FARC to Free Colombia Soldiers, Sends Warning to Army
Colombia's FARC guerrillas confirmed they will release two soldiers Tuesday in a deal to revive peace talks, warning the army not to jeopardize the separate release of a captive general.
The soldiers' release, part of an agreement to salvage a peace process derailed by the capture of General Ruben Alzate, has been put in motion in the eastern department of Arauca, where the pair were captured in combat on November 9, the rebels said.
Operations began Monday at dawn to transfer the soldiers "from a site in the Arauca forest" to a Red Cross-organized humanitarian mission the following day, the rebels said.
The FARC said the release of the general -- who was captured in a separate incident in the western department of Choco on November 16 -- was still planned for later in the week but hinged on the army's actions.
"We hope the defense ministry will act with prudence and discretion so as not to block the release of General Ruben Dario Alzate," the rebels said in a statement from the Cuban capital Havana, where the peace talks had been taking place.
Alzate, the highest-ranking captive taken by the FARC in 50 years of conflict, was captured along with a corporal and an adviser as they traveled by boat to visit a civilian energy project.
The incident caused President Juan Manuel Santos to call off the two-year-old peace talks, the most promising effort yet to end the conflict.
Under a deal announced last Wednesday, the FARC has promised to release all five captives -- Alzate, Corporal Jorge Rodriguez, army adviser Gloria Urrego and soldiers Paulo Cesar Rivera and Jonathan Diaz -- in order to resume negotiations.
But the FARC repeated accusations that the army is putting the deal at risk with aggressive operations in Choco, the jungle-covered region where Alzate heads a task force charged with fighting rebels and drug traffickers.
The rebels accused the army of bombings, surveillance flights, troop landings and clashes with its fighters in the remote department.
"The noisy operation deployed by the army on the Atrato River in the forgotten and plundered department of Choco, presented by the defense ministry as a deployment to protect the population, is nothing but a risky, mercenary attempt to rescue the general and his companions," they said.
The defense ministry has denied trying to mount a rescue operation, and says it has already halted operations in Arauca, where the two soldiers are due to be released -- a pre-condition for the handover.
In a separate statement, the FARC's leader, Timoleon Jimenez, said the president's suspension of negotiations had damaged the peace process.
"He knocked over the board where we were playing the game, he destroyed confidence. Things can't just resume as they were," he said in a statement datelined from the Colombian mountains and published on the rebels' website.
"The rules of the game he (Santos) always demanded were that nothing that occurred on the battlefield should affect the course of our conversations."
The FARC has justified its capture of the army hostages as legitimate acts of war taken in the absence of a ceasefire.
Santos has repeatedly rejected the rebels' demands for a ceasefire, saying it would strengthen their hand.
Further complicating the delicate hostage handovers, Colombia's second-largest rebel group, the ELN, has declared a travel ban in the Choco region for Tuesday and Wednesday.
The rival guerrilla group often decrees such bans in the area, where its fighters are also active.
The ELN (National Liberation Army) has an estimated 2,500 rebels. The FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) has an estimated 8,000.
The conflict, which has also drawn in drug traffickers and right-wing paramilitaries at various times, has killed 220,000 people and caused more than five million to flee their homes since the FARC was founded in 1964.
Source: Agence France Presse
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