this is for united irelander he says the men were on hoilday Colombia Asks For Help To Beat Farc
Exclusive By Philip Bradfield
Monday 12th September 2005COLOMBIA is seeking specialist MoD training to help counter IRA terror techniques that have caused the number of civilian casualties to double at the hands of FARC guerrillas in the past year.
DUP Lagan Valley MP Jeffrey Donaldson, and Willie Frazer and William Wilkinson of victims' group FAIR, returned yesterday from Colombia where they were confirming the formation of an international network for victims of terror and "exposing IRA/FARC propaganda".
A senior Colombian army officer asked Mr Donaldson to lobby for support from British Army experts in dealing with an upsurge of IRA terror techniques, including bombings with secondary devices timed to target rescue personnel, as were used by the IRA at Narrow Water, Warrenpoint.
Other IRA technology appearing in Colombia includes booby-trapped bombs and improvised landmines, mortars and rockets, with the visitors from Ulster seeing photos of mortar tubes on lorries which were " identical right down to the very brackets" to those previously used in Newry.
They also found that FARC have begun using south Armagh IRA "one-shot" sniping techniques.
Forty per cent of the cocaine-trafficking FARC's victims are civilians, they learned, with the terrorists only recently moving into urban operations and bombings, which bear IRA hallmarks.
Confirming that he would lobby for MoD for support for the Colombian army, Mr Donaldson said: "If the IRA can send their personnel out to train the FARC in new techniques, then there is a moral responsibility on the British Government to share their expertise in dealing with IRA technology in order to save the lives of innocent Colombians."
Mr Frazer said Colombian Vice-President Francisco Santos Calderon would soon travel to Dublin and Belfast.
"He will be coming with half-a-dozen Colombian victims of IRA/FARC technology, including a 14-year-old girl who lost a leg when the FARC herded villagers into a church and used it for mortar target practice, killing 115 men, women and children," he said.
On Friday, the University of Bogota confirmed to the delegation from Northern Ireland that it would help spearhead a new network for pro-democracy terrorist victims' groups in Israel, Spain, Colombia, America and Northern Ireland.
It will also monitor links between terrorists in those areas, and counter-propaganda from international human rights groups "who highlight state abuses but ignore or justify terrorist atrocities", said Mr Frazer.