Colombia Minister of Defense said Wednesday that the killing of a senior FARC commander in northern Colombia does not affect the peace negotiatons with the country’s largest rebel group FARC.
According to La W Radio, Minister Juan Carlos Pinzon said that the security forces had to fulfill their tasks of constitutional mandates in reference to the operation that left the commander of the FARC’s 33rd Front, “Danilo Garcia,” dead, but that this will not affect the peace process with the guerrilla organization.
The army and police alike should respond to the orders of President Juan Manuel Santos to keep fighting those that realize acts that affect the Colombian community, said Pinzon.
The official reiterated that the peace dialogues with the FARC that became official this week were initiated because of criminal acts such as these, and it is necessary to maintain operations to stop them even while negotiations are under way.
Authorities said earlier that the right-hand man of the guerrilla’s supreme leader died in combat Wednesday.
The guerrilla had been dedicated to perpetrating terrorist acts, providing logistical support to supreme leader “Timochenko” and controlling the business of drug trafficking in the Catatumbo region where the commander was killed.
“Alias Danilo Garcia was the right-hand man of alias Timochenko because he had in the area of Catatumbo the mission of contributing logistics and in some way to serve not only as a structure dedicated to terrorism and drug trafficking, but in a certain sense also serving the security structure of alias Timochenko,” said Pinzon.
According to the official, in collaboration with the National Police, operations bombed a principal camp of the organization in the northern Catatumbo region where “three guerrillas were killed, they seized 15 weapons, explosives and communication radios.”
The Minister of Defense said that this hit to the FARC in Catatumbo was one of the most important and falls in line with orders from the president.
“I congratulate again the work of our military force and national police that in a permanent manner fulfill their duties of defending the Constitution, of defending the interests of all Colombians,” said Pinzon.