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US rejects Chavez call to remove FARC terror group label: State
WASHINGTON
Petroleumworld.com, Jan 15, 2008Washington Monday rejected Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's call last week to to stop branding Colombia's leftist rebels terrorists.
"You'll excuse me if we don't take that advice," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said of Chavez's proposal that governments remove the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the National Liberation Army from their official lists of terror groups.
"Look, they earned their way on to the terrorism list," McCormack said, noting that FARC continues to hold a number of hostages, including three Americans, despite their release of two Colombian politicians last week.
"If there is any reason whatsoever to take a group off the terrorism list, then that's done," he said."But I'm not aware of any substantial change in a pattern of behavior by the FARC that would merit their being taken off the list."
He said the United States remains concerned about the three Americans held by the group, contractors in anti-drug operations who were captured by FARC after their plane crashed in 2003.
" They should be released, unconditionally, so that they can be reunited with their families," McCormack said.
" There's no reason on earth to hold those people."
Chavez, who was intermediator in the release of the two Colombian women last Thursday, said afterwards that the guerilla groups had legitimate national programs.
They "are not any terrorist body, they are real armies that occupy territory in Colombia; they must be recognized, they are insurgent forces that have a political project ... which here is respected," Chavez said.
But Colombian President Alvaro Uribe flatly rejected the call.
Story from AFP
AFP 142 148 GMT 01 08
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