COLOMBIA: ELITE COLOMBIAN TROOPS RETAKE FORMER FARC GUERRILLA HELD ENCLAVE IN SOUTHERN COLOMBIA

Record ID: 588582

  • Title: COLOMBIA: ELITE COLOMBIAN TROOPS RETAKE FORMER FARC GUERRILLA HELD ENCLAVE IN SOUTHERN COLOMBIA
  • Date: 22nd February 2002
  • Summary: (W5) SAN VICENTE DEL CAGUAN, COLOMBIA (FEBRUARY 22, 2002) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. VARIOUS OF SOLDIERS WALKING INSIDE THE ENCLAVE (2 SHOTS) 0.07 2. SV: SOLDIERS CROSSING IN THE ENCLAVE 0.15 3. SLV: SOLDERS RETAKING THE ENCLAVE 0.20 4. SCU: SOLDIERS REPORTING RECOVERY OF THE ENCLAVE 0.24 5. SV: SOLDER WITH MACHINE GUN 0.30 6. VARIOUS OF SOLDIERS INSIDE THE ENCLAVE (2 SHOTS) 0.37 7. SCU: SOLDIER NEAR A MILITARY ARMAMENT 0.41 8. CU: (SOUNDBITE)(Spanish) SOLDIER OF THE MILITARY FORCE SAYING: "We are very happy to retake the zone. We arrived at 1 am - the rapid deployment force, brigade number 3." 0.54 9. VARIOUS OF SOLDIERS IN THE ENCLAVE (3 SHOTS) 1.05 10. SCU: (SOUNDBITE)(Spanish) SOLDIER OF THE RAPID DEPLOYMENT FORCE SAYING: "We were saying that nothing was going to happen because the night before, when the president gave the order to enter the zone, the bombers bombed 86 targets and the civil population was not affected." 1.20 11. LAS: SOLDIERS NEAR TREES 1.24 12. VARIOUS OF SOLDIERS WALKING (2 SHOTS) 1.36 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 9th March 2002 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: SAN VICENTE DEL CAGUAN, COLOMBIA
  • Country: Colombia
  • Reuters ID: LVA9INQ1TO6TTEVZ9X7JP2G3GWB2
  • Story Text: Elite Colombian troops have flown into a former guerrilla
    enclave in southern Colombia, soldiers have said.


    Helicopters dropped crack Colombian troops into a
    former rebel enclave on Friday (February 22), but the army met
    no resistance from Marxist guerrillas who have melted into
    surrounding jungle.

    About 200 soldiers from the army's Rapid Deployment Force
    flew at dawn into a former military base just outside the town
    of San Vicente in a southern enclave the government ceded to
    FARC rebels in 1998 to encourage peace talks.

    President Andres Pastrana on Wednesday declared
    negotiations to end Colombia's 38-year war dead and said he
    was retaking the Switzerland-sized chunk of cattle land and
    jungle after rebels hijacked a domestic airliner and kidnapped
    a senator on board.

    Armed with assault rifles, grenade launchers and machine
    guns, the U.S.-trained soldiers were eager to fight, one of
    the troops, told Reuters on Friday.

    "We are very happy to retake the zone. We arrived at 1 am
    - the rapid deployment force, brigade number 3."
    The soldiers stood guard in the abandoned army base about
    five miles (eight km) from the cattle town of San Vicente.

    As dawn broke, only cows grazing in a savanna pasture met
    the troops from the 10 Black Hawk choppers. There was no sign
    of the 17,000-strong Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia --
    known in Spanish as FARC -- who ruled the roost here for three
    years.

    Some 12,000 troops massed on the borders of the 16,000
    square-mile (42,000-square-km) enclave that had been
    off-limits to police, military, and all state institutions --
    even judges -- for the last three years of fruitless peace
    negotiations.

    Military jets flew dozens of sorties over the enclave on
    Thursday and bombed 13 targets it said included FARC camps and
    arms, chemical and fuel dumps.

    "We were saying that nothing was going to happen because
    the night before, when the president gave the order to enter
    the zone, the bombers bombed 86 targets and the civil
    population was not affected," one soldier told Reuters.

    Overnight, suspected FARC rebels attacked electricity
    installations in southern Colombia, leaving many areas without
    power or telephone services. A gas pipeline near the western
    city of Medellin was also blown up.

    There were unconfirmed reports that three people died in
    the military's bombing of the FARC positions on Thursday.

    More than 40,000 people have died in the last decade alone
    of Colombia's bloody war, which pits leftist rebels against
    the army and far-right paramilitary outlaws.

    San Vicente's 25,000 residents, who have lived under FARC
    dominion for three years, spent an uneasy night listening to
    military aircraft rumble overhead. Electricity was cut off in
    the early evening and the mayor declared a curfew.

    Residents fear that with the FARC gone, far-right
    paramilitaries, which human rights groups suspect of links to
    some sections of the military, would move in and kill people
    for collaborating with the guerrillas.

    The armed forces, which long wanted to retake the FARC
    zone, dubbed their invasion "Operation Thanatos", referring to
    the ancient Greek mythical personification of death.


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