BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) – A massive search operation was under way Monday for a Colombian army general whose surprise capture by leftist rebels prompted President Juan Manuel Santos to suspend two-year-old peace talks.
Gen. Ruben Dario Alzate was surveying a rural energy project along the remote Atrato River in western Colombia when he and two others were snatched Sunday by armed men. A soldier who managed to flee in the group’s boat said the kidnappers belonged to the 34th front of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
Colombian media reported it’s the first time in a half-century of fighting that the guerrillas have taken an army general captive.
Calling the abduction “totally unacceptable,” Santos said he had ordered government peace negotiators not to travel Monday to Cuba for the next round of peace talks. Those talks will not resume until Alzate and the two others – an army captain and a female lawyer – are freed, he said.
“The FARC is responsible for the life and safety of these three people,” Santos told journalists after midnight after meeting with his top military commanders before they left for the western city of Quibdo to oversee rescue efforts.