COLOMBIA: NEW PRESIDENT ALVARO URIBE VISITS GOVERNMENT TROOPS IN VALLEDUPAR.

Record ID: 278292

  • Title: COLOMBIA: NEW PRESIDENT ALVARO URIBE VISITS GOVERNMENT TROOPS IN VALLEDUPAR.
  • Date: 9th August 2002
  • Summary: MCU: CHILD SINGING TO URIBE
  • Embargoed: 24th August 2002 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: VALLEDUPAR, COLOMBIA
  • Country: Colombia
  • Topics: Conflict,General,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA7UFQ1IPG0W8NMDQDVKNKGFLZ3
  • Story Text: Despite a deadly FARC mortar attack that ripped through a Bogota neighbourhood during the inauguration of Alvaro Uribe, the new president has gone ahead with a previously planned trip to northern Colombia.
    True to his tight-lipped style of action, not words, newly sworn in Colombian President Alvaro Uribe did not refer to the attack at all until Thursday (August 08), when he went ahead with a planned trip to the city of Valledupar.
    "We are going to kill all of them [left-wing rebels] if they touch us. We have to recover the peace. This is what we've come to and for this the Colombian people have elected us," Uribe said.
    A keen proponent of U.S. anti-narcotics aid, Uribe wants to increase military spending by up to a third, but senior officers admit that it will take years to knock the armed forces into better shape. The new president is also reportedly considering reorganizing the intelligence service.
    Uribe seemed to indicate he will do whatever it takes to crack down on the FARC.
    "It is necessary to run all the risks," he said in Valledupar.
    "The day that it is said that we confront all the risks, this is the day that they [the rebels] will not take the risks."
    Uribe himself barely survived an assassination attempt by FARC guerrillas in April and his father was killed by the rebels in the 1980s.
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