Colombia’s Drug-Funded Rebels Are Back In Action Big Time
POPAYÁN, Colombia—Rebel forces launched a series of strikes over the last few days, paralyzing large swaths of this Andean nation.
The National Liberation Army (ELN), Colombia’s last active Marxist insurgency, began its “paro armado,” a “strike” enforced with guns and violence, at 6:00 a.m. last Friday. Dissident factions of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), who have rejected that group’s 2016 peace deal with the government, also participated in the offensive.
The Colombian military claims there have been at least 117 “terrorist acts” since Friday, crippling roads and infrastructure, and leading one national news outlet to declare a “partial state collapse.”