By IANS
Geneva : Colombia’s Vice President Francisco Santos has told the UN Conference on Disarmament here that his country’s largest leftist insurgency group was trying to obtain uranium to make a “dirty bomb”.
Santos said two computers seized in the raid by the Colombian military in Ecuadorian jungles across the border last week contained information about the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)’s “negotiation for radioactive material”, Spain’s EFE news agency reported Wednesday.
This was direct evidence of the group’s plans to obtain the materials to make bombs, he said.
“This information shows that the terrorist group constitutes a very serious threat not only to our country but to the entire Andean and Latin American region. The information is still being analysed,” he said.
Bogota has not released any of the data it claims to have retrieved from the seized computers but says it would invite experts from the Organisation of American States to review the files.
The FARC, which has a large part of the country under its control, is on the terror list of the US and the European Union.
Bogota gets some $500 million a year in military aid from the US to fight insurgency.