Death threats signed by the FARC and sent to labor union leaders might blow up the guerrilla group’s peace talks with the government, President Juan Manuel Santos said Sunday.
“They have showed me a pamphlet in which the FARC declares the president of one of the unions in Colombia, Julio Roberto Gomez of the CGT, and a number of other labor union leaders working there, military targets,” Santos said, adding that “I hope this is an apocrypha and that it doesn’t come from the FARC.
Gomez and his colleagues at the General Workers’ Central (CGT) denounced the death threats on Friday.
In a letter, signed by the FARC’s urban “Antonio Nariño” militia, the labor unions are told that “the CGT has been sold its thought and leadership that characterized them to the interests of the recalcitrant right that has done so much harm to the poor in the county.”
Consequently, the letter notifies that the following labor union leaders are now considered military targets:
- Julio Roberto Gomez
- William Millan Monsalve
- Alex Ivan Ortiz
- Jaime Cortez
- Nicolas Hernandez
- Alberto Guzman
- Miryam Luz Tirana
According to the CGT, the made accusation is false and the organization “is, has been and always will be defending the rights of workers.”
Santos said he hoped that someone is faking to be the FARC and is trying to “poison the peace process” because “if this proves to be true and they carry it out, it could put the peace process in danger.”
Over the past decades, the FARC has frequently been falsely accused of attacks or threats. The rebel group itself has also regularly falsely accused other illegal armed groups for atrocities carried out by its own members.
Delegates of the group are currently in Havana where they are negotiating a political end to the country’s nearly 50-year-old armed conflict.
