Colombia’s Defense minister Juan Manuel Santos expects an increase of
FARC-related violence in the coming year, as the armed group may want
to influence the presidential elections in 2010.
Santos believes that the FARC will place more bombs while releases hostages at a very slow rate. He added that what the FARC want to do is to cause a ‘feeling of insecurity’ which could influence the upcoming elections.
The reason to cause this feeling would be to force Colombians to vote for the candidate the FARC would prefer to deal with in the coming years, the minister added.
Just like president Álvaro Uribe, Santos is known to be in favor of a tough approach of terrorist movements like the FARC.