New Defense Minister Named in Colombia
President Ernesto Samper on Tuesday appointed a law professor as Colombia’s defense minister to replace Fernando Botero, who resigned last week amid allegations that he accepted money from the Cali drug cartel to finance Samper’s election campaign last year.
The new defense minister, Juan Carlos Esguerra, 46, is dean of the law faculty at Bogota’s Javeriana University and helped draft Colombia’s new constitution in 1991. He vowed to continue the government’s crackdown on drug trafficking and to seek an end to the decades-old guerrilla insurgency in Colombia.
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