01-02-2018: Latin American Weekly Report

“We will create the conditions for a new Colombia,” ‘Timochenko’ (Rodrigo Londoño Echeverri), formerly the maximum leader of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc), announced during the official launch of his presidential candidacy on 27 January. Earlier that same day the old Colombia was in evidence – in Ecuador. Farc dissidents detonated a massive car bomb outside a police station in northern Ecuador. Later on three car bombs exploded outside police stations on Colombia’s Caribbean coast. Planted by the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), these claimed seven lives, prompting Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos to suspend peace talks with the country’s largest extant guerrilla group taking place in Ecuador.