Colombian President Alvaro Uribe will have to respond for crimes against humanity before the country’s largest rebel group FARC will, opposition Senator Piedad Cordoba said Thursday.
“President Alvaro Uribe will accompany the FARC to the International Criminal Court (ICC) y surely will arrive their before them,” Cordoba told newspaper El Espectador.
According to the opposition senator and former hostage mediator, the President is violating international humanitarian law by prolonging the pain of hostages held by the FARC and hostages’ families by refusing consessions that could lead to the release of hostages held by the rebels.
“Some officials make these speeches and say that the FARC will go to the International Criminal Court, but I think that very soon they will have company of the President’s government,” Cordoba continued in an exceptionally fierce attack on the Uribe administration.
The opposition senator, an opponent of Uribe’s hardline against the FARC and chairwoman of peace activist group ‘Colombians for Peace, accused the government of categorizing hostages.
“For them, the lives of kidnapped policemen and soldiers are not worth as much as that of Ingrid [Betancourt] and the three Americans,” the Senator said.
Cordoba has tried mediating the release of hostages with the FARC, but was dismissed by the government, that accuses her of being an ally of the guerrillas. The release of two hostages is being stalled, because of the government’s refusal to allow the senator to mediate their release.
