Colombian President Vows to Pursue FARC Despite Talks

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos on Saturday said government troops killed a finance officer with the FARC and vowed to press ahead with offensives against the guerrilla group despite peace talks.

John Hernandez, alias "Fabian," who was head of finance for Front 17 of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), was killed by government soldiers in a hamlet in the south of the country, Santos said.

The FARC, who have fought successive Colombian governments since the 1960s and are Latin America's longest-running insurgency, have been in peace talks with the Santos government for more than a year but there has been no ceasefire agreement.

Santos, speaking after meeting mayors in Neiva, capital of Huila, said there were "some who do not like that we are pursuing peace."

"I said to the lord mayors here that many of my opponents are trying to portray that the government is letting their guard down, the government is handing over the country to communism... there is no such thing."

Santos, who is seeking re-election in the presidential elections on May 25, said that military offensives against the FARC would continue "until the time we get these (peace) agreements."

The conflict is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths and displacing some five million people.

"We can't condemn further generations of Colombians to a never-ending and pointless war," Santos recently said in an exclusive interview with Agence France Presse.