208 days ago
208 days ago
Rodrigo Londono, 52, better known by the aliases 'Timochenko' or 'Timoleon Jimenez,' is to succeed Guillermo Saenz, better known as 'Alfonso Cano,' according to a statement that FARC published on a news website called the Bolivarian Press Agency that often carries rebel messages. Londono has been a member of the seven-member ruling secretariat since the early 1990s and a fighter in the FARC since the 1970s. He is believed to operate in the Norte de Santander province on the border with Venezuela.
FARC said the appointment was decided upon “unanimously” on November 5, a day after Cano was killed in a military raid in the southwestern Colombian province of Cauca. The designation of Timochenko, the statement said, guarantees “the continuation of the strategic plan towards a takeover of power for the people.”
Cano had taken over the FARC leadership in March 2008, after the death of the organization's founder Manuel Marulanda. At the time, it was Timochenko who announced Marulanda's death of natural causes.
FARC, who have been fighting the Colombian government since its creation in 1964, once had as many as 17,000 combatants who moved almost freely across great swathes of jungle and mountains. But it has been battered by more than a decade of U.S.-funded attacks that have depleted and demoralized its fighting force.
