President Juan Manuel Santos claimed Wednesday that Colombia’s military intelligence service has intercepted communication from the FARC in which commanders of that organization ordered the death of the head of state.
According to Santos, the message was sent to a rebel commander in the northwest of the country called “Lubin Loro.”
Comrades, greetings. We aspire efforts to eliminate Santos in any way
possible. We owe this to [former rebel commanders] Alfonso [Cano] and
Jorge [Briceño], and other valuable comrades. In this effort we we are
not saving resources or contacts or agreements. The country and those
of us, the pride of the organization, demand a forceful and radical
response.
The death of the oligarchy that intends to decapitate the insurgency,
suppressing its commanders. Under these circumstances, ethics authorize
us to align us with who ever and in the end use the media.
Santos said that “attitudes like this may be understandable in war, but we need to disarm these spirits. I am willing to disarm these spirits.”
However, Santos said that messages like military intelligence allegedly intercepted show no “will from the other side.”
“A lot of times there are expressions, I agree, general expressions of peace, but acts that are entirely contrary to peace.”
The President said that he was waiting for the right conditions “to be able to begin the search of the end of the conflict.”
The Colombian state and the FARC have been in a violent conflict since 1964 when the rebel group was founded. The last time the warring parties intended peace talks was between 1999 and 2002.