Colombian authorities on Friday arrested four alleged members of the FARC, one of whom a family member of former Senator Piedad Cordoba.
According to National Police director General Jose Roberto Leon, the suspects were arrested in the Bajo Cauca area and belong to the FARC’s 36th front, which is active in the region.
“One of the detainees is Juan Alberto Galeano Ruiz who is a member of the ‘Colombians for Peace’ movement and is a family member of ex-senator Piedad Cordoba Ruiz,” said Leon.
According to the police commander, Cordoba’s family member is the Education secretary of the Valdivia municipality and in charge of activities of “Colombians for Peace” in the area.
At the same time, Galeano has been “one of the important ideologists” of the 36th front “known inside the FARC as Juancho, who belonged to this organization for more than 12 years.”
The police also arrested a local leader of Cordoba’s new political movement “Marcha Patriotica” who according to the police “was in charge of the logistics of the displacement of peasants to several regions in the country.”
According to the website of weekly Semana, the former senator rejected the arrest of the members of her political organizations and called the detentions “a bad beginning of peace dialogues,” claiming that the arrests are violating “guarantees to carry out opposition.”
Cordoba and her political movements have regularly been accused of being aligned to the country’s largest rebel group. The politician was banned from Congress over her alleged ties to the FARC. The Supreme Court, investigating the former Senator since 2008, has not yet ruled on Cordoba’s relationship with the FARC.