Colombia Tells Rich To Fund Battle Against Leftists

Finance minister Jose Antonio Ocampo told reporters on Monday that the government hoped to raise at least $420 million though the sale of the bonds, which will be proposed in legislation unveiled in Congress this week.

The bond sale would be in lieu of a proposed war tax, which the government determined was not permitted under the constitution.

Under the plan, any individuals or businesses with a net worth of more 88.8 million pesos ($85,000) will be required to buy the five-year bonds, which will be issued in denominations of 500,000 pesos ($480) and carry an annual interest rate of 6 per cent. Ocampo said the bonds, could eventually be bought and sold on secondary markets.

 

, would receive a 20 per cent premium if they were used to purchase assets including real estate holdings confiscated from Colombian drug lords.

President Ernesto Samper said in a national radio and television address on Monday night that money raised through the bond sales would be used to provide the military with new weapons, transportation and intelligence equipment.

He did not elaborate, but the Colombian army faces what Western military experts describe as a serious deficit in its ability to transport combat troops.

Armed forces chief Adm. Holdan Delgado conceded in a recent interview that the military has less than three dozen working helicopters the amount the US Army uses to support a single brigade-sized unit.

Guerrillas launched a nationwide offensive last Friday, killing at least 60 security force members in two days of fighting that put a virtual stranglehold on the country of 37 million people.

The offensive included an attack by hundreds of Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels on a military base in southwest Putumayo province in which at least 27 soldiers were killed and 60 others taken prisoner.

The FARC, Colombia's largest and oldest guerrilla group, has grown increasingly through banditry, kidnappings and the protection of rural drug operations. Western experts say it poses more of a threat today than at anytime since its founding as a pro-Soviet Maxist group in 1964.