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US soldiers held in Colombia arms plot
Colombian police have detained two US soldiers for alleged involvement in a plot to distribute arms, Colombian and US officials said on Wednesday.
The two soldiers were arrested during a raid on Tuesday on a house in a gated community in Carmen de Apicala, located southwest of the capital and near Colombia's sprawling Tolemaida air base, where US soldiers are stationed.
National Police chief General Jorge Daniel Castro said the two soldiers, whose names and ranks were not disclosed, were arrested at the house where a large weapons cache was discovered.
A US Embassy spokesman confirmed the arrests and said US diplomats are "working to ascertain the facts surrounding the case".
He refused to provide details, other than to say more information would be released as it became available.
But the Colombian attorney-general's office said the pair were being held by Colombian authorities near Carmen de Apicala.
Arms cache
Details on the type and quantity of arms found were not immediately available.
Castro said police in the village, 80km southwest of Bogota, stopped a suspicious man who immediately offered a bribe to be allowed to go free.
Under threat of arrest, the man led the officers to the nearby house where the arms stockpile was stashed.
Shortly afterwards, the two US soldiers - apparently unaware of the police operation - entered the house but could not justify their presence.
"In the course of the investigation, two Americans arrived, they did not give a satisfactory explanation and were put at the disposal of the prosecutors' office," Castro said.
The incident marks the latest US embarrassment in the South American nation.
US aid
On 29 March, five US soldiers were arrested after 16kg of cocaine were found aboard a US military plane that flew to El Paso, Texas, from the Apiay air base east of Bogota.
One of the suspects has since been released, but the rest are being held in the US.
Colombian lawmakers called for their extradition to face trial in Colombia, but US Ambassador William Wood ruled out such a move, citing diplomatic immunity.
The US has provided more than $3 billion in aid over the past four years to help Colombia battle leftist rebels and drug trafficking that fuels the 40-year-old insurgency.
Outlawed rightwing paramilitary groups are also in the fray, battling the rebels while committing massacres, trafficking drugs, and carrying out kidnappings and extortion.
Up to 800 US troops are permitted in Colombia, according to US law, to simultaneously train Colombian armed forces and provide logistical support.
Up to 600 Americans are also permitted in the country as US government contractors.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/8350BD5F-82FD-4F54-8B8A-5FA000FC05CA.htm
National Police chief General Jorge Daniel Castro said the two soldiers, whose names and ranks were not disclosed, were arrested at the house where a large weapons cache was discovered.
A US Embassy spokesman confirmed the arrests and said US diplomats are "working to ascertain the facts surrounding the case".
He refused to provide details, other than to say more information would be released as it became available.
But the Colombian attorney-general's office said the pair were being held by Colombian authorities near Carmen de Apicala.
Arms cache
Details on the type and quantity of arms found were not immediately available.
Castro said police in the village, 80km southwest of Bogota, stopped a suspicious man who immediately offered a bribe to be allowed to go free.
Under threat of arrest, the man led the officers to the nearby house where the arms stockpile was stashed.
Shortly afterwards, the two US soldiers - apparently unaware of the police operation - entered the house but could not justify their presence.
"In the course of the investigation, two Americans arrived, they did not give a satisfactory explanation and were put at the disposal of the prosecutors' office," Castro said.
The incident marks the latest US embarrassment in the South American nation.
US aid
On 29 March, five US soldiers were arrested after 16kg of cocaine were found aboard a US military plane that flew to El Paso, Texas, from the Apiay air base east of Bogota.
One of the suspects has since been released, but the rest are being held in the US.
Colombian lawmakers called for their extradition to face trial in Colombia, but US Ambassador William Wood ruled out such a move, citing diplomatic immunity.
The US has provided more than $3 billion in aid over the past four years to help Colombia battle leftist rebels and drug trafficking that fuels the 40-year-old insurgency.
Outlawed rightwing paramilitary groups are also in the fray, battling the rebels while committing massacres, trafficking drugs, and carrying out kidnappings and extortion.
Up to 800 US troops are permitted in Colombia, according to US law, to simultaneously train Colombian armed forces and provide logistical support.
Up to 600 Americans are also permitted in the country as US government contractors.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/8350BD5F-82FD-4F54-8B8A-5FA000FC05CA.htm
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Thursday May 5, 2005
The Guardian
Two US soldiers have been detained in Colombia on suspicion of smuggling ammunition intended for American-funded drug control programmes to outlawed paramilitary forces, the authorities in Bogotá said yesterday.
Barely a month after five US soldiers were caught trying to smuggle 16 kilos (35lb) of cocaine aboard a flight to Texas, the arrests confronted Washington with a new embarrassment - and one that is bound to deepen local criticism that US forces in the country are able to break the law with impunity.
In the latest clash between Colombian law enforcement and US troops, the American pair were arrested during a raid on a house in the central town of Carmen de Apicala. Police seized 32,000 rounds of ammunition.
Three Colombians, including a former police sergeant with links to rightwing paramilitary organisations, were also arrested.
Colombian authorities told reporters that the ammunition had been sent to the country as part of an American aid programme. In the last five years, Washington has provided $3bn (£1.6bn) in aid to Colombia to crush a leftwing insurgency as well as the narcotics trade that funds it.
However, in this instance the ammunition never arrived at its destination. Instead, the two soldiers are accused of stealing the rounds before they could reach the Colombian army and stockpiling them in the house for sale to the rightwing United Self Defence Forces of Colombia, which Washington has branded a terrorist organisation.
The US embassy in Bogotá confirmed the arrests, although it would provide no further information on the two soldiers. However, according to local television stations, the two men were marksmanship instructors at Colombia's main airbase.
Their arrest is bound to deepen distrust of the American presence in Colombia. Under an act of the US Congress, some 800 US troops are allowed on the ground to train the Colombian armed forces, and to support the anti-drug efforts. An additional 600 government contractors are also in the region. However, resentment against the US presence in Colombia has been stoked by the arrest last March of five US soldiers for cocaine smuggling.
One has since been released; the other four are in America, and the US ambassador to Bogotá, William Wood, has refused to consider their extradition to stand trial, citing a 30-year-old treaty which provides US troops with diplomatic immunity.
The refusal has been bitterly criticised in Colombia, where there is a movement to amend the treaty to allow prosecution of US troops who break the law.
"Colombia's hands are tied by this treaty, which prohibits us from bringing any of these US military members to justice," Jairo Clopatofsky, a member of the Colombian senate's foreign relations committee, told Associated Press.
Colombia's far-right paramilitaries are believed to be heavily involved in cocaine trafficking to fund their campaign against leftist rebels. The government is trying to effect a demobilisation of the United Self-Defence Forces.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/colombia/story/0,11502,1476868,00.html
The head of Columbia's national police service, Gen. Jorge Daniel Castro, told reporters on Wednesday that government troops caught the two soldiers and three Columbians during a raid a day earlier.
The U.S. State Department confirmed the arrests, but didn't give the soldiers' names or ranks.
Colombian troops seized more than 40,000 rounds of assault-rifle ammunition in the raid on a house in Carmen de Apicala, about 70 kilometres southwest of the capital.
Officials said they believe the ammunition was going to be given to outlawed right-wing paramilitary groups.
Paramilitary groups and leftist rebels have both been accused of drug trafficking and mass killings in four decades of civil war.
The United States maintains as many as 800 troops at a time in Colombia and has sent more than $3 billion US in aid to help Bogota's war on drugs.
It was the second embarrassment in slightly more than a month for the U.S. in Colombia.
Only a few weeks earlier, five American soldiers from an anti-narcotics squad were arrested after 18 kilograms of cocaine was found on a U.S. military plane that flew to Texas from the South American country.
http://www.cbc.ca/storyview/MSN/world/national/2005/05/04/colombia-050504.html