Colombia's FARC rebels suspend ceasefire over air strike

[Zorro]

Source: AFP

Peace talks to end Colombia's five-decade conflict were plunged into fresh crisis Friday after FARC guerrillas suspended their unilateral ceasefire in response to a government air strike that killed 26 rebels.

The December ceasefire announcement by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) had raised hopes that the two-year-old peace negotiations were approaching a breakthrough. But tensions have spiralled since the rebels killed 11 soldiers in an ambush last month.

On April 15, the day after the ambush, a furious President Juan Manuel Santos ordered the military to resume air strikes against the leftist FARC, which he had suspended on March 11 in recognition of their ceasefire.

Thursday night's air strike and ground attack was the deadliest assault on the FARC since that announcement.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/18-farc-rebels-killed-colombia-army-air-strike-030010638.html

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Ambushing 11 soldiers seemed a rather unusual unilateral ceasefire action.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

1. Gee, who didn't see this coming?

[delrem]

2. Death Stalks Colombia's Unions

Death Stalks Colombia's Unions
Stephen Franklin

http://pulitzercenter.org/projects/south-america-colombia-labor-union-human-rights-judicial-government-corruption-paramilitary-drug-violence-education

Since 1986, more than 2,800 labor leaders and union members have been killed in Colombia. In recent years this South American nation has led the world in this grim statistic. And more than 9 out of 10 of these cases remain unsolved.
Colombia’s failure to protect workers was a key reason for the five-year delay in U.S. congressional approval of a free trade agreement with it. It was finally approved in 2011. Amid protests from human rights and labor groups, U.S. officials said Colombia had taken steps to protect workers and their labor rights.
Unions, human rights activists and others say the abuses and dangers persist, and in some case have grown. As a result of attacks on unions and other pressures, the percentage of unionized workers in Colombia has dropped from 15 percent 20 years ago to about 4 percent today.
Teachers have suffered along with others largely because they were seen as social activists and community organizers.

...

[COLGATE4]

3. and this is relevant to the post about

FARC breaking the ceasefire how?

[Comrade Grumpy]

7. Well, maybe just in case someone is wondering why there's been a 50 year civil war.

That post provides just a hint of the context.

[Peace Patriot]

4. Cheers erupt in the posh offices of the weapons peddlers in Washington DC,

joined by champagne corks popping in the posh offices of the corrupt, murderous, failed U.S. "war on drugs" (DEA, FBI, CIA, NSA, Pentagon), added to joyous fireworks displays sponsored by the Miami Mafia that are shot off simultaneously in many eastern cities. One of those fireworks cleverly spells words in the sky: KILL PEACE!

Oh, it is a red letter day for war profiteers!

And look how the fascists blame it on the leftist rebels, and not on the BILLIONS and BILLIONS of U.S. taxpayer dollars larded on the Colombia military (notorious for killing peasant boys and dressing their bodies up as leftist rebels, to up their "body counts," earn bonuses and impress U.S. senators), and not on the Pentagon's Forever War Plan with its so-called "Southern Command" and its "Forward Operating Locations" in Colombia.

The fascists are in feathers today! Hear their cockadoodledoos! See their chickenhawk struts!

[Fournier]

5. Couldn't they pick another name besides "FARC"?

It's really kinda ugly. Instead of Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia
how about Ejército Revolucionario de Columbia? Then it would be ERC.

Well, I guess that's not much better, is it?

[Comrade Grumpy]

6. That is the important question of the day. n/t

[Fournier]

8. OK, in the future, I'll always be serious.

I'm just a newbie, so I didn't know jokes were out of line here.

[Judi Lynn]

9. The only ones who benefit are the ones who tried to block the peace process from the first.

The right-wing, fascist supporters of the 1%. They all benefit as long as the US keeps shoveling money into their death machine.

[Peace Patriot]

10. "Military commanders investigated over FARC attack that killed 11 soldiers"

Posted by Judi Lynn here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141102282

Source:
http://colombiareports.com/military-commanders-investigated-over-farc-attack-that-killed-11/

"Military commanders investigated over FARC attack that killed 11 soldiers"

Colombia’s Inspector General’s office has opened an investigation against nine members of the military, suspecting their negligence and omission (contributed) to the killing of 11 soldiers in a recent FARC attack.

The investigation is over a series of faulty information reported by the military and a lack of witness testimonies on an alleged FARC ambush that left 11 uniformed soldiers and two guerrillas dead on April 15 in the municipality of Buenos Aires in the province of Cauca.

...

Inspector General Alejandro Ordoñez‘ probe will cover three main areas of focus, namely whether there was a failure to follow precautionary protocol, whether key details on the attack were omitted from the military’s report, and whether weapons were hidden from the initial investigators from the forensic prosecution investigators.

Among those being investigated are Colonel Pedro Antonio Garcia, commander of the battalion in question, his superior officer Andres Bushel, and nine other non-commissioned officers.

(My emphasis.) (More at the link.)

This investigation points to treason and murder on the part of the Colombian military commanders--that is, that they may have put their soldiers at risk, deliberately, and may have instigated this battle, deliberately, to sabotage the peace talks.

This is a military that is capable of the most hideous lying--for instance, luring rural peasant boys with offers of jobs, murdering them and dressing their bodies up like FARC guerrillas, to up their "body count," earn bonuses and impress U.S. senators.

Also, there are elements in the military loyal to the fascist militarist and Bush Jr. pal, Alvaro Uribe, who opposes the peace talks (loves war) and is being investigated for spying on the peace talks in order to sabotage them. Both--Uribe and his fascist contingent in the military--have close ties to the Pentagon, which has larded them with billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars. Uribe is also implicated in drug trafficking and rightwing death squads--has had close ties to both from the beginning of his career (probably why the Bushwhacks 'made" him), and over a hundred of his closest associates are in jail or under investigation for drug trafficking, ties to the death squads, illegal domestic spying, bribery, election fraud and other crimes.

So it is no surprise whatever that these elements of the Colombian military would design a firefight to look like a FARC ambush, cause the deaths of their own soldiers and lie about it and cover it up. The charges haven't been proven yet, and, of course, they are "innocent until proven guilty," but I have to say that this "ambush" smelled funny to me from the beginning. Just too convenient for the forces of war and oppression, and nothing in it for the FARC whatsoever. Why would they do this after committing to the peace talks? It was possible that it was an "accident" (two opposing cadres meeting accidentally, one of them being trigger-happy?), or that their chain of command isn't the best and some rogue group didn't get the message. But the beneficiaries of it (as Judi Lynn has pointed out) are the fascist militarists. And it appears that the "chain of command" problem may be within the Colombian government with military commanders sabotaging their president and commander-in-chief, and, not incidentally committing murder.