Colombia's president threatened to extradite a captured Marxist rebel leader to the US for trial on drug charges if the guerrillas don't free dozens of hostages, including three Americans and a German, by the end of the year.
Ricardo Palmera, a top commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, would become the first member of the rebel group ever sent to face US justice. He is wanted by a federal court in New York on cocaine trafficking charges.
PHOTO: AFP
President Alvaro Uribe on Friday signed Palmera's extradition orders after winning approval from Colombia's Supreme Court, but is ready to revoke the decision if the FARC releases the hostages before Dec. 30, his office said in a statement.
Uribe issued a list of 63 captives, including politicians, soldiers, police officers, as well as the three US defense department contractors and a German businessman.
The FARC had no immediate reaction.
The group has said it will only release the hostages in exchange for hundreds of imprisoned guerrillas, Palmera among them, and analysts doubt the FARC would cave in to Uribe's ultimatum.
Deal Denounced
"The FARC won't accept this type of deal because it would give the impression that they are giving in to government pressure," said Roman Ortiz, a terrorism expert at Los Andes University in Bogota.
Relatives immediately denounced Uribe's move, saying it undermined efforts to reach a deal on a prisoner swap and could prompt the FARC to retaliate with an ultimatum of its own, putting the hostages' lives in danger.
"It's inhumane that both the FARC and the government use hostages in their political and military wrestling match," said Angela de Perez, the wife of a Colombian senator abducted by the FARC three and half years ago.
Uribe on Saturday defended his decision, saying "the government had two options: simply order the extradition [of Palmera] or explore a possibility for the release of the hostages."
"For the good of Colombia, the government once more took a step and chose this ultimatum," Uribe told reporters during a visit to the southeastern city of Popayan.
Uribe has been more flexible with right-wing paramilitary group leaders who have waged a two-decade dirty war against the leftist rebels. On Thursday Uribe pledged to not extradite Salvatore Mancuso, the supreme commander of Colombia's outlawed United Self-Defense Forces, or AUC, provided he ceases all illegal activities and disbands the group.
Demobilization
In related news, some 550 far-right paramilitary fighters turned in their arms on Saturday, the fifth disbandment in less than a month under the country's peace initiative.
More than 3,000 paramilitary combatants have laid down their arms since the middle of last year when the government's paramilitary pacification program began.
In Saturday's demobilization ceremony held in the western province of del Valle, Hernan Hernandez, commander of the paramilitary Calima Block, asked forgiveness "for all the errors we have committed."
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing