Colombia: FARC rebels vow to continue fight the government
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Colombia's largest rebel group pledged Sunday to carry on in its decades-long war against the U.S.-backed government after confirming that the group's legendary commander had died of natural causes. The Defense Ministry had said the day before that Manuel Marulanda, who led one of the world's oldest insurgencies in a brutal if quixotic battle against the state, had died in March."With immense sadness, we inform that our commander in chief, Manuel Marulanda Vélez, died March 26 of a heart attack in the arms of his companion and surrounded by his personal guard," Rodrigo "Timochenko" Londoño, one of seven members of the guerrilla directorate, said in a video provided to a Venezuelan state television station, Telesur. "Our struggle continues without rest until we reach the objective of a new Colombia, a great Latin American fatherland and socialism."
The announcement closes a long chapter in the history of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and raises the possibility that the new rebel leadership may consider peace negotiations in the face of a military offensive that has recently resulted in the deaths of top commanders and the desertions of thousands of fighters.
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