<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1" ?><rss version="2.0"><channel><title>washingtonpost.com - Colombia Editorials</title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/world/issues/colombiareport/editorial?nav=rss_world/issues/colombiareport/editorial</link><description>Colombia Editorials</description><language>en-us</language><ttl>15</ttl><image><title>washingtonpost.com</title><width>140</width><height>20</height><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com</link><url>http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/hp/image/wp_web.gif</url></image><item><title><![CDATA[Children in Combat]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45367-2005Apr11.html?nav=rss_world/issues/colombiareport/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45367-2005Apr11.html?nav=rss_world/issues/colombiareport/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:05:43 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  THERE IS MUCH that the United Nations cannot be expected to do, but it can focus attention on human rights issues, particularly in lawless places where nobody else has much influence. For the past several years, the U.N. Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Olara Otunnu, has been building a framework to put pressure on armies that send children into battle, particularly in the kinds of places where neither the laws of war nor generally accepted standards have penetrated. According to information he has compiled during travels to Colombia, Sri Lanka, Congo and elsewhere, more than 250,000 children are exploited in conflict, as child soldiers and porters, spies and sex slaves. In the  past decade, more than 2 million children have been killed in battle, and more than 6 million have been injured.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Watch Venezuela]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64043-2004Nov19.html?nav=rss_world/issues/colombiareport/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64043-2004Nov19.html?nav=rss_world/issues/colombiareport/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:05:43 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  THIS WEEKEND President Bush visits Chile and Colombia, two nations that he will rightly celebrate for their capable democratic governments. But it is foolish to pretend, as does some of the administration's  rhetoric, that democracy is thriving across  Latin America. In fact, while the Bush administration has been ignoring the region over the past four years, political conditions have seriously deteriorated in several key countries -- and the prospect is of still worse developments, especially if U.S. neglect continues.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Colombia's Peace Bargain]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37485-2003Oct2.html?nav=rss_world/issues/colombiareport/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37485-2003Oct2.html?nav=rss_world/issues/colombiareport/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:05:43 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[ANUMBER OF COUNTRIES managed to settle civil wars or carry through peaceful political transitions by granting amnesty to those involved in crimes in exchange for disarmament or acceptance of a new political order. Typically a national truth commission has documented the abuses being pardoned and overseen public confessions from those getting amnesty, as well as compensation to victims. When this process was adopted in El Salvador and South Africa, most of the world cheered -- and both countries largely succeeded.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Colombia's Results]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48894-2003Jul12.html?nav=rss_world/issues/colombiareport/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48894-2003Jul12.html?nav=rss_world/issues/colombiareport/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:05:43 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[THREE YEARS AGO today, President Clinton signed into law Plan Colombia, a bold initiative intended to help that Latin American democracy fight the drug traffickers and insurgents of the left and right who threatened to destroy the country while supplying most of the cocaine on U.S. streets. Some members of Congress and human rights groups protested that the attempt to bolster the Colombian army with equipment and training while sponsoring the aerial spraying of coca fields would embroil the United States in a Vietnam-like quagmire. The critics were wrong. Colombian coca and poppy production has been reduced substantially: According to a United Nations study, the acreage has dropped by 38 percent in three years. With the traffickers and their guerrilla allies on the defensive, violence is down, too. Homicides have fallen by a quarter and kidnappings by a third this year compared with last year. Colombia's economy is growing, and its president, Alvaro Uribe, leads the strongest and most popular government the country has had in decades. Though Plan Colombia still hasn't achieved many of its goals, there can be little question that the $2.7 billion invested by the United States so far has gotten results.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Units Begin Patrols in Colombia]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17419-2003Mar12.html?nav=rss_world/issues/colombiareport/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17419-2003Mar12.html?nav=rss_world/issues/colombiareport/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:05:43 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[A few months ago, David Garcia was washing  cars in the seaside resort of Cartagena, making ends meet but little more. Now, with a uniform and gun, the 22-year-old is a  recruit in President Alvaro Uribe's experiment to bring security to Colombia's countryside while avoiding the pitfalls of history.]]></description><author> Scott Wilson</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Meddle With Mr. Chavez]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18965-2003Feb28.html?nav=rss_world/issues/colombiareport/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18965-2003Feb28.html?nav=rss_world/issues/colombiareport/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:05:43 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[U.S. OFFICIALS long sought to play down the danger that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez poses by pointing out that his acts rarely matched his words. Mr. Chavez, who was elected president after promising a socialist revolution for Venezuela's poor majority, might talk about confiscating property, supporting leftist guerrillas in neighboring Colombia or admiring Fidel Castro and Saddam Hussein, but in practice he mostly remained within democratic boundaries.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Getting in Deeper]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38315-2003Feb6.html?nav=rss_world/issues/colombiareport/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38315-2003Feb6.html?nav=rss_world/issues/colombiareport/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:05:43 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[If the budget President Bush proposed this week is any indication, his administration appears to be moving boldly toward establishing an outright and unabridged military relationship with Colombia -- exactly the kind Washington sought so long to avoid.]]></description><author> Marcela Sanchez</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Engaging Colombia]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1176-2002Dec2.html?nav=rss_world/issues/colombiareport/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1176-2002Dec2.html?nav=rss_world/issues/colombiareport/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:05:43 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[AFTER TWO postponements, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell is finally paying a visit to Colombia, the third-largest recipient of U.S. aid and a vital democratic ally in Latin America. It's a propitious moment: Colombia's new president, Alvaro Uribe, has blazed through his first 100 days with a host of aggressive initiatives, ranging from new taxes and security measures to secret talks with outlaw paramilitary groups. Yet the suspicion in Bogota is that Mr. Powell's arrival has less to do with domestic developments than with the fact that Colombia is about to take over the presidency of the United Nations Security Council -- and thus may soon have a key influence in council decisions on Iraq. That shouldn't be the case: Colombia is at its own critical juncture in a war with drug traffickers and terrorists, and it needs close U.S. engagement and support.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Help for Colombia]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57958-2002Feb23.html?nav=rss_world/issues/colombiareport/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57958-2002Feb23.html?nav=rss_world/issues/colombiareport/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:05:43 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[FOR NEARLY four years Colombian President Andres Pastrana led a brave and often lonely effort to negotiate peace between his democratic government and the guerrilla insurgents who have terrorized the country for decades. He persevered even after members of the self-styled Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) repeatedly sabotaged the peace talks and used a huge safe haven he granted them as a base for kidnapping and drug trafficking. Last month Mr. Pastrana granted the FARC a last chance to work out a cease-fire; it responded with 170 armed attacks in 30 days, culminating in the hijacking of a plane carrying the president of the Colombian Senate's peace commission. Mr. Pastrana's decision this past week to break off the peace process and order the army into the safe haven was painful but inevitable; most Colombians saw it as long overdue.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Remember Colombia]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40957-2002Jan13.html?nav=rss_world/issues/colombiareport/editorial</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40957-2002Jan13.html?nav=rss_world/issues/colombiareport/editorial</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:05:43 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[IT NOW LOOKS AS though the Bush administration may have to devote some real attention in the coming year to a key Latin American ally, Argentina, which has suffered an economic meltdown and is in danger of political collapse. But if it would like to head off yet another Latin American crisis, it would do well also to increase its effort in Colombia, a large and troubled nation of 42 million where a once-active U.S. policy has been on virtual autopilot for the past year.]]></description><author></author></item></channel></rss>