Word: colombian
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Colombia's Marxist guerrillas is to be on the move. The rebels - the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) - sequester their captives deep inside the country's mountainous jungle terrain, and they regularly lead them on long, arduous marches from one mosquito-infested camp to another to keep the Colombian military from detecting their whereabouts. But on one of those treks today, the FARC finally exposed itself long enough for the army to score one of the most stunning hostage rescues in the history of a country where human abduction is virtually a national pastime...
Among the 15 people liberated was the most high-profile FARC hostage of all, former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt - a French-Colombian whose six-year-long captivity had become a cause célèbre in Europe - as well as three American defense contractors who had been held for more than five years, one of the longest U.S. hostage ordeals ever. Surrounded by his top military brass, Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said, "They were rescued safe and sound...
...once powerful guerrillas a more devastating blow than the liberation operation that took place along the Apaporis River in southern Guaviare province, long a FARC stronghold. Under conservative President Alvaro Uribe, and with the help of the $5 billion U.S. aid crusade known as Plan Colombia, the once laughable Colombian military has severely hobbled the FARC, slashing its ranks from as many as 20,000 combatants a decade ago to about 10,000 today. Reyes' death, as well as that of the FARC's top leader and founder, Manuel Marulanda, also in March, seemed to have left the guerrillas...
...other hostages to the encampment of the FARC's new No. 1 leader, Alfonso Cano. Under the yoke of a FARC unit led by Comandante Cesar, the group made its way to a smaller camp belonging to a friendly NGO. "They tied our hands and feet," Betancourt later told Colombian radio, describing how the rebels had transported the hostages, who thought they were going to be part of a prisoner exchange. When the hostages saw other guerrillas waiting to receive them, their hearts sank. But those guerrillas turned out to be Colombian government commandos in disguise. The rebel commanders were...
...Venezuela's maverick President begun to mellow? On June 8, Hugo Chávez urged the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia to end its violent campaign against the Colombian government, six months after calling for the rebels to be taken off the U.S. list of terrorist organizations. Some analysts suggest that the President may be toning down his rhetoric to soften his image in the run-up to Venezuela's state and local elections in November--and possibly to avoid giving ammunition to anti-Chávez Republican candidates in the U.S. this fall...