Colombia’s top police commander said Friday that evidence found on killed FARC commander Raul Reyes’ computers points to rebel involvement in training indigenous extremists from the Mapuche tribe in Chile.
“We’ve found informational evidence found on these computers that show that the FARC did training, especially the Mapuches here in Chile,” General Jose Roberto Leon told newspaper El Espectador.
“They carried out a training course on actions, and because of this, one can indicate that some of the disturbances that the Mapuches carried out, like burning of buses, painting graffiti; this was [like] the FARC in their beginning,” he added.
According to the police commander, the FARC trained the Mapuche extremists three to four years ago.
The Mapuches are a large indigenous group that inhabits south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina. In recent history, small factions of extremists from the tribe have carried out attacks on large-scale agricultural and forestry companies.
Wildfires that killed two people in the La Araucania region of southern Chile in January were blamed on “terrorists with links to the FARC,” according to a Chilean minister.
General Leon Riaño stated, “There were Chilean contacts of the FARC specifically with Raul Reyes … and there were others during his time, and they were those who made the contacts and [carried out] this training.”
Raul Reyes was killed in a Colombian airstrike in Ecuador in 2008. Information recovered after the attack has given the Colombian government much insight into the dealings of the rebel insurgency.
Sources
- Farc entraron a mapuches en Chile hace 4 años (El Espectador)