| Blast at Buenaventura port of Colombia |
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| World Affairs Talk | |
| Wednesday, 27 June 2007 | |
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Another live bomb was later deactivated by police in the Pacific port city, which moves about half of Colombia's international shipments. Rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, also detonated a bomb as a vehicle passed a tourist area, killing one person and a 3-year-old girl and wounding seven others. Buenaventura, with its easy access to the coast, has become embroiled in a battle among urban guerrilla groups, drug traffickers and paramilitary gangs for control of lucrative narcotics smuggling routes. The attacks began in a restaurant, which was completely destroyed by the blast. The victims of this miserable, criminal, terrorist act were the poor people of Buenaventura though the port operations remained open on the following day. Colombia, the Andean country is in a four-decade-old guerrilla war involving Marxist rebels and right-wing paramilitaries. Both groups have grown rich on the drug trade while thousands of noncombatants are killed in the crossfire every year. Now Buenaventura is Colombia's most strategically important hub for the export of drugs and the import of arms. Colombia, the world's biggest producer of cocaine, has received billions of dollars in US aid to crack down on the drug trade. Democrats in control of the US Congress are toughening conditions on that aid, saying the investment has not resulted in a slowdown of cocaine exports. The Government estimates that 600 to 700 tonnes of cocaine are exported from Colombia every year. Rate of violence dropped under Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, but the FARC, a smaller rebel group known as the ELN, and renegade paramilitaries are still fighting in remote parts of the country, often over the spoils of the drug trade. Share & Bookmark             |
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| Last Updated ( Friday, 29 June 2007 ) |
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