A videotape that appears to link Colombia's FARC [2] guerillas to President Rafael Correa of Ecuador was broadcast on Colombian TV July 18. The video allegedly shows FARC commander Jorge Briceño AKA "Mono Jojoy" [3] claiming the guerilla organization helped fund Correa's 2006 election. Ecuador's government has strongly denied any ties with the FARC. The two countries severed relations last year after Colombian troops raided [4] a guerilla base across the border.
The hour-long video of Mono Jojoy addressing his fighters was delivered to the offices of the Associated Press by an unnamed Colombian government official and was later broadcast on national television. The video was allegedly found on a computer seized in May in the Bogotá home of a suspected FARC operative, and was decrypted last week. It is purported to have been shot shortly after the death last March of the FARC's founder Manuel Marulanda [5]. In the video, Briceño speaks of money delivered to Correa's 2006 election campaign, as well as meetings with his emissaries. (BBC News [6], July 18)
Correa rejected the claims as "clownish talk," "idiocies" and "barbarities" (cantinfladas, tonterías and barbaridades). But he said he would appoint a commission to investigate whether any member of his campaign recieved "even 20 centavos from any extremist group." (AFP [7], July 18)
See our last post on Colombia and Ecuador [8].
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