COLOMBIA
Mass demo to demand hostages' release
Tuesday 05 June 2007
Colombia came to a standstill earlier as hundreds of thousands massed on the streets to protest kidnappings by FARC guerrillas.
Special Report Ingrid Betancourt rescuedTuesday 05 June 2007
By AFPMillions of Colombian protesters demand hostages' release
Millions of Colombians wore white shirts and waved white handkerchiefs in demonstrations across the country Thursday demanding the release of thousands of hostages held by various armed groups.
At midday, a cacophony of car horns, church bells and whistles resonated in major cities while Colombians waved their handkerchiefs in a protest called after 11 hostages held by leftist rebels were killed last month.
The protesters demanded "freedom without conditions now" for the more than 3,000 people held hostage by guerrillas, right-wing paramilitary groups and criminals across the Andean nation.
Families of hostages, non-governmental groups and the Roman Catholic church organized the protest after the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a Marxist guerrilla group known as FARC, said 11 provincial lawmakers it had held hostage were killed in a military raid, which the government said never happened.
The government, which has been battling insurgencies and cocaine trafficking for decades, accuses FARC of having executed the lawmakers, held hostage since 2002.
The lawmakers were among a group of 56 hostages, including Franco-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and three Americans, who FARC wants to swap for 500 of its militants held in prison.
The Free Country Foundation, an independent NGO, estimates that FARC is holding about 765 hostages.
The protests came on the same day that FARC released a Colombian geologist, Juan Carlos Posada, who had been kidnapped in the eastern province of Choco in March, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.
09/02/2008 18:57:34 Alert a moderator
Incomplete news
By Anonyme
Your report is quite incomplete. The marches held on February 4th were carried out in many cities around the world, not only as a reaction against FARC kidnappings but in general against this terrorist group actions against the people of Colombia. You fail to report that this has been so far the most important manifestation of the Colombian people in its histroy and that it is estimated that several million people marched in main cities around the world. Interesting would have been to investigate why the march to be done in Paris was almost forbidden and blocked by the city government. Try to evaluate the contrast of the march in Paris against other major cities in Europe like Madrid, Barcelona or London and you will find a very interesting situation that prevented Colombians to express freely their feelings and ideas against a terrorist group.