Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos warned the country’s largest rebel group, the FARC, that if it continues to attack infrastructures, it may put an end to the peace process.
In an official statement on Tuesday, President Santos condemned all alleged FARC attacks on Colombia’s infrastructure as terrorist actions, which could affect peace talks with the government.
“That’s what we’re telling them: you continue with that, you are playing with fire and this process will end,” said the Colombian head of state.
Santos declared that a recent attack on an aqueduct in the central Colombian state of Meta that left some 16,000 people without water was an act of terror carried out by the FARC.
MORE: ‘FARC attack’ on aqueduct leaves 2 Colombia towns without water
“It’s insane. They [the FARC] themselves are digging their own political grave, because that is exactly what is being done, which the people reject more and more. What they did some days ago they attacked an aqueduct; they left populations of Meta without water. That’s an act of terrorism totally condemnable,” said Santos.
On the other hand, earlier this week the FARC’s supreme commander, alias “Timochenko,” expressed his concern that the Colombian government would “obscure evidence” in the peace talks that would shine a negative light on the rebel group.
MORE: FARC worried that Colombia govt will ‘obscure evidence’ in peace talks: guerrilla leader
Timochenko warned that the government would only highlight what was useful to them and disregard the legitimacy of “Colombian guerrillas, active militants of a revolutionary organization that just completed 50 years of invincible fighting.”
Sources
- Las Farc con los ataques a la infraestructura estan cavando su propia fosa politica (Office of the Presidency)