Colombian guerrillas renew attacks, end ceasefire

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) ended their two-month ceasefire on 20 January by bombing power installations in the southern department of Putumayo and exchanging fire with police in several parts of the country. The ceasefire, declared but not strictly respected by the FARC, was intended to act as a fillip to ongoing peace talks with the Colombian government. The broadcaster Caracol reported attacks on a pipeline and a power pole that provoked an oil spill in the former case and a temporary blackout in the latter in three districts of western Putumayo. The police also said they exchanged fire with the FARC that day in the locality of El Placer in that department, Europa Press reported. A police helicopter was fired on by suspected FARC guerrillas just before the end of the ceasefire on 19 January, in the south-western district of Jambaló in the Cauca department. Caracol television showed police firing back with a machine gun from the helicopter, which was taking police reinforcements to the district of Jambaló. The Cauca's police chief Ricardo Alarcón told Caracol that police were re-trained and "exhaustively" prepared for renewed guerrilla actions at the end of the ceasefire; the broadcaster reported that more than 250 policemen were sent to reinforce security in districts in northern Cauca threatened by the FARC, namely Toribío, Jambaló, Caldono. In the northern department of Nariño, the FARC attacked a police station in the district of Tumaco, Caracol reported. Separately, state forces reportedly caught three suspects thought involved in the kidnapping of five mining employees in the department of Bolívar; the action was attributed to the National Liberation Army, the other communist guerrilla force in Colombia. President Juan Manuel Santos announced the captures at a Bogotá press conference on 20 January, observing that two of the detained were minors of unspecified age. He was speaking after an extraordinary security meeting to discuss the response to the end of the FARC ceasefire with the defence minister and army and police chiefs, the broadcaster Caracol reported.