As Colombia’s largest rebel army
demobilizes, preparing to lay down its arms once and for all to
transition to civilian life after more than half a century of civil
war, two FARC members have been assassinated in less than 10 days as
rebel leaders and social organizations continue to ring alarm over
the ongoing crisis of paramilitary violence that threatens to
undermine the historic peace process in the South American country.
FARC Commander Jose Huber Yatacue
was shot dead Tuesday outside a hospital in Toribio, a town in the
southwestern department of Cauca, one of the regions hardest hit by
the decades-long internal armed conflict and ongoing paramilitary
violence.
Just over a week earlier, FARC
member Alvaro Ortiz Cabezas was murdered on April 16 in a bar in a
rural area of the port city of Tumaco, located in the northwestern
coastal department of Nariño, bordering Ecuador.
Both Yatacue and Ortiz had
benefited from the amnesty law, passed as part of the historic peace
deal signed last year by the FARC and the Colombian government, that
pardons rebels for political crimes committed in the context of the
armed conflict. Both were reportedly more involved in the FARC’s
urban activities than rural operations and both were killed in areas
outside the designated transition zones where the rebel army has
gathered to demobilize.
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