Curfew Doesn’t Stop Rebel Attacks in Colombia

Rebels launched fresh attacks on the police garrisons of two small Colombian communities Sunday, showing continued resolve in a nationwide campaign targeting rural banks, pipelines and local security forces just nine days ahead of a new round of peace talks.

Sunday’s assaults, one in Cauca province and the other in Antioquia, occurred in spite of a dusk-to-dawn traffic restriction announced by the government Saturday evening. The curfew prohibits road and river transport in 30% of Colombia’s municipalities and was aimed at preventing insurgents from deploying.

An army spokesman said the most recent offensive, which began Thursday evening, had claimed the lives of 19 police officers and four soldiers. In one attack, two children died when a rebel bomb destroyed their house next to the police station in the village of Valparaiso, a police official said.

The army spokesman insisted that many of the rebel fronts involved have been basing their operations in Colombia’s southern demilitarized zone, which was set aside in November for the fragile and slow-moving peace process.

“There’s no doubt, they come out of the zone, they attack, and they go back,” he said.

Supporting this claim, military sources said an aerial attack had destroyed four trucks that had carried guerrillas out of the demilitarized zone on their way to initiate further incursions.

While the guerrillas rarely release accurate figures on the number of fighters they lose in battle, making independent confirmation difficult, the military insisted that it had killed 202 insurgents in three days of fighting.

Since the attacks began, the rebels--members of the country’s oldest and most powerful rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC--have laid siege to dozens of police and government military garrisons, robbed at least two rural banks, dynamited two oil pipelines and targeted electricity towers in at least 22 separate incidents.

Local television coverage has shown rebels loading gas canisters into large cylinders as part of a homemade bombing technique, then firing them in a remote town in Meta province.

Almost since President Andres Pastrana initiated talks with the FARC, critics have warned that the rebels might take advantage of the demilitarized zone, which covers about 17,000 square miles, to build on their military strength.

“There are many complaints--that they have established a cocaine lab there, that the guerrillas are training there or that they are bringing kidnapping victims or arms there,” said Defense Minister Luis Fernando Ramirez.

Authorities characterized the offensive as a show of force leading into the new round of peace talks with the FARC, scheduled to begin July 20. The peace process has run into several snags since its January inauguration, including the killing of three U.S. rights workers by FARC soldiers, that have cast a pall of pessimism over the negotiations.

Even as fighting continued Sunday morning, Colombia’s top brass attended memorial services for 36 soldiers killed early Thursday in an offensive, also by the FARC, just 30 miles south of Bogota, the capital.

While the military portrayed the battle as a victory, many residents were alarmed that the fighting had reached the perimeter of Bogota.