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April 3rd, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
Two serious government-FARC peace negotiations failed over the past three
decades, and recent weeks have seen an upsurge in violence in the conflict.
The FARC killed at least 11 soldiers in a mid-March attack in Arauca near the
Venezuelan border and the military responding with two precision bombings on
rebel camps that killed more than 60 insurgents.
The rebels have in recent years suffered their worst battlefield setbacks
ever, beginning when Santos was defense minister from 2006-2009 and thanks
to billions in U.S. military assistance and training.
Their main source of funding is the cocaine trade and military pressure has
made holding kidnap victims increasingly difficult for the FARC.
It is not known how many ransom kidnap victims the insurgency holds but
authorities put the number at least six, including four Chinese oil workers
seized last June.
The citizens’ watchdog group Fundacion Pais Libre maintains a list of at least
400 people the FARC kidnapped or has otherwise held against their will since
1996 who were never freed. It doesn’t expunge a name from its records until
the person is released or a body is found.
Monday’s mission was brokered by leftist former Sen Piedad Cordoba, a friend
of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez who has served as a go-between in the
release of 20 FARC hostages since January 2008.
Cordoba told reporters Monday that her work would be done with this week’s
releases as she has no desire to become involved in cases in which money
rather than politics are involved.
She said, however, that the activists group she leads, Colombians for Peace,
plans to send letters to the FARC asking it exactly how many civilians it
holds.
The FARC has only publicly acknowledged holding captives it considered “exchangeable:”
police, soldiers or politicians it held for political leverage, hoping to
swap them for imprisoned rebels.
It held scores of such prisoners in the late 1990s when it controlled about
half the countryside but gradually released them all, never obtaining the
hoped-for exchange.
Some captives were rescued. Franco-Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid
Betancourt and three U.S. military contractors in 2008 were freed in a bold
ruse involving Colombian soldiers posing as members of a phoney
international humanitarian group.
But others, at least 25, died in captivity, many of them killed by FARC
insurgents when rescuers real or imagined neared.
Among those in attendance for Monday’s release was Rigoberta Menchu, the
Guatemalan rights activist who won the 1992 Nobel Peace prize.
She said it is now time for Colombia’s government to respond to the FARC’s
gesture with its own display of political willingness to attain peace.
But analysts caution that peace talks, even back-channel negotiations, could
be a long time coming.
Many don’t believe they could happen before 2014 presidential elections.
Source: agencies
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