New documents reportedly retrieved from the computer of a slain Colombian guerrilla leader show that the Colombian rebels' ties in Latin America may be more widespread than previously reported.
Some of the documents indicate that a leading member of Ecuador's constitutional assembly may be a longtime supporter of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as FARC. María Augusta Calle, who is also the head of Venezuela's Telesur TV network in Ecuador and a supporter of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, let the rebels use her bank account for at least one transaction and helped promote their ideas through another news agency she directs, according to a Colombian official who is familiar with the documents.
Colombian officials believe Calle is the person who signed herself "Alicia" in e-mails that were directed to the computer's owner, Raul Reyes, the FARC's spokesman and primary peace negotiator who was killed March 1 in a Colombian military raid of a rebel hideout in Ecuador. In one of the e-mails, ''Alicia'' talks about her ties to the Venezuelan embassy in Quito. She says she is hopeful she will soon get a job with the Venezuelans and offers to broker communications between the rebels and the embassy.
Read the full story at MiamiHerald.com.