Colombia rebels urge Army not to rescue US hostage
10 August AFP
Leftist rebels engaged in peace talks with the Colombian government
urged the army to refrain from any attempt to rescue a US hostage they
are holding.
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas claimed that
army operations have increased in Guaviare, a central-eastern region
bordering Brazil, in an attempt to rescue American Kevin Scott Sutay by
force.
Any military rescue attempt would be "inhumane and irresponsible, and
put at risk the life of the prisoner," the FARC said in a statement
posted on their website.
"We call on the government to be sensible, to avoid an unfortunate
outcome such as what has already happened on previous occasions," the
group said.
Sutay, a US military veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, was
captured on June 20 in Guaviare two days after arriving in Colombia as a
tourist.
The US ambassador has said he is a private citizen and has nothing to
do with the US military mission in Colombia, a close US ally.
The FARC however said his capture was evidence of "the active
participation on the ground of American military and mercenaries in
counter-insurgency operations in which they appear under the euphemism
of contractors." The FARC has said it was prepared to release Sutay to a
group of intermediaries who would include representatives of the
International Committee of the Red Cross and Piedad Cordoba, a leftist
former senator who has previously served as a go-between.
But President Juan Manuel Santos has said he would not allow Cordoba
to be part of the commission, only ICRC representatives.
The FARC statement comes as US Secretary of State John Kerry is set
to visit Colombia on Monday.
Peace talks between the rebels and the government opened last
November in Cuba, the fourth attempt since the 1980s to end Latin
America's longest-running armed conflict.
In early 2012 the FARC committed unilaterally to stop kidnapping
civilians.
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