COLOMBIA: GUERRILLAS BLOW UP OIL PIPELINE TO PROTEST AGAINST GOVERNMENT'S DRUG ERADICATION PROGRAMME

Record ID: 344786

  • Title: COLOMBIA: GUERRILLAS BLOW UP OIL PIPELINE TO PROTEST AGAINST GOVERNMENT'S DRUG ERADICATION PROGRAMME
  • Date: 5th August 1996
  • Summary: PUTUMAYO, COLOMBIA (AUGUST 5, 1996) (RTV - ACCESS ALL) 1. LV'S PEASANT FARMERS PROTESTING, BANNERS, SOLDIERS WATCHING, MAN IN WHEELCHAIR, CROWD CHANTING PROCESSION, SOLDIERS (9 SHOTS) 1.16 2. LV BURNING PIPELINE, FIRE IN ROAD (4 SHOTS) 1.36 3. SCU EDUADRO URIBE, GOVERNMENT NEGOTIATING TEAM, SAYS HE WENT THERE TO TRY TO NEGOTIATE WITH REBELS AND FARMERS AND THAT FINAL GOAL IS TO ACHIEVE A "COCA-FREE" PROVINCE. (SPANISH) 1.47 4. CAMERA OPERATORS 1.49 5. SOLDIERS GUARDING GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS AT AIRPORT 1.54 6. LV TILT SMOKE, BURNING PIPELINE 2.03 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
  • Embargoed: 20th August 1996 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: PUTUMAYO, COLOMBIA
  • City:
  • Country: Colombia LATIN AMERICA
  • Reuters ID: LVACWE2U2MPLF3NKZ5PF5YRD7MDF
  • Story Text: - INTRO: Leftist guerrillas have blown up an oil pipeline in southwest Colombia for the second day in a row.

    -------------------------------------------------------------- The explosion is in a region of Colombia torn by peasant protests against the government's drug crop eradication programme.

    A spokesman for state oil company Ecopetrol said two sections of the Transandino pipeline were dynamited before dawn on Monday (August 5), triggering a fire in one area that continued to burn out of control hours later.

    The spokesman said it was not clear how much crude oil had been spilled in the attacks but production at Ecopetrol's refinery in the small town of Orito, in strife-torn Putumayo province, had dropped 10 percent.

    The sabotage followed an attack on Sunday afternoon on a section of the pipeline that carries oil from a field in northern Ecuador.

    Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels maintain a strong presence throughout the area where the attacks occurred and have been linked by government and military officials to protests in four southern provinces that began in mid-July against the government's U.S.-backed coca and opium poppy eradication programme.

    The FARC, Colombia's oldest and largest guerrilla group, specialises in protection of rural drug farms and laboratories.

    Two protesters were killed and 30 injured on Friday in a clash with government security forces guarding the airport in Puerto Asis, one of the focal points of protests by Putumayo's coca farmers.

    The farmers say the illicit plant, and the cocaine paste many of them process from its leaves, provides their only way of making a living.

    A team of government officials was to meet with protest leaders on Monday at Ecopetrol's heavily guarded refinery in Orito in a bid to negotiate an end to the protests.

    The United States decertified Colombia as a partner in U.S.

    counternarcotics efforts on March 1, citing charges that President Ernesto Samper's 1994 election campaign was partly financed by Cali cartel drug barons.

    Washington, which is now threatening to impose crippling economic sanctions on Colombia unless it toes the U.S. line on drugs, is insisting that the Andean nation wipe out more than 44,000 acres (18,000 hectares) of coca fields and nearly 10,000 acres (4,000 hectares) of opium poppy this year alone.


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