Chavez to FARC; guerilla war is over

In a surprising turn of events, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez called on FARC to lay down their weapons (Associated Press/Fox News link);

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday urged Colombian rebels to lay down their weapons, unilaterally free dozens of hostages and end a decades-long armed struggle.

Chavez sent the uncharacteristic message to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, saying their ongoing efforts to overthrow Colombia’s democratically elected government were unjustified.

“The guerrilla war is history,” Chavez said during his weekly television and radio program. “At this moment in Latin America, an armed guerrilla movement is out of place.”

Why would Chavez make such an announcement? Well, if you read my other blog “Tall & Rich” you’d know that Saturday Colombia captured a couple of Venezuelans delivering ammunition to FARC terrorists. You’d also know that INTERPOL has substantiated ties between FARC and the governments of Ecuador and Venezuela. This is Chavez way of deflecting the impending criticism.

But, FARC has no such intentions;

Yet a FARC statement posted Sunday on a Web site sympathetic to its cause suggested the group is far from laying down its arms.

Written by rebel leader Luciano Marin Arango, alias “Ivan Marquez,” and dated June 5, the statement demands that new elections be called to oust Colombia’s government and Congress. The FARC’s “strategic objective is the taking of power for the people,” the statement said.

It also claimed that Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has backed plans to kill Chavez and leftist Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa.

Seems to me, at the rate leaders of FARC are giving up the ghost, it’d be hard to find someone to call themselves a FARC commander these days.

Crossposted at Tall & Rich.

Category: Foreign Policy, Hugo Chavez, Terror War