Rebel Clash Leaves 29 Dead in Colombia

At least 29 Marxist rebels and far-right militia members were killed in a clash over the weekend in a lawless area of Colombia near where U.S. soldiers are training local troops, officials said Tuesday.

The fighting in Arauca was a blow to President Alvaro Uribe, who has made the oil-rich eastern province a focal point of his efforts to crack down on violence after four decades of civil war.

Gen. Eduardo Morales, a regional army commander, said the battles took place near Tame, a run-down village surrounded by jungle and savanna that is disputed by several illegal armed groups.

Seventy U.S. Special Forces troops are nearby, training a Colombian brigade to protect the country’s second-largest oil pipeline from attacks by rebels. The Cano Limon pipeline serves an oil field operated by Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum.

Thousands of Colombians are killed every year in clashes involving leftist rebels, right-wing paramilitary outlaws and the U.S.-backed military.

In another setback for Uribe’s hopes for peace, a dissident right-wing paramilitary commander said his fighters were pulling out of peace contacts with the government and added that they would ignore a cease-fire.

Uribe has named a group of officials to meet with commanders of the 10,000-strong United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia and explore the possibility of holding peace talks.

But the contacts have been beset by divisions among the militia blocs, raising doubts about their viability.

“The rebels give us no other option than taking up arms. The state cannot provide security in the regions we are defending,” said the commander of the dissident 2,000-strong Elmer Cardenas bloc, who is known as El Aleman (The German).

The decision by the Cardenas bloc, which controls a key weapons-for-drugs smuggling corridor near the Panamanian border, follows one by the smaller Metro bloc to reject the cease-fire and the talks.