Top Colombia ex-guerrilla warns of violence after president-elect's threat

BOGOTA, Colombia: A top ex-FARC commander told AFP Tuesday that “messages of hate” could fuel renewed violence in Colombia, after the country’s president-elect vowed to jail him and unwind a key part of the country’s landmark 2016 peace deal.

Rodrigo Londono — also known as Timochenko — said former guerrilla leaders had written to incoming right-wing leader Abelardo de la Espriella, recognizing his recent election victory and seeking talks.

De la Espriella had earlier branded Londono a “war criminal,” saying he deserved to spend life in prison and vowing to work toward that goal.

The hard-right firebrand has promised to end talks with dissident groups, bomb drug-running guerrillas and scrap a tribunal set up to judge crimes from Colombia’s long civil war.

He believes the tribunal allowed former FARC leaders to escape punishment.

Londono warned that persistent stigmatization of former guerrillas had been accompanied by “messages of hate” that risked generating violence.

“There are people with privileged platforms spreading such messages, and that is extremely dangerous,” he said. “It puts everyone at risk.”

He said former FARC leaders remained committed to the peace deal and hoped to discuss its implementation with the incoming government, which takes office on August 7.

‘Unwavering commitment’

Londono and six other ex-FARC leaders on Tuesday urged De la Espriella to respect Colombia’s peace process.

“We reaffirm…our unwavering commitment to honor” the 2016 accord, they wrote in a letter addressed to De la Espriella.

“We hope that the Colombian state will respond to the commitment it has undertaken with the same honesty,” the statement added.

De la Espriella had lashed out at Londono in a video released Monday.

“That bandit Timochenko deserves to be imprisoned for life,” he said.

The president-elect, who won last month’s runoff by less than a percentage point, also once called for the left to be “gutted” but later toned down his words.

Defeated leftist candidate Ivan Cepeda has warned that he will reject “any attempt at authoritarian subjugation” under the incoming administration.

Londono last year received a non-prison sentence of eight years of community work — reparations for more than 21,000 kidnappings committed during the FARC’s decades-long insurgency.

He acknowledged that the 2016 agreement had flaws but voiced the need for different camps to discuss their differences.

“I believe dialogue is essential to bring about, to achieve peace. That’s how we human beings come to understand one another,” he said.