Chavez urges FARC to free hostages, end uprising
Tuesday, 10 June 2008
CARACAS, June 9 (AFP): Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has urged Colombia's Marxist rebels to free all their hostages, arguing that the time had come to wind up their decades-old guerrilla insurgency. I believe that the time has come for the FARC to release all the people it has up in the mountains unconditionally. It would be a great humanitarian gesture," Chavez said on his weekly TV and radio show Sunday. "Guerrilla wars have become history in Latin America," he said.
Critics often have accused the leftist Chavez of backing the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, but Sunday he bluntly called their very existence into question.
"This far along in Latin America, an armed guerrilla movement is out of step, and that has to be said to the FARC," he said.
Critics often have accused the leftist Chavez of backing the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, but Sunday he bluntly called their very existence into question.
"This far along in Latin America, an armed guerrilla movement is out of step, and that has to be said to the FARC," he said.