U.S. lunatics promote Colombian fascist

[NOTE: Thanks to a press-realease from the U.S. lunatic fringe group led by lunatic-in-chief Lyndon LaRouche, we now know that the Colombian fascist General Bedoya will be speaking at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. Bedoya's speech will probably be on CSPAN as well, so contact CSPAN to find out when. -DG]

Executive Intelligence Review larouchepub.com
News release
For more information: Gretchen Small

Former colombian defense minister Harold Bedoya in Washington:

• Seeks aid to defeat narco-terrorists,
• Despite appeasement of president pastrana
• Press Conference :1:30 PM, Tuesday National Press Club

September 7, 1999 529 14th St. NW
Zenger Room Washington, DC

The former defense minister and commander of Colombia's armed forces, General (ret.) Harold Bedoya, is coming to Washington to seek increased U.S.-Colombian cooperation in defeating the billionaire drug-trafficking terrorist organizations which are dismembering that nation.

Gen. Bedoya is visiting Washington to meet with members of Congress and others to discuss ways in which the United States and Colombia can strengthen their cooperation against the drug trade. He will conduct a press conference Tuesday, Sept. 7, at 1:30 PM, at the National Press Club.

Gen. Bedoya just concluded a widely-publicized tour of Argentina, Uruguay, and Peru, where he spoke with government officials, media, and large meetings of the public about Colombia's rapidly deteriorating situation.

Gen. Bedoya argues that the "peace" policy of Colombian President Andres Pastrana, of negotiating with the "Third Cartel" of the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN), is a demonstrable failure, which has only succeeded in handing over nearly half of the country's territory to the drug mob, and providing it protection.

Neither the FARC nor the ELN has given the slightest indication that it is willing to demobilize. And the former defense minister calls it wrongheaded to insist, as some in the U.S. do, that the two organizations are waging "a 40-year political insurgency," and that they will negotiate in good faith with just a few more concessions from the government.

Colombia's War on Drugs has not been helped by Richard Grasso, the president of the New York Stock Exchange, who went to Colombia in June to meet with "Comandante" Raul Reyes of the drug-running FARC to discuss the "economic future" of Colombia. Nor has it been aided by the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) demand that Colombia include illicit drugs in its GNP calculations.

Despite budget restrictions and political attacks, Colombia's armed forces have shown themselves capable of stopping the FARC-ELN offensive, when given national and international support. But Gen. Bedoya believes it is time to acknowledge that the Pastrana government's "policy of negotiation" is a strategic blunder which cannot win, and that it is time to abandon the absurd insistence that the FARC and ELN constitute a "legitimate political force," rather than what they are, a drug mafia.

For the sake of the whole world, says Gen. Bodoya, the U.S. and other nations must increase their training-, intelligence- and, equipment-assistance to Colombia's armed forces, as well as help foster Colombia's economic development. As U.S. anti-drug czar Gen. Barry McCaffrey admitted recently, you cannot win a war on drugs when 20 per cent or more of the population is unemployed.