulnerable target for assassination when he declared himself the candidate who, if elected, would whip Colombia's vicious and seemingly invincible guerrilla armies. By the time the one-year campaign was over, the largest rebel group, the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces, or FARC, had tried to kill Uribe at least three times, most recently by bombing his motorcade. Though the candidate emerged unscathed, the attempts on his life were a reminder that Colombia, locked more fiercely than ever in a civil war that is now 38 years old and has claimed 150,000 lives...
...hawkish talk, the U.S. Congress looks ready this summer to approve the Bush Administration's request for some half a billion dollars in military aid for Colombia; it would be the first time the U.S. has funded counterinsurgency in Latin America since the 1980s. In response, the Marxist FARC has stepped up its violence. That is drawing more fire still from the nation's outlawed right-wing paramilitary groups, the Colombian Self-Defense Units, or AUC, which are infamous for massacring villagers they deem friendly to the FARC. On election night, Uribe seemed to concede that his presidency could...
...case, Uribe's rightward leanings weren't a campaign liability. The 18,000-member FARC lost its sheen as a populist insurgency years ago because of its record of taxing and protecting the cocaine business and its penchant for gratuitous kidnapping and indiscriminate killing--like last month's bombing massacre of 119 villagers in a church. When the government broke off fruitless peace talks with the rebels in February, Colombians' exasperation catapulted Uribe's candidacy. His chief promise: to professionalize Colombia's weak and inept military and double its size to more than 100,000 fighters...
...pledge he can't keep without foreign aid. Washington has given Colombia almost $2 billion in the past two years but has restricted the assistance to antinarcotics work. Now that the U.S. has officially deemed the FARC and AUC to be terrorist groups, the Bush Administration stands a good chance of freeing up direct military funds. But if the aid passes, warns a FARC comandante named Asdrubal, "the violence will get very, very grave. The U.S. will just make the war longer." American politicians also worry about the Colombian military's poor human-rights record...
Antigovernment rebels took responsibility for the deadliest single incident in the 38-year civil war - the killing of 117 villagers, including 45 children, sheltering in a church at Bojaya. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) said a mortar bomb accidentally hit the church during fighting with right-wing paramilitary soldiers. Government troops later regained control of the area...