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COLOMBIA INVITES BOUNTY HUNTERS

Colombia invites bounty hunters
Top bounty about $2 million
Wednesday, January 12, 2005 Posted: 4:14 PM EST (2114 GMT)

BOGOTA, Colombia, (Reuters) -- Colombia Wednesday invited the world's bounty hunters to scour its jungles and mountains and drag back rebel chiefs in return for cash rewards.

"It would be great if all the bounty hunters in the world came to capture those bandits. The money's there for them, and the rewards are good," Vice President Francisco Santos told reporters.

The Colombian government has put rewards of up to about $2 million on the heads of outlaws like Manuel "Sureshot" Marulanda, veteran Marxist commander of the 17,000 fighters of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Santos' comments came after officials said they had paid an unspecified reward to an anonymous informant who helped them catch Rodrigo Granda, a top rebel who authorities called the FARC's "foreign minister".

Granda's capture has caused a diplomatic squabble with neighboring Venezuela, which says he was kidnapped from a street in Caracas. The Colombian government, which has long suspected Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez of sympathies for the FARC, insists they nabbed Granda within their borders.

Colombia's war with the FARC and other illegal armed groups has lasted 40 years and claims thousands of lives annually.

President Alvaro Uribe owes his 70-percent approval rating to a military campaign against the FARC but the group's top commanders keep safe in hideouts in the country's extensive mountains and jungles.

But Colombia is outgunned in the reward stakes by its ally the United States, which has offered up to $25 million for information leading to the arrest of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

By viewpoint on Jan 12, 2005, 15:01 in Friendly Talkzone.

Sam Salmon says on Jan 12, 2005, 17:08:

The More The Merrier Note my subject line is somewhat facetious.
Bounty hunting types are notorious for not following any rules of any kind.
Could this be an opportunity for out of work AUC cadres?

Circumstantial evidence in the Granda case points to off duty Colombian police officers doing a some 'moonlighting' but that won't be a problem yet.
Chavez needs good relationships with Colombia because of all the FARC ratbags running for Venesolano jungles with the Colombian army on their asses.

' a la orden!'

' a la orden!'

0 funny, 0 helpful.

smiles92600 says on Jan 12, 2005, 18:36:

Is this a Joke? Anyone with formal military or black ops training knows that this is suicide. Plain and simple, no single man or even small groups of the best trained forces could accomplish this. If they could, it would of been done years and years ago. Don't think the US hasn't already had many many black ops missions that failed in Colombia. The FARC are too well fortified. The only way to to defeat the FARC militarily would be all out war and help from US forces. And I mean it would take 100,000 or more highly trained forces to truly oust the FARC.

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Mr. Hollywood says on Jan 12, 2005, 18:40:

A couple things They're not looking to "oust the FARC". They're looking to decapitate the FARC, which is a smart strategy. Those guys are most likely not even in Colombia, which is why putting a price on their head would work. What's come out in the aftermath of the Granda capture is that many of the FARC leadership shuttle between Ecuador and Venezuela, leading pretty nice lifestyles. Read the Semana article about this and a fancy FARC wedding that went down in Quito last year.

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umm says on Jan 12, 2005, 19:03:

I think that would attract loads of junkeys, criminals and other terrorists to colombia all looking for an easy way to make money.

If you call the devil, better make sure that that this isnt fighting fire with fire and that one devil isnt replaced by another one.

In general a stupid idea, but what to expect from Uribe who is like Bush, just looking for personal revenge. Uribes fight against the FARC is a purely personal matter.

UMM

My Forum

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oldbongo says on Jan 12, 2005, 19:24:

excuse me... why is this posted here..
the oldgringo thought we talk about this stuff
one click elsewhere..and here is where we talk about
other important things.

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