Colombia's FARC Denies Links to Drug Traffickers
Colombia's leftist FARC guerrillas denied government accusations Tuesday of collaborating with drug traffickers to carry out a recent attack that killed seven police officers.
The rebel group's second-in-command, Ivan Marquez, said as he arrived for a new round of peace talks with the government that the accusations were "lies" and a distraction from the nearly two-year-old negotiations.
"Let us advance toward building a peace deal... and don't disturb the process with lies and fraudulent statements," he said before heading into the talks in Havana.
President Juan Manuel Santos blamed the September 16 attack in a remote area of northwestern Colombia on the FARC and the "Clan Usuga" drug gang.
His defense minister said the FARC were "in the process of allying with criminal gangs."
Marquez said those statements aimed to "manipulate and deceive public opinion" and "divide the insurgent troops engaged in the peace process."
The Santos government opened peace talks with the FARC in November 2012, making the most progress so far toward ending the five-decade-old conflict.
But with no ceasefire in place, hostilities have continued on the ground.
The conflict, which has at various times drawn in multiple guerrilla groups, right-wing paramilitaries and drug gangs, has killed 220,000 people and caused more than five million to flee their homes since the 1960s.
Source: Agence France Presse
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