After tense negotiations, the Red Cross transported to safety Feb. 15 two Colombian National Police agents being held by the FARC guerillas since Jan. 25. The release had been delayed due to large groups of journalists in the vicinity of the drop-off point according to leader of Colombians for Peace (CCP), Piedad Cordoba, who helped broker the negotiations. The armed forces had ceased military activity around Miranda in the southwest Cauca department to provide safe passage for the Red Cross. The humanitarian mission will next fly to Pasto to secure the release of a soldier captured by the FARC on Jan. 31 during clashes in southern Nariño department. (Colombia Reports, Feb. 14)

On Jan. 25 Colombian judge William Andrés Castiblanco sentenced Jaime Blanco, a former contractor for the Alabama-based Drummond Co. Inc. coal company, to 37 years and 11 months in prison for masterminding the March 2001 murders of two union leaders in the northern department of Cesar. The court found that Blanco, who supplied food services for Drummond's La Loma mine, had arranged with right-wing paramilitaries, including one known as "Tolemaida," for the killing of Valmore Locarno and Víctor Hugo Orcasita, leaders of the mine's union. Blanco's assistant, Jairo Charris, was convicted in 2009 in the same murder plot and was sentenced to 30 years.

Norma Enríquez, a leader of the Permanent Assembly of Civil Society for Peace, an umbrella of Colombian NGOs and popular organizations, on Feb. 10 called on the government to include the National Liberation Army (ELN) in the talks now underway in Havana with the FARC guerillas. Enríquez told the Mexican news agency Notimex that failure to include the ELN "would be to risk marginalizing one of the expressions of the conflict from the peace dialogue." Initial contacts between the government and the ELN, brokered by the Catholic Church, apparently broke down in November, when the guerilla group took hostage two German nationals in Santander department. (Notimex, Feb. 11; Sexenio, Mexico, Feb. 10)

Panama announced Feb. 10 the arrest of the top leader of the Oficina de Envigado, a Colombian crime syndicate said to be a surviving remnant of Pablo Escobar's notorious Medellín Cartel. The suspect, identified only by his alias, "Pichi," was apprehended at a luxury home in Panama City in a joint operation by Panamanian and Colombian police. He is accused of having ordered the murder of nine—including three rival kingpins—in December at Envigado, a town on the southern outskirts of Medellín. Colombian authorities have also named him in the assassination of two police agents in Medellín in July last year. Pichi is said to have taken over the crime syndicate after the arrest of its former leader "Sebastian" last year. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos congratulated the National Police via Twitter, calling the operation "a good hit." (Colombia Reports, BBC News, Feb. 10)

A lawyer with Colombian prosecutor's office, the Fiscalía, who specialized in the paramilitary demobilization process, was transferred Jan. 20 after working in the same department in Medellín for more than six years—raising fears that years of insight into the area's paramilitary activities could be lost. According to conflict-monitoring website Verdad Abierta, local magistrates expressed concern over the transfer of Patricia Hernández Zambrano, who was responsible for prosecuting the "Mineros Bloc" of the United Colombian Self-Defense Forces (AUC) in the northeastern department of Antioquia. As Prosecutor 15 for Justice and Peace, Hernández handled all court hearings related to top AUC leaders like "Don Berna" and "Gordo Lindo"—both now in US prisons for drug trafficking.

Charging a "Plan of Extermination" by all actors in Colombia's armed conflict, traditional indigenous authorities in southwest Cauca region on Jan. 22 protested the "assassination" two days earlier of Nasa indigenous leader Rafael Mauricio Girón Ulchur at the village of Jámbalo. The statement said Girón had been ambushed while riding his motorcycle, and that the gunmen were FARC guerillas who fled into the bush after the slaying. The statement charged that he had been targeted for advocating a "Plan of Life" based on indigenous territorial rights, self-determination and protection of natural resources as an alternative to the peace plan being worked out by FARC and government negotiators in Havana, Cuba. It noted that the assassination came the same day that the FARC officially declared an end to the unilateral ceasefire instated for the Havana talks. (ACIN, Jan. 22)

At least one suspected drug trafficker was killed Jan. 16 in the first US-supported drug raid in Honduras following a five-month suspension in radar intelligence sharing between the countries, authorities said. The Honduran navy said that one of three Jamaican men on a speedboat carrying 350 kilograms of cocaine died when a Honduran coast guard vessel rammed the craft before dawn about four kilometers off the country's north coast. A contingent of DEA agents was apparently on board the Honduran naval craft. Rear Adm. Rigoberto Espinal said one of the Jamaicans jumped into the sea and disappeared, and his fate had not been confirmed. The third man was detained, and interrogated by the DEA. The radar cooperation was halted after the Honduran air force shot down two suspected drug planes in violation of agreements with Washington designed to prevent deaths in such operations. (AP, Jan. 17; NYT, Sept. 7)

Guerillas of Colombia's National Liberation Army (ELN) abducted five gold prospectors working for a Canadian company on an exploratory mission in Norosi municipality, Bolívar department, Jan. 19. One of the seized men was from Canada, two from Peru and two from Colombia. Toronto-based Braeval Mining said the three company employees and two consultants were working at its Snow Mine project, where the company is seeking gold, silver and copper. The area, in the San Lucas mountains, is a traditional ELN stronghold. President Juan Manuel Santos announced the following day that three suspected guerillas believed to have taken part in the abduction had been captured. Unlike the larger FARC guerilla organization, now in talks with the government, the ELN has not disavowed ransom kidnappings. (AP, Jan. 21; Fox News Latino, Jan. 19)