HAVANA/BOGOTA, (Reuters) – Colombia’s Marxist FARC rebels justified their capture of an army general in a remote jungle area as a legitimate act of war on Tuesday and urged the government to rethink its retaliatory suspension of peace talks.
The two-year peace process faces its most serious crisis so far after rebel negotiators said General Ruben Dario Alzate and two others were the group’s prisoners and made no offer to release them as a gesture to restart negotiations in Cuba.
“The three were captured by our units because it involves enemy military personnel who were carrying out their duties in a war zone,” FARC leader Jorge Torres Victoria, known by his nom de guerre Pablo Catatumbo, told reporters in Havana.
