MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Uribe offers reward for info leading to kidnapped Colombian governor

FARC challenges Uribe and his overall “democratic security” policy

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe is offering the equivalent of almost half a million US dollars reward for information leading to the rescue of a governor snatched from his home Monday night by a guerrilla commando unit dressed in army uniforms. He also asked for the recovery of 24 military, captives of the guerrilla.

Luis Cuellar, governor of the southern state of Caqueta, was kidnapped after ten armed rebels dressed in uniforms belonging to an elite army unit broke into his house with a homemade explosive, El Tiempo newspaper reported. His wife and three children were looking on as the rebels killed a police bodyguard and injured two others, the newspaper said.

Uribe said that Colombia’s largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, was behind the kidnapping. He sent his defence minister and top military commanders to the state’s capital, Florencia, to oversee operations aimed at locating and rescuing Cuellar.

”This morning I told the Armed Forces not to wait for acts of generosity from these bandits,” Uribe told W Radio. ”We must rescue all of our captives’ militarily. All necessary military and police resources will be used; we can’t continue prisoners of these terrorists’ whim”.

Caqueta, close to Colombia’s southern border with Ecuador, is a long-time rebel stronghold and centre of cocaine production.

The state was the location for a Switzerland-sized demilitarized zone created by Uribe’s predecessor, Andres Pastrana, to facilitate failed peace talks with the FARC between 1998 and 2002. Former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt was kidnapped outside Florencia two days after those talks were ended by the government.

Of the 24 kidnapped military, two have been imprisoned by the guerrillas for twelve years. The two were to be liberated sometime in the coming weeks following negotiations through the Catholic Church and members of the Congressional opposition.

Apparently FARC had promised to hand over the two (a sergeant and a corporal) to opposition Senator Piedad Cordoba. For the other 22, the guerrillas were demanding the liberation of 500 imprisoned in Colombian jails, which is rejected point blank by President Uribe.

The Colombian president, one of the most popular in recent Colombian history has consolidated his standing with a strong hand approach towards the guerrillas and their financial allies the drug cartels.