Colombia says 975 combatants died in civil conflict in 1999

CNN
January 2, 2000

Colombia says 975 combatants died in civil conflict in 1999

                  BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) -- At least 975 communist rebels,
                  government troops and ultra-right death squad fighters died in battle in 1999
                  as Colombia's long-running civil conflict continued to rage, an army report
                  said on Sunday.

According to the report, 686 of the dead were guerrillas, 263 were soldiers
and 26 were members of outlawed right-wing paramilitary gangs.

                  The rebel death toll was virtually the same as in 1998 despite the launch of
                  peace talks in January between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
                  Colombia (FARC), the country's largest guerrilla group, and the
                  government.

The report did not detail civilian casualties in massacres and other politically
motivated violence.

                  The government estimates that more than 35,000 people, most of them
                  civilians, have died in just the past 10 years as a result of the guerrilla
                  uprising that began in the mid-1960s.

The report only accounted for corpses that were recovered during 1999.

The army routinely says it inflicted much higher battlefield casualties on the
rebels, but accuses them of dragging away the dead to bury them in secret.

The Soviet-inspired FARC, which is estimated to have some 17,000 fighters
nationwide, suffered 419 fatalities, the army report said.

                  Some 250 insurgents from the smaller, Cuban-inspired National Liberation
                  Army (ELN), with a combat force of some 5,000, were killed, it said. The
                  army also killed 17 combatants from the Maoist People's Liberation Army
                  (EPL), which has no more than about 500 members.

Despite repeated government pledges to crack down on illegal paramilitary
gangs, just 26 of their fighters were killed in combat last year.

                  Human rights groups accuse the armed forces of backing the right-wing
                  gangs, which total some 5,000 fighters, in their "dirty war" against unarmed
                  civilians suspected of sympathizing with the rebels.

Colombia's slow-moving peace talks are going ahead without any previous
ceasefire agreement.

                  Political analysts say this year will likely herald an upsurge in fighting as
                  government and rebel forces battle to gain more power to strengthen their
                  hands at the negotiating table.

The government has also launched a programme to restructure the army and
boost its combat effectiveness.