Colombia’s congress approved a controversial bill that expands the authority of military tribunals over crimes committed by members of the same military.

The military justice reform was approved in the last regular voting round of Colombia’s House of Representatives in spite of heavy criticism by the United Nations and Human Rights Watch who had condemned the reform because it would grant impunity to members of the military guilty of killing innocent civilians.

However, according to Interior Minister Fernando Carrillo, the reform means “judicial security” for the military and “no impunity.”

“I believe the military forces need confidence and judicial security. Moreover, there will be no impunity in the ‘false positives’ which was the purpose of the government with this law,” Carillo was quoted as saying by newspaper El Espectador.

The Colombian military tribunals were virtually stripped of their authority after a scandal broke in 2008 that proved the courts had failed to properly prosecute members of the military later found guilty of killing civilians and dressing them up as civilians to inflate the army’s effectiveness. According to the Prosecutor General’s Office, the killing of civilians had become so common in 2007 that 1 in 5 reported combat kills was a “false positive.” According to the UN, some 4,000 civilians were killed by the military.

Nevertheless, Defense Minister Juan Carlos Pinzon supported his colleague’s affirmation that the only thing the government sought was “offer judicial security” to soldiers suspected of crimes.

“The security forces will have a framework for their prosecution that abides the constitution and international humanitarian law,” said Pinzon.

The opposition, which voted against the bill, disagrees: “The bill includes a number of [types of] deaths that go against humanitarian … law. To move the jurisdiction of these human rights so they can be judged by the military … is very grave,” opposition Representative Ivan Cepeda told RCN Radio.

Cepeda expressed concern about part of the bill that allows members of the military to kill civilians on the suspicion of being a member of an illegal armed group without interference of judicial authorities and outside of combat situations. According to the socialist senator and chairman of an NGO representing victim of state violence, the reform ” leaves the door to impunity open because civilians can be converted to legitimate targets.”

Senator Juan Manuel Galan, one of the proponents of the reform, said that the army could only kill ” legitimate targets” which he defined as a ” person who causes serious damage to the security forces.”

As the House of Representatives made last-minute changes to the reform, a commission consisting of members of both the House and the Senate will have to approve the bill in a so-called conciliation session. This commission is allowed to make changes to the bill.

Once both the Senate and House are in agreement of the reform, the bill will be sent to President Santos for final approval after which the Constitutional Court tests whether the legislation is constitutional.

Source: Colombia Reports

The post Colombia passes controversial military justice reform bill appeared first on Colombia News | TodayColombia.com.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said that by 2014 almost all of the country will be connected by fiber optics “for training and the expansion of knowledge.”

Santos spoke at the opening ceremony of the XIV International Virtual Educa, a conference, exhibition and multilateral forum on education, innovation and ICT, taking place in Colombia’s second city Medellin, 2013′s most innovative city in the world.

The president said that by the end of his presidential term next year 1,078 of the 1,121 municipalities in the country will be connected, allowing communications and internet to reach some of the most rural communities.

“When we began our term in government, only 200 municipalities were connected with fiber-optics,” said Santos. The government also expects to have trained over 200,000 teachers in the use of ICT in the classroom by the end of 2013, that is up from 40,000 in 2010.

“At first there was an average of 20 students per computer [in schools], we should end this year with an average of 13 children per computer and in 2014, if we continue as we are, we should have an average of eight children per computer,” said Santos.

“Universal access to technology is the best guarantee that new generations close social gaps which have so far created educational differences,” said the president.

The event brings together representatives from 20 countries and highlights innovation, education, competitiveness and development.

Source: Colombia Reports

The post Colombia To Go Fully Digital By 2014 appeared first on Colombia News | TodayColombia.com.

The law creates a serious risk that unlawful killings by the military, known as “false positives,” will be transferred from civilian prosecutors to the military justice system. The law also authorizes public security forces to use lethal force against civilians in a dangerously broad range of situations.

The law, approved by Congress on June 17, 2013, implements constitutional changes to the military justice system enacted in December 2012. The law is expected to be signed by the president.

“The law approved today is filled with loopholes that will help shield military officers responsible for human rights violations from prosecution,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “The law could result in the transfer of cold-blooded killings by the military known as ‘false positives’ from civilian authorities to the military justice system, where there is virtually no chance for accountability.”

The constitutional amendment enacted in December establishes that the military justice system will “exclusively handle” international humanitarian law violations and other abuses by the military, except for a closed list of seven crimes, including “extrajudicial executions.” The definition of “extrajudicial executions” established in the implementing law does not ensure that the roughly 3,000 alleged “false positive” cases currently being investigated by the Attorney General’s Office as “aggravated homicide” or “homicide of protected person” will remain with civilian prosecutors.

The law’s definition of what constitutes an “extrajudicial execution,” and therefore remains in the civilian justice system, is very narrow, Human Rights Watch said. The victim must have been “under the control of the state agent” and “did not try to escape,” or was previously placed “in a state of defenselessness” with the purpose of killing him, or was killed “by deception.” Furthermore, the law defines an “extrajudicial execution” as a new offense in the Penal Code. This will allow defense lawyers and Colombian authorities to argue that the principle of non-retrospectivity, under international and Colombian law, prohibits anyone currently under investigation for an alleged false positive from being prosecuted for this new offense.

They could contend that false positives should continue to be investigated and prosecuted as aggravated homicides or homicides of protected persons – and not extrajudicial executions – and thus be moved to military jurisdiction. Colombia could have avoided this problem if it had defined extrajudicial executions by referring to the existing provisions from Colombian law under which “false positives” and other illegal killings are currently investigated and prosecuted. The law takes this approach in relation to crimes of sexual violence.

The law’s expansion of the military justice system over human rights violations directly contradicts the repeated rulings of the Constitutional Court of Colombia and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. In September 2012, for example, the Inter-American Court ruled in the case of Vélez Restrepo and Family v. Colombia that the military justice system “is not the competent system of justice to investigate and, as appropriate, prosecute and punish the authors of human rights violations.”

The law also establishes a definition of “legitimate target” that allows the public security forces to attack civilians in an overly broad range of situations, such as when civilians carry out activities that are unrelated to the country’s armed conflict. Article 10 of the law provides that “civilians who participate directly in the hostilities” are legitimate targets. Article 11 defines direct participation in hostilities as anyone who carries out acts that will “probably” cause any kind of “harm” to civilians or civilian objects, the public security forces, or other state institutions “in support of an armed group.”

By contrast, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said that to qualify as direct participation in hostilities, a specific act must reach a threshold of harm, and be designed to cause harm in support of one party to an armed conflict and in detriment to another party. The Colombian Military Forces’ Operational Law Manual of 2009, citing the ICRC, recognized these requirements, but the new law fails to incorporate them.

“By establishing an incredibly broad and vague definition of whom the security forces can attack and kill, the law dilutes the fundamental distinction between civilians and combatants enshrined by international humanitarian law,” Vivanco said. “Hopefully the Constitutional Court will strike down the provisions in the legislation that contradict international humanitarian law and human rights standards.”

The post Colombia: Military Justice Law a Blow to Human Rights appeared first on Colombia News | TodayColombia.com.

ALFAZ, Spain, Jun 18 2013 (IPS) – The United States and Colombia are the leaders in mental anxiety in the Americas.

Both have good reasons: Colombia has witnessed the longest lasting violence in any contemporary country: from 1949, with some interruptions, then on again from 1964 with the notorious guerilla group, the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia).

Johan Galtung, rector of the TRANSCEND Peace University. Credit: IPS

The U.S., with its conviction that evil is lurking around every corner, domestic and global, believes it better have the arms to handle those bad guys.

Both countries have among the highest rates of structural violence, and the most unequal distributions of economic wealth, in the world.

There is a difference, though: one country submits its problem to third party mediation, of all places in Havana, facilitated by Cuba and Norway; the other submits its problem to nobody, nor does anyone seem to offer their services.

Colombia admits openly to the world that it does not have sufficient capacity for self-regulation; from the U.S. no such admission has been forthcoming.

Recently there was news from Havana: a breakthrough in the peace negotiations about a rather basic economic issue: land, and land reform – a redistribution of land, and of better land, to small impoverished peasants.

There are four other problems on the agenda: political participation (the problem being real democracy), ceasefire, drugs, and the rights of the victims and the bereaved in a country where four million have been displaced and thousands kidnapped and killed.

Reasons to celebrate? Wait. The class differences in a country ruled by the triumvirate of landowners, the military and clerics (like three brothers in many families – the Iberian heritage) force upon us a sad prediction: there will be one more military coup in the chain of coups, supported by the Church.

Let us not pray. Let us hope for disarmament of the FARC and the other guerrillas (particularly the reactionary paramilitary) and control of the army, lest we end up with Nepal: disarmament to the left, not centre-right.

To produce food, not only land, but also water, seeds, manure and some technology are needed. Water and seeds may become privatised – by Monsanto – so where does the credit to buy these inputs come from? And at what price?

What’s needed is collective, cooperative farming on communal land with direct democracy for decisions, not corruptible multi-party national elections. And can farming compete with drug commissions when drugs change hands until finally traveling via submarines to the U.S.? Or on the long road to the Mexican border?

Small farms cannot compete; cooperatives would do better. Well, let’s hope.

Expand the zones of peace, have them intersect, and aim at all of huge Colombia.

The U.S.: On May 23, President Barack Obama concluded that he should pull back the drones, and close the Guantanamo prison. Does he have the guts to do so, by executive orders, using vetoes?

There will be no military coup in the U.S. There are permanent, structural links between the Pentagon, Congress, the military industry and the media (owned by the former, and for whom news of peace is bad news) designed to keep the war industry going.

That industry has one major purpose: to stamp out any initiative to eliminate the special status of the dollar as the world’s “reserve currency” – like by Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, by Iran, now by BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) – so that the U.S. can pay by printing money, and even get the naive to buy U.S. bonds, meaning lending the U.S. petro-dollars or China dollars.

Alas, the U.S.’ efforts are self-defeating. The more wars against terror for U.S. security, the more insecurity and terrorism; the more wars to save the dollar, the closer the collapse of the currency of that bankrupt country: by inflation, by stock exchange crashes, by serving debts rather than people.

May still last a couple of years, but the synergy of these three factors will catch up with the economy. In the meantime Monsanto is at work, like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the National Riffle Association (NRA) and other lobbies threatening anyone whose voting is not to their liking that they will not be reelected.

The finance industry is at work forcing the administration to withdraw one step behind the other from the tiny measures introduced after the Grand Repression to control the finance industry.

The U.S. Supreme Court did its part of the job granting money to politicians under “freedom of expression.”

And Obama did his job, offering to cut Social Security entitlements in return for some compromise with Republicans, the average retirement package in the U.S. now being only 40 percent of a salary as opposed to 70 percent in developed countries.

Montesquieu’s plan of separating legislative, executive and judiciary power so that they check each other does not work. In the U.S. today all three powers are on the same course set by the finance industry, to which the dollar status is key.

Politicians are bought and cowed and the president once again betrays those who elected him. Democracy does not work. The U.S. blessing – the Occupy Movement – was itself occupied: by armies of FBI agents.

All of this and worse was Colombia’s fate; the answer was FARC, armed revolt. Will there be a similar armed revolt in the U.S., given that the guns are well distributed?

For Anglo-American global direct violence, yes. As the suspected Boston bombers said, an attack on one Muslim is an attack on all Muslims, an eye for an eye – except when it comes to domestic structural violence.

Let us hope for the revival of Montesquieu and democracy or, if not, submission to outside mediation.

The post Colombia, the United States, and Montesquieu appeared first on Colombia News | TodayColombia.com.

A pair of Spanish tourists kidnapped in northern Colombia have been released following a transnational police operation, in an incident that illustrates the degree to which ordinary criminal groups — rather than guerrilla organizations — have become the primary perpetrators of the crime in the country.

As Reuters reports, Maria Concepcion Mariaska, 43, and Angel Fernandez, 49, were found sleeping in hammocks during an early morning raid by Colombian police on June 15.

General Humberto Guatibonza, the head of Colombia’s anti-kidnapping police unit, said a $667,000 ransom was paid in Madrid, and the two men that came to collect it were later arrested.

The couple, who were kidnapped a month ago as they drove through Colombia’s La Guajira desert region near a popular tourist spot, had been held in the homes of Wayuu Indians, an indigenous people that populates the area. They had been chained at times, according to the head of La Guajira’s police department.

Speaking to reporters on June 16, the couple said they were ambushed by a group of men with guns in an attack that was “very traumatic.”

Once the “kidnap capital of the world,” Colombia has seen a dramatic decrease in the crime over the past ten years. In 2003, more than 2,000 people were kidnapped in Colombia, compared to just 305 in 2012 — an 85 percent drop which has been largely attributed to successes fighting the country’s two primary guerrilla groups, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN). This recent kidnapping, which would have barely made international headlines at the height of Colombia’s kidnapping crisis, has received significant global attention, indicative of how the country’s security climate has improved.

The nature of this recent case also reflects the changing dynamics of Colombian kidnapping. The Spaniards were kidnapped by common criminals, not by rebels or by the new generation organized crime groups known as “bandas criminals,” or BACRIM. According to figures compiled by Colombian non-governmental organization (NGO) Pais Libre, common criminals have become the primary perpetrators of the crime, responsible for 85 percent of all kidnap cases in 2012.

The ransom payment and arrests in Spain are also noteworthy, indicating that the kidnappers had international links.

The post Spaniards Kidnapped in Colombia Freed in Transnational Police Operation appeared first on Colombia News | TodayColombia.com.

The drug scopolamine is also known as “the devil’s breath” or “burundanga.” The late salsa diva Celia Cruz sang about it. In a recent documentary, Vice called it “the world’s scariest drug.”

That’s because scopolamine provides a potent weapon to Colombian criminals. The drug puts people into a zombie-like state in which they lose both their memory and free will and can be convinced to empty their bank accounts or hand over the keys to their apartments and cars.

“They go out to party and then wake up two or three days later on a park bench,” said Maria Fernanda Villota, a nurse at San Jose University Hospital in Bogota, which receives several scopolamine victims every week. “They arrive here without their belongings or their money.”

Tasteless and odorless, the drug is often slipped into the alcoholic drinks of unsuspecting bar patrons. Last year, Colombian police reported nearly 1,200 cases of people victimized by criminals using scopolamine and other so-called zombie drugs. The victims range from high-profile politicians to US Embassy employees to average Colombians.

Scopolamine comes from the seeds of a family of plants that includes angel’s trumpets and corkwood. They grow in many areas and can be found in the Botanical Garden in Bogota.

The drug has a few legitimate medical uses, such as treatment for motion sickness and for the tremors of Parkinson’s disease. But it’s best known for its darker properties.

Scopolamine blocks neurotransmitters that carry information to the part of the brain that stores short-term memory, said Dr. Camilo Uribe, who heads the toxicology unit at San Jose University Hospital and is a leading expert on the drug. In other words, what happens to people under the effect of scopolamine is simply not recorded by the brain. At the same time, the drug makes people more open to suggestions.

Nazi “angel of death” Josef Mengele used scopolamine in interrogations as a kind of truth serum. The CIA administered doses of the drug during its controversial behavioral-engineering experiments in the 1960s, according to John D. Marks’ book, “The Search for the ‘Manchurian Candidate.’”

Since the 1970s, Colombian criminals have used scopolamine in order to rape women, empty out houses and apartments, and even abduct children.

Last year, kidnappers used the drug on the parents of a 7-year-old girl in northern Antioquia department then took the child. She was rescued two months later. But because victims remember almost nothing about these encounters it’s often impossible for them to provide police with descriptions of the perpetrators.

It’s widely believed that many of these crimes go unreported because they involve married men frequenting bars and bordellos who are too embarrassed to own up to what happened.

“Women are often the culprits,” said Augusto Perez of Nuevos Rumbos, a Bogota organization that focuses on drug abuse.

One infamous case involved three young Bogota women who preyed on men by smearing the drug on their breasts and luring their victims to take a lick. “Losing all willpower, the men readily gave up their bank access codes. The breast-temptress thieves then held them hostage for days while draining their accounts,” Reuters reported.

But men also wield the drug. Bogota music teacher Mario Romero recalled going to his regular bar for a drink and inviting some friends back to his apartment, a group that included a friendly but unknown man. After his other friends departed, the newcomer apparently put some scopolamine in Romero’s whisky.

He woke up the next day to find that the man had taken his wallet and camera and had somehow figured out where he had stashed his jewelry plus a stack of Colombian pesos worth about $600. Romero figures that he must have led the criminal to the hiding places.

“Everything I had was very well hidden,” Romero said. “But you totally lose your will.”

Victims have even been convinced to carry out crimes while under the effects of the drug.

“I can give you a gun and tell you to go kill someone and you will do it,” Uribe said.

Uribe recounted a case in the early 1980s when a Colombian diplomat was arrested in Chile for trafficking cocaine. It turned out he had been dosed with scopolamine then, while under its effects, agreed to carry a stash of cocaine in his diplomatic pouch. The charges were eventually dropped on the grounds that he had been doped.

These days, however, scopolamine is just one of the drugs in the criminal toolkit, Perez said. So-called date-rape drugs, like Rohypnol and Ativan, are often easier to obtain and administer and put victims to sleep for a few hours, long enough to steal their valuables or carry out sexual assaults.

The other downside to scopolamine, from the point of view of the bad guys, is that victims can sometimes become agitated and aggressive and turn on their perpetrators.

“We’ve had cases in the emergency room in which we would have to treat both the victim who was intoxicated with the drug and the criminal whom he had beaten up,” Uribe said.

Here’s Celia Cruz, the late Cuban songbird, singing an ode to the drug “Burundanga.”ac

The post Colombia: Beware the zombie drug appeared first on Colombia News | TodayColombia.com.

The Supreme Court ruled the teachers guilty of assisting an unidentified man, in the acts of sexual abuse of pupils of their school.

According to the court, the women were not mere witnesses of abuse. The three teachers from Cartagena were found guilty of assisting the man, who touched, sexually abused and photographed the girls aged between four and six.

At least nine complaints were filed at the Prosecutor General’s Office. These claims included, claims of oral sex, touching of genitals and forced pornography. The three teachers were involved in all these claims.

Colombian newspaper El Espectador reported that one of the teachers was rector and presumably very close to the abuser.

The majority of violations against the girls allegedly took place in the rector’s office in campus. The remaining incidents took place in a farm outside of Cartagena.

Source: Colombia Reports

The post Teachers sentenced for assisting in sexual abuse of pupils appeared first on Colombia News | TodayColombia.com.

Newly-appointed Shanghai consul Ricardo Galindo was quoted by El Espectador as saying the inauguration of the consulate is the result of ”a great effort on the part of the current government to satisfy the needs of the Colombian community.”

Until now, the growing number of Colombian expatriates in Shanghai had to travel to the Chinese capital of Beijing, some 700 miles away, to officially register as residents. An estimated 800 to 1000 Colombian expatriates live in Shanghai, but only some of them have officially registered.

“Colombia has one of Shanghai’s largest Latin American colonies, perhaps only behind Mexico and Brazil,” said Galindo in El Espectador.

The new consulate will also issue Colombian visas to Chinese citizens seeking to live in the South American country. 4,000 Colombian visas were distributed by the Beijing consul in 2012 and the Shanghai branch is now expected to take on between 50-70% of current applications, due to the high number of business visas that are requested in the south and east of China.

The Shanghai consul drew attention to the importance of Colombia’s continued relationship with China, pointing out the in 2012, trade between the two countries amounted to approximately $670 million, a 22% increase on 2011. China is the second largest importer of Colombian goods and interest in investing in infrastructure in the Latin American country has grown since President Juan Manuel Santos visited the country in May last year.

In addition to the Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong consulates, there is a possibility of Colombia’s diplomats extending their presence to the southeastern city of Canton, where a reported 3,000 Colombians live. Galindo also mentioned that Colombia may propose to twin one of its cities with Shanghai to allow the two cities to support one another.

Source: Colombia Reports

The post Colombia opens consulate in China’s finance capital Shanghai appeared first on Colombia News | TodayColombia.com.

The purpose of the meeting is to bring civil society and private sector representatives together in order to develop a work plan mapping priorities for 2013-2014.

At Monday’s reception at the Colombian Embassy to launch this meeting, both Ambassador Carlos Urrutia and Assistant Secretary State for Western Hemisphere Roberta Jacobson made important speeches expressing key support to combat racial discrimination in Colombia. While the inclusion of a broader number of Afro-Colombian organizations should be considered for the future, this meeting was is a good step for the two countries in tackling long-standing issues of racial discrimination, exclusion, and marginalization faced by Afro-Colombians.

The human rights situation faced by Afro-Colombians remains grave. Chief among the concerns is the protection of Afro-Colombian leaders and communities affected by the internal armed conflict. According to the Consultancy for Human Rights and Displacement (CODHES), in 2012, 36 percent of all new displacements took place along Colombia’s primarily Afrodescendant Pacific Coast. This marks a 22 percent increase in displacements compared to 2011, and 20 percent of all newly displaced persons in Colombia in 2012 were Afro-Colombian. Much of the new displacement is due to the continued armed conflict, wars among drug narco-traffickers, and violence linked to resource extraction, such as mining operations.

Indeed, civilians in Afro-Colombian areas of Valle del Cauca and Nariño are hard hit by abuses and violence led by illegal armed groups. According to religious groups, between January 1 and April 19 of this year, some 91 disappearances were reported to the authorities in Buenaventura. Forced recruitment of minors—including children as young as eight years old—and sexual abuse by armed groups are generating displacement and confinement of the local population. Given the displacement crisis, it is encouraging that Assistant Secretary of State Anne C. Richard visited Colombia and Ecuador in May. While Ms. Richard expressed optimism on Colombia’s developments regarding internally displaced persons and supported the peace process, she highlighted concerns about ongoing violence and displacement.

Security for Afro-Colombian leaders also remains a major concern. WOLA has received increased reports of death threats, security incidents, and assassination attempts against Afro-Colombian leaders and human rights defenders who work on Afro-Colombian issues in recent months. These death threats are more than idle words, as demonstrated by the murders of Miller Angulo of AFRODES, Demetrio Lopez of Community Council of La Caucana (Valle del Cauca), and Socrates Paz Patiño, the legal representative of the community council of Iscuande (Nariño). According to the Regional Association of Black Communities (ASORCON), the 29th Front of the FARC murdered Patiño on May 28, presumably for protesting the extortion of local miners and the negative impacts illegal mining has had on the Afro-Colombian territory.

Miller’s murder, a peaceful protest by AFRODES at a forum with Colombia’s Vice President, and new death threats and security incidents against several AFRODES leaders have prompted a dialogue between Colombia’s National Protection Unit and AFRODES. This, is leading to the development of collective protection measures for AFRODES leaders in six areas of the country. While this process will take some time to come to fruition, efforts by the U.S. Embassy, State Department, USAID and its contractor Chemonics to work with Colombian authorities have been key to advancements in the provision of security for this group, allowing them to continue to operate. A recent statement from U.S. Embassy in Bogota and Ambassador Michael McKinley condemning recent violence against Afro-Colombian leaders—and vowing to continue to engage with the Colombian government on security mechanisms—is an important step toward recognizing and addressing the human rights abuses and security risks afrodescendant communities continue to face.Beyond AFRODES, U.S. officials have taken key action on all major security incidents affecting Afro-Colombians in the past six months.

Lastly, it is worth highlighting that after many years of U.S. international cooperation getting it wrong on Afro-Colombian projects, new USAID programming supporting Afro-Colombian and indigenous peoples organizations is finally getting it right. Currently implemented by ACDI/VOCA, the programs are successfully generating new economic opportunities for Afro-Colombians. Recently, this program partnered with businesses Movistar Colombia and Atento to open a call center in Quibdo—a city that often makes the headlines due to problems associated with unemployment—benefiting some 700 people. In Barranquilla, some 900 Afro-Colombians are benefiting from a USAID project that brought together the Mayor’s office and local businesses to generate employment.

While changing decades of Colombia’s history of societal marginalization, exclusion, and racism against Afro-Colombians and fully addressing the causes of violence that generate security problems and abuses against afrodescendant communities will take time, it is positive to see that the U.S. is taking steps to begin tackling these problems. The hope is that Colombia and the FARC will negotiate a lasting peace, and that in a post-conflict Colombia, the seeds of U.S. programs will succeed in helping Afro-Colombian communities to overcome many of the long-standing issues they continue to face.

Source: Colombia Reports

The post US moving in right direction on Afro-Colombians appeared first on Colombia News | TodayColombia.com.

Colombia plans to raise external debt in 2014 worth $5 billion, with $3 billion of that issued in overseas bonds and the remainder from multilateral lenders, Cardenas said during the annual revision of accounts.

That is more than the government aims for overseas debt this year. Cardenas maintained the level of international debt for this year at $2.6 billion, with $1.6 billion in global bond sales. Another $1 billion will come from multilateral lenders this year, he said.

In the local market, Colombia will issue a total of 30.5 trillion pesos ($16.1 billion) of Treasury bonds, known as TES, next year with 22.5 trillion sold at auction.

Cardenas lowered the total sale of TES bonds this year to 29 trillion pesos from an earlier goal of 30 trillion pesos. Of that, 21.5 trillion pesos will be sold at auction, down from an earlier estimate of 23 trillion.

He said the reduction in TES sales this year is possible because of the “flexible resources” the government has and lower amortization and interest payments, as well as a better-than-expected balance sheet at the central bank.

“This financing plan is a pathway to a reduction in deficit levels and public indebtedness that ratifies the Colombian government’s commitment to responsible management of its public finances,” Cardenas said of the changes to this year’s financing plan. He did not provide details on the increase in debt in 2014.

The government expects the economy to grow 4.7 percent next year, up from the projected 4.5 percent in 2013, Cardenas said. Inflation will likely end this year at 2.5 percent and 3 percent in 2014.

IMPROVED 2014 GROWTH

Cardenas on Thursday lowered the government’s estimate for economic growth from 4.8 percent, as weak overseas demand and sluggish manufacturing dent prospects.

Cardenas said the consolidated budget deficit – which include states, municipalities and state-run companies – for this year and next would reach 1 percent of gross domestic product. He kept the estimate for the central government’s budget deficit at 2.4 percent of GDP for this year, and said it would be 2.3 percent in 2014.

The numbers were calculated using an estimate of oil at $99 per barrel for this 2013 and $100 per barrel in 2014. Cardenas gave an average peso currency level of 1,850 per dollar for this year and 1,874 for next.

The peso closed at 1,881 per dollar on Friday.

Cardenas maintained plans to raise 3 trillion pesos from privatization of state companies this year and another 1 trillion next year.

The government expects to collect 102.3 trillion pesos in taxes this year and another 113.8 trillion pesos in 2014, Cardenas said.

The post Colombia to issue $3 billion overseas bonds next year appeared first on Colombia News | TodayColombia.com.