Ten Colombia soldiers killed in apparent FARC attack

The head of the Colombian government for the peace talks with FARC-EP, Humberto de la Calle (C) arrives at Convention Palace in Havana yesterday.

 AFP/ Bogota

Suspected FARC guerrillas killed 10 soldiers and wounded 17 in a pre-dawn attack in western Colombia Wednesday, the deadliest since the start of peace talks more than two years ago, officials said.

The attack occurred in a remote mountainous area in Cauca province, a stronghold of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), who have been battling the Bogota government for decades.

A senior military official said the infantry troops were ambushed by FARC rebels as they conducted a patrol in the area.

"They were attacked with explosives, grenades and firearms," General Mario Augusto Valencia, the commander of the army's Third Division, told reporters.

Cauca governor Temistocles Ortega earlier told Blu radio the soldiers came under fire in a hamlet known as La Esperanza.

"Unfortunately 10 soldiers perished, and 17 were wounded, four of whom are in serious condition," he said.

The wounded were being evacuated with the help of the Red Cross and emergency personnel, but bad weather and the remote location were hampering the operation, Valencia said. 

The FARC has observed a unilateral ceasefire since December, in a bid to advance peace talks that have been underway in Havana since November 2012.

Santos reciprocated by suspending air strikes on the rebels for 30 days, which he extended less than a week ago for another 30 days.

However, he has refused to commit to a bilateral ceasefire until there is a comprehensive peace agreement.

 Impact on peace process

Wednesday's attack, however, underscored the difficulty of putting an end to the conflict, now over a half century old and easily Latin America's longest.

"We deplore the deaths of the soldiers in Cauca. This is precisely the war that we are trying to end," President Juan Manuel Santos said on Twitter.

In Havana, a FARC spokesman expressed regret over the bloodletting, but blamed the government's "incoherence in ordering military operations against a guerrilla force observing a truce."

"Whether it was an ambush or a counter-ambush, what we have before us is some dead Colombians," said the spokesman, Pastor Alape, calling on the government to join the FARC in a ceasefire.

Santos, who met with the army's high command to examine the circumstances surrounding the attack, was expected to travel to the site where the soldiers were killed later in the day.

"The armed forces must and will confront with maximum firmness all those who violate the rights of Colombians," the defense ministry said in a statement.

Jorge Restrepo, the head of a research center that specializes on the Colombian conflict, said the attack was a "serious" blow that could lead to a resumption of air strikes, but not a breakdown in the peace talks.

He added that it might even serve "to accelerate the negotiation of a definitive ceasefire in Havana."

The public defender for human rights, Jorge Armando Otalora, denounced the guerrillas' "rupture of the unilateral ceasefire," calling it "an open contradiction with the discourse of the FARC negotiators in Havana."

The attack also aroused opponents of the peace talks, led by former president Alvaro Uribe, a popular figure in Colombia for his hardline campaign against the FARC from 2002 to 2010. 

"Santos' peace is the extermination of the armed forces," Uribe stormed on Twitter.

"Santos, please don't deceive us any more, don't justify the assassination of our soldiers with the story about 'the war that wants to end.'"

Formed in 1964 amid a peasant uprising, the FARC has an estimated 8,000 fighters, deployed in rural areas of the country.

More than 200,000 people have died and another five million have been uprooted as a result of the conflict.