One of the FARC’s bloodiest arrived by private plane in Cuba for the “peace talks”,
One of FARC’s most feared commanders joins Colombia peace talks in Havana
El Paisa, whose real name is Hernan Dario Velasquez, is the commander of the Teofilo Forero column, an elite unit of the FARC that is active in the Caqueta and Meta provinces in central Colombia.
The FARC commander is one of the most feared of guerrilla leaders and accused of hundreds of crimes and, until recently, with a $440,000 bounty on his head.
According to the government, El Paisa will not be one of the negotiators, but his arrival has major symbolic value and undermines earlier media reports indicating the Teofilo Forero chief was not interested in a peace process.
Alvaro Uribe listed El Paisa’s string of crimes on Twitter (in Spanish, below the fold),