President Uribe infected with swine flu

Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe has contracted swine flu during the UNASUR summit of Latin American leaders, a Colombian minister, said. He began showing symptoms of the A(H1N1) virus on Friday, upon returning from the meeting in Bariloche, Argentina. Foreign media have not reported the case, so far.

The Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) summit convened in Argentina on Friday to discuss a deal, which would give US troops access to seven military bases across Colombia.

Colombia has confirmed 621 cases of swine flu, 34 of which have been fatal. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), at least 209,438 lab-confirmed swine flu cases have been reported worldwide.

Indigenous flee after massacre

300 family members of the 12 indigenous Awa massacred last week continue to be harassed and threatened despite moving out of the area, according to the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC). The Awa of this area are currently existing in "critical humanitarian conditions," according to ONIC. The organisation also demands that the government deal with the state of emergency and exile that these communities are facing, and to provide protection to witnesses of the massacre.

Indigenous Awa massacre

12 members of the Awa indigenous tribe have been massacred by armed men in an indian reservation in Nariño, southwest Colombia. 4 of them were children. This is the third attack against indigenous Awa in Colombia in 2009. About 1,500 members of the Awa live on the reservation. Of the 77 indigenous killed this year, 38 were Awa.

Although the Colombian government were quick in accusing the Farc rebels, these attacks come after death threats were made against the Awa Indigenous Organization by members of the Army and the paramilitaries.

Indigenous people in Colombia often find themselves on the front line, with guerrillas, government forces and paramilitaries contesting control over areas with coca plantations or rich in natural resources.

"Two Colombias"

Some 380,000 Colombians were forced from their homes last year by the continuing armed conflict, a local human rights group has said. The Centre for Human Rights and the Displaced, Codhes, says this is a 25% rise on 2008 and brings the total displaced since 1985 to 4.6 million. Government officials say the number registered as displaced has risen. But they say the Codhes total includes figures from previous years and those falsely claiming compensation. In its annual report, Codhes says 2008 saw the rate of displacement rising to levels last seen in 2002, the worst year on record when 410,000 people were forced to flee.

According to its study, 380,863 people had to leave their homes or places of work as a result of the armed conflict between guerrillas, paramilitary groups and the security forces. Codhes says that between 1985 and 2008, 4.6 million Colombians have been uprooted. "The great majority live in severe conditions of poverty," the Codhes report said, while their own land and property had fallen into the hands of others in a "de facto expropriation".

According to government figures, 2.9 million people were displaced between 1997 and 2008. The government department dedicated to helping such people, Accion Social, said the number seeking to be registered as displaced and therefore qualifying for aid had risen, but often these were for events dating back to the 1980s, 1970s and even 1961. Accion Social said around a third of the people included in the Codhes figure had in fact been displaced in 2007.

Fraudsters, officials said, had also mounted schemes to register thousands of people as displaced thereby "robbing those really displaced by violence in Colombia of the chance to get help". Whatever the actual figures, it is clear that two Colombias are developing under President Alvaro Uribe. Towns and cities, where the majority of Colombians live, have become safer under his administration, with murders and kidnappings down. But in rural areas, where most of the displacement takes place, the situation is as bad, or perhaps worse, than ever...

Israel of Latin America ?

President Chavez freezes ties with Colombia, withdrawing its ambassador from Bogotá and halting trade deals. Venezuela, he said, would also substitute imports from Colombia - which currently account for about a third of the country's trade - with goods from other countries, notably Brazil and Ecuador. The announcement came a day after the Colombia government said weapons bought by Venezuela from Sweden in the 1980s had ended up with Colombian guerrillas. The Colombian government said its troops had recovered Swedish anti-tank weapons in a raid on a camp run by the Farc. Mr Chavez, denying that Venezuela armed "any guerrilla group or armed group", accused Mr Uribe of behaving irresponsibly with his "unfounded" accusations.

But there is something else -

The dispute between the two neighbours comes as Colombia prepares to allow the US to use four of its military bases, a move which has angered Venezuela. Colombia says the accord will give the US military access to air bases to gather intelligence and support operations against drugs production and terrorism. But Mr Chavez says it is part of an effort by Washington to turn Colombia into the "Israel of Latin America".

....cirque du soleil?

..Uribe agrees US "access"

The Colombian government of Álvaro Uribe confirmed that it would give the United States access to at least three military bases "to increase Colombia's overall military and paramilitary engagement in the Colombian conflict". "The plan is to strengthen Colombian military bases, not to open American bases in Colombia," he said.

Meanwhile, Venezuela has threatened to review its relations with neighboring Colombia over the country's plan to allow US troops to use its military bases. Reports say that the United States could have access to three to four bases in Colombia for anti-narcotics surveillance flights. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez says the plan is "a threat against us.” "They are surrounding Venezuela with military bases," he said in a televised speech. The move "obliges us to review our relations" with Colombia, Chavez said. Other countries in the region, like Nicaragua, Ecuador, and Bolivia, have also criticized the plan.

The U.S.-financed multi-billion-dollar Plan Colombia, initially presented as an anti-drug strategy but later described also as a counterinsurgency plan against the FARC has been operating since January 2000. The U.S. classifies the FARC as a terrorist and drug trafficking organisation. The Colombian government is trying to get the U.S. to limit its funding cuts for Plan Colombia, which has enabled it to fight the rebels from the air and to expand the deployment of land troops.

Colombia is the third-largest recipient of U.S. military aid in the world, after Israel and Egypt.

US weighs costs of Plan Colombia...

According to official figures, since 2000 the US has spent about $6bn (£3.8bn) fighting drug production in Colombia and training its army to battle rebel groups. The centrepiece of Plan Colombia has been the aerial spraying of coca plants, which yield the raw material for cocaine - which then helps finance the rebels. Colombia is the world's top cocaine producer. Yet the US plan has proved highly controversial. Policymakers argue it is in the national interest to fight cocaine at its source and to stabilise Colombia. Critics agree - but say the current plan is ineffective, targets desperate farmers and has worsened an existing humanitarian crisis.

Under the plan, the US has given Alvaro Uribe's government more than $600m each year, heavily slanted towards military aid. It has supplied helicopters, advisers, trainers and intelligence to the Colombian army to help it modernise and operate more effectively against both the coca farmers and rebels. Congress initially specified that the aid should only be used against drug lords but US had previously indicated that some of it should be spent on counter-terrorism efforts. The Colombian armed forces had regained control of many areas formerly held by rebels and made inroads into their financing.

The number of fighters in rebel group Farc might have fallen but the goal of reducing the cultivation and distribution of illegal narcotics by 50% in six years had not been met. Opium poppy cultivation and heroin production have fallen by half. But coca cultivation and cocaine production levels is on the increase. It is said farmers had found ways to defy aerial and manual eradication programmes, by planting smaller patches or moving to new ground.