NEWS
August 7, 1998 | JUANITA DARLING, TIMES STAFF WRITER
Politicians, like athletes, can change quickly from hero to goat. But few have been transformed in the reverse as thoroughly as Andres Pastrana, who will be inaugurated today as the next president of Colombia. Four years ago, Pastrana was so unpopular that a group of Colombians who spotted him changing planes in Miami booed him.
NEWS
June 22, 1998 | JUANITA DARLING and DAVID AQUILA LAWRENCE, SPECIAL TO THE TIMES
Voters turned out in record numbers Sunday to elect Andres Pastrana to lead Colombia, firmly rejecting the administration of President Ernesto Samper, who spent most of his four-year term defending himself against drug-corruption allegations while the world's major cocaine-producing nation spiraled further into chaos. Pastrana's election is expected to markedly improve U.S.-Colombian relations, which have grown bitter in the past four years because of Samper's alleged ties to drug traffickers.
NEWS
May 31, 1998 | JUANITA DARLING, TIMES STAFF WRITER
People here share a memory of Ingrid Betancourt. On a night just over two years ago, the nation watched as the freshman representative from Bogota took the floor of Congress to argue for the impeachment of President Ernesto Samper. In those two hours, she became the most recognizable congressional figure to emerge from a campaign finance scandal that shook Samper's presidency.
NEWS
August 28, 2000 | From Times Wire Reports
Gunmen killed at least 17 people in two separate massacres, one of which officials attributed to right-wing paramilitary militias. The killings come three days before President Clinton is to visit Colombia. In one attack, gunmen executed 10 residents of two neighborhoods in the Caribbean coastal town of Cienaga, police said. Meanwhile, suspected rightist gunmen raided two barrios outside the Pacific port of Buenaventura, killing seven people.
NEWS
April 7, 2000 | From Associated Press
Suspected paramilitary gunmen executed 21 unarmed residents of a small town in an oil- and cocaine-producing region near the Venezuelan border Thursday, officials said. The shootings by the men, most in camouflage uniforms, occurred in two poor barrios of Tibu, said Ruben Sanchez, the local delegate of the federal human rights ombudsman's office. Police confirmed his account.
NEWS
May 6, 2000
A human rights activist was found shot dead in Colombia's northwestern region, which is dominated by right-wing paramilitary groups, authorities said. Police said Jesus Ramiro Zapata's bullet-riddled body was found Thursday outside Segovia in Antioquia province. Police said Zapata, 42, a teacher who headed the Segovia Human Rights Committee, was abducted by gunmen a day earlier. Friends and family members blamed a paramilitary death squad for the slaying of Zapata.