Скачать или смотреть COLOMBIA: ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT FOILED

(1 Dec 2000) Spanish/Nat

Police in Colombia thwarted an apparent assassination attempt against a U-S senator and U-S ambassador who were visiting the dangerous town of Barrancabermeja, 250 kilometres (155 miles) north of the capital Bogota.

The foiled attempt was revealed on Friday by police commander Colonel Jose Miguel Villar.

Hours before Senator Paul Wellstone, a Democrat from Minnesota, and U-S Ambassador Anne Patterson flew into the town of Barrancabermeja on Thursday, police discovered two shrapnel-wrapped land mines alongside the road leading from the airport to the town, according to police sources.

The land mines each carried a three kilogramme (6.6 pound) explosive charge, were attached to cables and a detonator and were primed to go off.

Bernardo Alvarez Duarte, a suspected member of the rebel National Liberation Army, or E-L-N, was arrested at the site, and was being questioned for further information.

These pictures show Wellstone during Thursday's visit to coca plantations near Barrancabermeja, where he took part in a government anti-drugs trafficking operation.

Many residents of the town had known the U-S delegation was going to arrive.

But security forces had kept confidential plans to transfer the party from the airport to the town by helicopter.

So even if the bombs had exploded, the delegation would not have gone anywhere near them.

U-S Senator Bob Wellstone is one of the most outspoken critics of the American-backed "Plan Colombia" - the Colombian government scheme to replace drug crops in rural areas.

Security was tight for Wellstone as he made the first-ever visit by a U-S lawmaker to the deadliest town in all the Americas, a sweltering cluster of cinderblock homes on the banks of the muddy Magdalena River.

Hard-eyed men with Uzis stood guard as the senator stepped out of a helicopter and into a bulletproof car to meet human rights activists.

But for residents of the beleaguered town, preyed upon by right-wing paramilitary squads and leftist rebels, there is no such protection.

Almost 500 have been murdered this year alone.

First hand, Wellstone saw the fumigation of illicit drug crops and the burning of a drug laboratory.

The operation was part of an anti-narcotics operation which is seeking to fumigate 7-thousand hectares of land and put out of use illegal landing strips for drug-carrying planes.

It was not part of "Plan Colombia" which has officially not begun yet.

40 farmers were captured working at the plant on this latest raid.

The Senator said that after seeing the operation he was still an opponent of "Plan Colombia" but he had more respect for what the government here is trying to do.

SOUNDBITE: (Spanish)
"I carry the gasoline, I carry the chemicals. Whoever hires me, that is what I do."
SUPERCAPTION: Voxpop

SOUNDBITE: (English)
"There are so many human rights organizations, they are under the siege now, too many people are being killed, there are still too many contacts between military and the paramilitaries, and I have no use for FARC, no use for ELN (both are Colombian rebel groups active in drug areas) but by the same token I want to make sure that our money, U-S money, is never used to support any violation of human rights on the part of any paramilitary, military or any government organization whatsoever."
SUPER CAPTION: Bob Wellstone, U-S Senator

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