Posted on 07/28/2008 9:02:23 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Mr. Ortega refers to the FARC as "brothers." His help would be welcomed by the rebels, who have suffered a string of recent setbacks, including the deaths of three of its top members and the recent rescue by Colombia's military of some of the group's most prized hostages.
Latin America's oldest and largest insurgency, the FARC funds itself through drug trafficking and kidnapping. It holds about 700 hostages, most for ransom. ...
Mr. Ortega agreed to mediate the conflict, much to the annoyance of the Colombian government, which resents the sympathy with which Mr. Ortega and some other Latin American leaders view the FARC, which is trying to overthrow Mr. Uribe's democratically elected government.
"President Ortega, help us bury the cadaver which is the FARC. Don't bury yourself along with them," Camilo Ospina, Colombia's ambassador to the Organization of American States, said at the Washington meeting.
Mr. Ospina said his government had sent Nicaraguan authorities a warning, through Interpol, that FARC members could be arriving in Managua from Venezuela by air, and asked for their detention. He said Colombia could bring charges against Nicaragua for harboring terrorists.
Denis Moncada, Nicaragua's Organization of American States ambassador, retorted by calling Colombia a "narco-government" and a threat to regional peace. Mr. Moncada added that his government considered the FARC to be a "national liberation movement."
Mr. Ortega, a former leader of the Sandinista guerrillas who came to power in Nicaragua after defeating the U.S.-backed Somoza regime, has longstanding ties to the FARC. In 1999, Mr. Ortega traveled to a FARC-held area in Colombia where the guerrillas were holding peace negotiations with the government to decorate the FARC leader Manuel Marulanda with the Order of Sandino, the Sandinista movement's most important medal.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Then he needs to be buried with them.
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