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Top FARC commander "Mono Jojoy" was killed by Colombian state forces. President Juan Manuel Santos confirmed the death of the rebel leader from New York City, where he is attending the U.N. General Assembly. The head of the FARC's Eastern Bloc and member of its Secretariat was killed in a massive air strike in a region called La Macarena in the central Colombian Meta department, 200 miles south of Bogota. Some 20 other guerrillas were killed and five members of the security forces were injured in the attack, the government's Defense Minister Rodrigo Rivera said. Mono Jojoy, also known as...

Victory: Colombia's army blew away the field marshal of FARC's narco-terror war Wednesday, showing with a jolt that to win, it's terrorists who must "absorb" attacks, not innocents. Mexico and the U.S. have much to learn. Seems the adage that Colombia is the only country where guerrillas die of old age isn't true anymore. On Thursday, Colombia celebrated news of the demise of Jorge Briceno, military commander and second-highest chief of FARC. The 57-year-old terrorist went down in a hail of bombs and gunfire over three days in a jungle bunker near La Macarena. The Colombian army suffered no deaths...

Colombia's military killed the field marshal and No. 2 commander of the country's main leftist rebel group on Thursday in the country's eastern plains, authorities said.

Thank you New Zeal http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iq9K90bvaX0&feature=player_embedded

SNIPPET: "BOGOTA – Police seized 100 kilos of pentolite and arrested five people, including four Ecuadorians, who were transporting the high explosive on a highway in southwestern Colombia, a police commander said Tuesday. A 17-year-old girl carrying a baby was among the foreigners arrested, the National Police commander in the southern border province of Putumayo, Col. Orlando Polo, said. Officers also seized 6,000 meters (6,565 yards) of detonating cord, Polo told reporters in Mocoa, the capital of Putumayo. The explosives and detonating cord were in a truck apparently headed for Florencia, the capital of neighboring Caqueta province." SNIPPET: "The pentolite...

Marxist rebels' open letter asks South American body to facilitate peace talksColombia's largest insurgent group asked the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) to help resolve the country's decades-old political struggle in a open letter published Wednesday. "Although the government of Colombia has closed the door to dialogue with the insurgency spurred on by the mirage of a military victory and Washington's interference, we want to convey to the Union of Nations of the South, UNASUR, our unyielding determination to seek a political solution to the conflict," said the letter from the communist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), published...

NOTE The following text is a quote: FARC Associate Pleads Guilty in Manhattan Federal Court to providing material support to a Foreign Terrorist Organization AUG 11 -- (MANHATTAN, NY) JOHN P. GILBRIDE, the Special Agent-in-Charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration's New York Field Division ("DEA") and PREET BHARARA, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced yesterday the guilty plea of JUANITO CORDOBA-BERMUDEZ, an associate of the 57 Front of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia ("FARC"), A Colombian terrorist group, to a Indictment charging him with participating in a conspiracy to provide material support to...

Caracas and Bogota appeared to put an end to their short-lived diplomatic crisis Tuesday, as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and new Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos held a high-profile summit at a Colombian port town. "We are looking to restore relations between two brother nations," Mr. Santos said upon arriving in Santa Marta. "We're optimistic, and we want this meeting to produce firm results." Mr. Chavez said that "despite all the storms, I come to ratify my eternal love for Colombia." The meeting comes three days after Mr. Santos was sworn in, and nearly three weeks after an accusation by...

Colombian patriot and brave national hero Alvaro Uribe has now retired from the presidential office he first took in 2002... when Colombia was nothing short of a failed state. How did he do? Besides the fact that he all but defeated the FARC rebels and numerous drug cartels over his eight years, Uribe's presidential approval rating has hovered between 60-70%... as recently as 2008 hitting an astounding 91%... George W Bush honored his accomplishment, principles, and valor with a Presidential Medal of Freedom... while today's radical Democrats refuse to support Colombia's great strides with even a free-trade pact. But as...

Olavo de Carvalho had a column published yesterday in Brazilian newspaper which included a discussion of how communists continue to use illicit drugs as a weapon. He agrees with Prof. Denis Rosenfield's conclusion that revolution and drug trafficking are like Siamese twins, linked always and forever. The 'Opium War' waged by Mao against several Chinese provinces, for example, was the first recorded case in history when an organized political power deliberately addicted the population of their own country, to undermine it, explore it and master it. de Carvalho recommends a 1999 book by Joseph D. Douglass (Red Cocaine: drugging the...

Americas: Venezuela's Hugo Chavez sputtered rage and fury Sunday after Colombia charged him with harboring terrorists. It was about par for a bully whose nation is going downhill fast. It didn't get much play in the media, but on Friday Colombia's government laid out scads of evidence — photographs, videos, satellite GPS coordinates and computer e-mails — to the Organization of American States showing why it's so tough to fight terrorists. As the world does nothing, Venezuela aids the Colombian narcoterrorists known as FARC, which is an act of war. In effect, Chavez looks the other way as some 1,500...

NOTE The following text is a quote: Top FARC Commander Sentenced To 27 Years In Prison For Conspiring To Import Tons Of Cocaine Into The United States JUL 22 -- (Manhattan, NY) - JOHN P. GILBRIDE, the Special Agent-in-Charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration's New York Field Division ("DEA") and PREET BHARARA, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and, announced that GERARDO AGUILAR RAMIREZ, a/k/a "Cesar," a former front commander in the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or "FARC"), was sentenced today to 27 years in prison for conspiring to...

(CNN) -- Colombian authorities have proof that high-ranking leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, live in Venezuela, the Colombian government said Thursday. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe issued a statement listing their names. Among them is one with the alias "Ivan Marquez;" Rodrigo Granda, whose alias is "Ricardo;" Timoleon Jimenez, whose alias is "Timochenko;" German Briceno, whose alias is "Grannobles;" and Carlos Marin Guarin, whose alias is "Pablito." The president said there are other "integral members" of the group in Venezuela. Venezuela and Colombia have strained relations.

Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, who spent six years as a rebel hostage before being rescued, has sued the Andean nation over her kidnapping, sparking outrage from the government that freed her. The suit seeks $6.8 million (4.5 million pounds) in damages from the state for emotional stress and loss of earnings while she was being held in secret jungle camps by Marxist guerrillas.

Chalk up another defeat for Hugo Chávez. Last weekend, Colombian voters delivered a landslide victory to conservative presidential candidate Juan Manuel Santos, who clobbered former Bogotá mayor Antanas Mockus by nearly 42 percentage points. Always eager to meddle in foreign elections, Chávez had strongly criticized Santos during the campaign, calling him a “threat to the region” and warning that “he could cause a war in this part of the world, upon instructions from the Yankees.” On April 25, the Venezuelan dictator said that, while Santos was “trying to dress as Little Red Riding Hood,” he was actually “a wolf...

Mexico’s drug war is still raging, with over 22,000 people having been killed since 2006. Now, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, often referred to as the FARC, are teaming up with the drug lords. The Marxist terrorist group’s ties to Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and other organizations make the conflict to the south a major threat to the United States. The violence in Mexico is severe. In the first two days of May, 25 people were killed in Chihuahua, with several of the murders happening in Ciudad Juarez. As the month of May began, 62 people had been killed...

Oswaldo Álvarez Paz's arrest is evidence of Chávez's abuse of the legal system and the silencing of his critics. The arrest of Oswaldo Álvarez Paz, a former president of Venezuela's Chamber of Deputies, governor of the Venezuelan state of Zulia, and presidential candidate, should concern the entire world because it demonstrates just how far President Hugo Chávez's regime is willing to stray from democratic norms. Standing silent as democracy atrophies in Venezuela is now not only immoral, but is becoming increasingly dangerous for all of Venezuela's people. Álvarez Paz has a worldwide reputation for being an honourable man devoted to...

War: A Spanish court has charged Venezuela with collaborating in a terrorist plot to assassinate President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia. That's an attempt on a top U.S. ally, and calls for a hard response. If it's not predator-drone time, it's time to name Venezuela as a state sponsor of terror. What came to light Monday isn't the first time Venezuela's Hugo Chavez has been caught aiding terrorists, but it may well be the most egregious. Spanish Judge Eloy Velasco named a Venezuelan government official as a key link between 12 FARC and ETA terrorists who were indicted in a 2003...

None of us who are believers of individual freedom are fans of Hugo Chavez. But it seems that the situation is growing more worrisome by the day. The Washington Post outlines the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights issued a searing and authoritative report on the destruction of Venezuela's political institutions and the erosion of freedom under President Hugo Chávez. It details the fearful deterioration of rights in the country, and the blind eye the Organization of American States (OAS) has turned to those events. The report details facts and events that document how Mr. Chávez's regime has done away with...

A Spanish judge has charged 13 members of the Basque separatist group ETA and the Colombian rebel group FARC over an alleged plot to assassinate Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, judicial sources said on Monday. Judge Eloy Velasco said he believes FARC asked ETA's help with a plot to kill a number of Colombian officials in Spain, including Uribe.