Raul Reyes

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FARC Vice President Raul Reyes

Raúl Reyes (pseudonym of Luis Edgar Devia Silva ; born September 30, 1948 in La Plata , Colombia ; † March 1, 2008 near Santa Rosa de Sucumbíos , Ecuador ) was a spokesman for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Life

Raúl Reyes was born in the Departamento de Huila in 1948 . At 16 he joined the youth wing of the Partido Comunista Colombiano when, later, he was elected to the Central Committee of the Party. He worked as an employee of the Swiss food company Nestlé in Caquetá in the 1970s and was a union official before joining the guerrilla movement. There he was promoted to a member of the "Secretariado", the seven-member FARC management body, where he was responsible for the international presence of the FARC, which earned him the unofficial title of "Foreign Minister of the FARC".

Reyes is accused by the US State Department and the Colombian government of promoting the expansion of the cocaine trade through the FARC and of “taxing” the illicit drug trade in Colombia to fund the FARC. He was also involved in the murder of hundreds of people who got in the way of the FARC's drug activities. Reyes is also charged with kidnapping hundreds of bystanders, including nine foreign tourists, for ransom or political motives, and being involved in multiple massacres and bombings.

He has been sentenced in absentia for the deaths of 13 police officers, 18 soldiers and 18 kidnappings; also for the death of a judge, a doctor, 3 bailiffs, the former Minister of Culture Consuelo Araújo, the Congressman Diego Turbay and his mother, the Catholic priest Isaías Duarte, the governor of Antioquia , Guillermo Gaviria, the former minister Gilberto Echeverri, 11 members of the Departmental Council of Valle del Cauca and at least 4 other people. Most of these victims were abducted before they died. Gaviria, Echeverri and Araújo were killed by headshots when the military stormed the rebel camp. He is also responsible for a bomb attack at Club El Nogal in Bogotá that killed 36 people. The Paraguayan government has requested extradition for his involvement in the kidnapping and death of Cecilia Cubas, daughter of the former President of Paraguay, who was kidnapped on September 21, 2004 and whose body was found in February 2005. Prior to his death, the US State Department offered a reward of up to US $ 5 million for any information leading to his arrest. He was also on Interpol's "red list" .

Colombian authorities have long suspected that Raul Reyes left Putumayo across the southern Colombian border with Ecuador . In 2006, its presumed presence in Ecuador was announced by the President of Colombia, Álvaro Uribe . Ecuador rejected this assumption and spoke of temporary "infiltrations" at best.

death

Raúl Reyes was killed on March 1, 2008, along with 24 other people, including FARC rebels and civilians, in an attack by Colombian troops on a FARC camp on Ecuadorian soil. This sparked an international diplomatic crisis in Latin America (see: Armed Conflict in Colombia ).

The Colombian authorities refused to hand over the body to his former partner, María Hilda Collazos, with whom he lived for 14 years and had two sons. Two weeks after his death, he was buried in an unnamed grave in an unknown location.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Narcotics Rewards Program: Luis Edgar Devia-Silva. (No longer available online.) In: Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. Archived from the original on February 8, 2009 ; accessed on April 1, 2009 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.state.gov
  2. ^ Muere el guerrillero de las FARC con mayor proyección internacional. In: terra Noticias. March 1, 2008, accessed April 1, 2009 .
  3. ↑ Palabras del Embajador Camilo Ospina, Embajador de Colombia ante la OEA, sesión del Consejo Permanente, 4 de marzo del 2008 . In: Miami Herald , March 5, 2008. Retrieved April 1, 2009. 
  4. ↑ Ejército colombiano reitera que número dos de las FARC se refugia en Ecuador , El Universo , Guayaquil. October 31, 2006. Archived from the original on September 26, 2007 Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved May 28, 2008. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.eluniverso.com 
  5. ↑ WSWS.org: Crisis in Latin America after an attack Brand "Made in USA"
  6. ↑ teleSUR: Sepultan a Raúl Reyes en fosa sin nombre aun cuando fue reclamado por su ex esposa ( Memento of the original of March 21, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. March 18, 2008 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.telesurtv.net
personal data
SURNAME Reyes, Raul
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Devia Silva, Luis Edgar (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Colombian guerrilla fighter, spokesman for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)
DATE OF BIRTH September 30, 1948
PLACE OF BIRTH La Plata (Colombia)
DATE OF DEATH March 1, 2008
Place of death Santa Rosa de Sucumbíos , Ecuador