MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

FARC robs Colombian tourists and takes six hostages

New Farc kidnappings in Colombia

Colombia's biggest rebel group cocaine funded FARC kidnapped six Colombian tourists in the western province of Choco, daily El Tiempo reported in its online edition.

The tourists, a biologist, two professors, a university student and two businessmen, may have been taken for ransom, El Tiempo cited Captain Benjamin Calle, commander of Colombia's No. 2 Infantry, as saying. Apparently a group of 19 tourists arrived by boat to a place identified as Morromico in the Tribugá Gulf. FARC rebels robbed all tourists of their possessions and selected six of them as hostages. The Colombian navy infantry ordered a rescue operation which also involves two intelligence gathering aircrafts reported a news program Noticia Uno from a local television station. The kidnapping comes four days after the drug-funded guerrillas released two women captives, Clara Rojas, a former vice presidential candidate, and former congresswoman Consuelo Gonzales de Perdomo, held in captivity for six years. Rojas and Gonzalez belonged to a group of over 40 hostages held by FARC and which the rebels want to exchange for 500 of their comrades in Colombian prisons. However the Colombian government insists that the number of hostages is really 750. The kidnapping happens in the midst of an international campaign by President Hugo Chavez from neighboring Venezuela requesting Colombia, United States and the European Union to consider FARC as an "insurgent" army and not as a "terrorist" group. On Sunday Chavez went further and asked FARC to be recognized as an insurgent army with territory and a political revolutionary project. Chavez said that the 60 year old Colombian civil war should be ruled by the Geneva Convention, "a great step towards bringing peace to Colombia and the region". Originally Marxist oriented the guerrilla movements in Colombia have become increasingly involved in the cocaine trade both safeguarding plantations, labs and the organizations, plus doing some trafficking of their own. In his latest "Alo president" program and following on a suggestion from one of the liberated woman hostages Chavez said he "was in disagreement with kidnapping; I think it's horrendous. It's contrary to human nature and I am not in favor of armed insurrection". The Venezuelan president underlined that the Colombian conflict does not have "a military solution, so there's only a political way out". Chavez also recalled that the country which most suffers from the Colombian conflict is Venezuela since "64 Venezuelan citizens are held hostages by FARC and ELN". Meantime in Washington State Department spokesperson Sean McCormack said on Monday that FARC had won its place in the terrorist list. "You will excuse us if we don't take on that piece of advice" said McCormack ironically but "if there was some reason to take a group from the list of terrorists, we would do so" adding that "we have no knowledge of any substantial change in FARC conduct which merits having them de-listed".