So, “Raul Reyes, a FARC leader, was killed in Saturday’s raid into Ecuadoran territory, which sparked the rising border tensions” among Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela. The latter is now accused of providing $300 million dollars to FARC, which has for a long, long time, sought to overthrow the Colombia government in favor of a socialist-type government.
In lefty news, like Democracy Now, Farc is treated something like Ralph Nader’s Public Citizen organization. But it’s not. Farc is a malevolent organization, bent on kidnapping, hurting, and killing people in the name of their aspirations. The murder of Raúl Reyes, imho, should be applauded. While he was on the “diplomatic front” of Farc and not so much a military leader, he was also the public face to a very malignant organization that plants land mines, sells and profits on massive drug trafficking, recruits kids for killing, and punishes its own with more violence.
I don’t doubt that the U.S. and other countries were involved in the murder of Reyes and that Farc is only part of a reaction to U.S.-supported death-squads.
But Farc and its leaders deserve to be decimated. They killed my friend, Ingrid Washinawatok, who was in Venezuela on a peace mission exactly nine years ago in 1999, after kidnapping her along with two of her colleagues.