BOGOTA, Colombia: Colombia’s leftist FARC rebels seek political rebirth on Sunday as they move to transform into a party to seek elected office after disarming to end a half-century war.
About 1,000 delegates from the freshly demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia will launch a founding congress to choose their political representatives.
They will choose a name for the party and candidates to run in next year’s general elections.
“We are going to define the character of the political party that we aspire to build,” former guerrilla commander Carlos Antonio Lozada told AFP.
He said they will also shape “its structure and name the leaders, at least at national level.”
Another former commander of the force, Ivan Marquez, said he expected the movement to call itself the Alternative Revolutionary Force of Colombia.
However, the overall FARC leader Rodrigo Londono canvassed opinion on Twitter and many respondents said they favored the name “New Colombia.”
Conflict analyst Frederic Masse of Bogota’s Externado University said the debate reflected a “dilemma” in the movement.
“Some want to keep the word ‘revolutionary’ while others want to change that to show that this is a new start,” Masse said.
Regardless of how many votes they may win, the peace deal signed with the government last year guarantees the new party five seats in each of the two legislative chambers for two terms.
“We hope to get enough votes not only to justify those five senate and five lower house representatives, but also we aspire hopefully to achieve an even greater representation,” Lozada said.
Londono has ruled out the new party fielding a presidential candidate.
But he said it will support a candidate who guarantees the peace deal the FARC signed with center-right President Juan Manuel Santos.
The communist FARC formed in 1964 from a peasant uprising for rural land rights.
Its members have avoided publicly framing their current discussions on their political future with terms such as “socialist” and “communist” however.
Another former FARC commander, Pastor Alape, said they were looking for a broader “liberal democracy” movement.
Some ex-FARC leaders have said it will be “anti-imperialist” and “anti-patriarchal” in spirit.
Lozada said it would focus on promoting free health and education and environmental protection.
After 53 years of attacks and kidnappings, the FARC in its new form faces a struggle for acceptance.
Recent polls indicate that more than 80 percent of Colombians are opposed to it.
“There is a long history of grievances weighing against the FARC,” said analyst Angelika Rettberg.
Voters narrowly rejected the peace deal in a referendum last year. Santos and the FARC tweaked it and the government pushed it through congress.
“The FARC will face a number of challenges The first is not to betray their support base. The second is to enlarge their electorate,” said Masse.
“The third is to show that they are capable of doing politics differently and not letting themselves get sucked into traditional patronage politics.”
The FARC has invited other likely presidential candidates to its congress, though none has publicly confirmed attendance. It has also invited some 150 international participants.
The congress in Bogota runs until September 1, when the party will hold an official launch ceremony in Bolivar Square, the heart of the capital’s political district.
The Colombian conflict drew in various rebel forces, paramilitary groups and state forces over the decades.
It left some 260,000 people confirmed dead, 60,000 unaccounted for and seven million displaced.
The government has opened peace talks with the last active group, the 1,500-strong National Liberation Army, in the hope of sealing what Santos calls an “overall peace.”
Disarmed, Colombia’s FARC seek political rebirth
Disarmed, Colombia’s FARC seek political rebirth
US says Mexican cartel drones breached Texas airspace
- Drone breach comes some five months into a US military campaign targeting alleged drug-smuggling boats
- US media also reported that the El Paso airspace closure may have been caused by the US military
HOUSTON: The Trump administration said Wednesday that Mexican cartel drones caused the temporary closure of a Texas airport, but some Democratic lawmakers pushed back, suggesting US military activity was responsible for the disruptive shutdown.
The report of the drone breach comes some five months into a US military campaign targeting alleged drug-smuggling boats, and could provide a pretext for President Donald Trump to follow through on his threats to expand the strikes to land.
Trump has specifically threatened to attack cartels inside Mexico, which said it had “no information” on drones at the border.
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said late Tuesday the airspace over the Texas border city of El Paso would be shut to all aircraft for 10 days, citing unspecified national “security reasons,” only to lift the closure after less than 24 hours.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a post on X that the FAA and the Defense Department “acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion,” adding: “The threat has been neutralized, and there is no danger to commercial travel in the region.”
A US administration official meanwhile said the breach was by “Mexican cartel drones,” and that US forces “took action to disable the drones,” without providing specifics.
But Democratic Representative Veronica Escobar, whose district includes El Paso, questioned the Trump administration’s explanation, saying it was “not what we in Congress have been told.”
“The information coming from the administration does not add up and it’s not the information that I was able to gather overnight and this morning,” Escobar told journalists.
And top Democratic lawmakers from the House Committee on Transportation suggested the Pentagon may have been responsible for the situation, saying defense policy legislation allows the US military to “act recklessly in the public airspace.”
The lawmakers called for a solution that ensures “the Department of Defense will not jeopardize safety and disrupt the freedom to travel.”
- War against ‘narco-terrorists’ -
US media also reported that the El Paso airspace closure may have been caused by the US military, with CNN saying the shutdown was the result of Pentagon plans to use a counter-drone laser without coordinating with the FAA.
The Pentagon referred questions on the closure to the FAA, which said when it announced the move that “no pilots may operate an aircraft in the areas” covered by the restrictions and warned of potentially “deadly force” if aircraft were deemed a threat.
It updated its guidance Wednesday morning, saying on X that the closure was lifted.
Trump’s administration insists it is effectively at war with “narco-terrorists,” carrying out strikes on alleged traffickers in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, while the US president has repeatedly said he plans to expand the strikes to land.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum opposes US military intervention in her country but has so far managed to negotiate a fine diplomatic line with Trump.
She has stepped up extradition of cartel leaders to the United States and reinforced border cooperation amid tariff threats from Trump, for whom curbing illegal migration from Mexico was a key election promise.
Sheinbaum told a news conference Wednesday that she had “no information on the use of drones at the border,” but that her government was investigating.
The United States began carrying out strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats in September, a campaign that has killed at least 130 people and destroyed dozens of vessels in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.
US officials have not provided definitive evidence that the vessels are involved in drug trafficking, prompting heated debate about the legality of the operations, which experts say amount to extrajudicial killings.
Trump also ordered a shocking special forces raid in Caracas at the beginning of January to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, whom Washington accused of leading a drug cartel.
