Emergency.Blog

Colombia: Rebels considering dirty bombs

Tue. Mar. 4, 2008 -- 21:19 PM EST

Colombia: Rebels considering dirty bombs

Associated Press

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND: Colombia's vice president on Tuesday defended his country's attack on a rebel base on Ecuadorean soil, telling a U.N. disarmament panel that the leftist guerrillas were trying to acquire radioactive material that could be used to make "dirty bombs."

Vice President Francisco Santos said evidence in two computers found after the attack indicated rebels were trying to acquire radioactive material ? "the primary basis for generating dirty weapons of mass destruction and terrorism."

But the evidence Colombia shared with reporters didn't support Santos' allegation, indicating instead that the rebels were trying to buy uranium to resell at a profit.

Speaking to the 65-nation Conference on Disarmament, Santos said the discovery demonstrates that the economic power of drug trafficking is enabling terrorist groups "to constitute a serious threat not just to our country but to the entire Andean and Latin American region."

Meanwhile, Ecuadorean Justice Minister Gustavo Jalkh told the U.N. Human Rights Council that Colombia violated its human rights obligations when its military staged the attack that killed a key rebel leader.

Both bodies are in the same Palais des Nations complex that houses United Nations offices in Geneva, but it was unclear if Santos and Jalkh met face-to-face.

The regularly scheduled meetings of the panels came a day after Ecuador and Venezuela ordered troops to their borders with Colombia, expelled that country's diplomats and largely halted trade at key points along the frontier in response to Colombia's killing of Raul Reyes, a leader with the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, on Saturday.

The guerrillas of FARC, who have been fighting for more than four decades, finance their operations largely through the cocaine trade...

-- Source/continues at: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080305/ap_on_re_eu/colombia_un

---

ERRI WMD analyst questions: O.K. -- if we buy the alternative reality posed by unnamed reporters above -- FARC wants to illegally acquire and sell the uranium to whom? Another terrorist group, or a rogue nation? Does that sound any better?