Muchas gracias a los valientes hombres de las Fuerzas Militares de Colombia: Ejército, Armada y Fuerza Aérea.
And now, a graphic sample of Colombia's armed forces:
Posted on 05/28/2004 10:12:06 PM PDT by El Conservador
BOGOTA, Colombia - Three U.S. military contractors captured by Colombian rebels more than a year ago are in good health but will never be freed except as part of a broad prisoner exchange, a senior rebel commander said Friday.
Tom Howes, Marc Gonsalves and Keith Stansell — who were captured by rebels in February 2003 when their single-engine plane crash-landed in southern Colombia — will be released with dozens of other rebel hostages only in exchange for all rebels being held in Colombian jails, rebel commander Raul Reyes told The Associated Press.
Reyes ruled out a direct swap with the United States for any rebels in U.S. custody.
Reyes, a leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces in Colombia, or FARC, also said the rebel group will maintain its 40-year armed struggle to win power and rejects running in elections because of a failed, bloody effort in the past.
Reyes told the AP in rare detailed responses to questions delivered through an intermediary that the FARC has learned its lesson after attempting to gain power through the ballot box two decades ago.
The FARC, which on Thursday celebrated the 40th anniversary of its founding and has waged the longest-running insurgency in the Western hemisphere, launched the Patriotic Union, or UP, in the 1980s, but leaders of the political party were systematically gunned down by right-wing death squads linked to the Colombian military.
"Practically all the leaders were assassinated, disappeared and forced into exile ... and the state and its security forces in the death squads are responsible," Reyes said. "We can affirm that the true conditions for us to participate in clean and transparent elections do not exist."
Reyes and the other six members of the ruling secretariat of the FARC have been in hiding since peace talks with the government collapsed in February 2002 and the Colombian Army began retaking a vast safe haven the FARC had been granted for the negotiations.
In his responses, dated Thursday and sent from "the mountains of Colombia," Reyes said the FARC's estimated 16,000 combatants have melted before the government's military offensive, called "Plan Patriot," but are prepared to resume their own attacks.
Analysts have said FARC rebels have retreated deeper into the wilderness in this South American nation, which is studded with mountains and blanketed by tropical rainforest, waiting out hardline President Alvaro Uribe's term, which ends in 2006.
"In its struggle to conquer power, the FARC employs the use of mobile guerrillas everywhere in Colombia's territory," Reyes said. "Our units retreat according to conditions ... and can reappear to accomplish their missions."
Uribe has repeatedly beseeched the FARC and the smaller leftist rebel National Liberation Army to declare a cease-fire, hold peace talks and seek power through democratic means. At the same time, he has spurred on his armed forces to press the rebels on the battlefield, hoping to force them in negotiations.
On Thursday, Uribe — who remains hugely popular among voters and who wants the constitution amended to allow him to run for a second term — denounced the FARC as "the executioner and torturer of the Colombian people."
"For the first time in 40 years, the executioners are confronted with institutions that are resolutely taking them on," Uribe said.
Muchas gracias a los valientes hombres de las Fuerzas Militares de Colombia: Ejército, Armada y Fuerza Aérea.
And now, a graphic sample of Colombia's armed forces:
The FARC, ELN, Sendero Luminoso, Tupac Amaru, and those "Bolivarian Brigrades" started by that cretinous slime Hugo Chavez need to be eliminated post-haste.
If only there were an Alvaro Uribe for every nation on the globe!
Well, we can dream, can't we?
Thanks for the great pictures!
I have been following the situation in Colombia for some time, and this is the best it has been in many a long year. Congratulations to Uribe (and thanks to Bush for supporting and encouraging Uribe's anti-FARC policies).
You know... there was a local force fighting `em on its own hook, but for some reason the State Department decided they belonged on the same list as FARC and al-Qaeda...
Yeah, it's a sore point.
What are the odds on Uribe getting the Constitution amended?
I think they instituted that policy of alternating liberal and conservative parties every 4 years after La Violencia of the 50s (?)
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