Gateway Pundit and Free Republic pick up the story of Martha Colmenares who writes about a treasure trove of information extracted from FARC computers captured by Columbian military forces after this weekend's raid that killed the narco-rebel group's International spokesman Raúl Reyes. The raid on the rebel camp located one mile inside Equador's territory killed Reyes along with 16 of his fellow guerrillas and led to a diplomatic breakdown between the three nations with Equador and Venezuela threatening to go to war with Columbia over the incursion.
Letters stored on the computers captured from the raid reveal the rebel group's connections with Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa as well as Venezuelan president's Hugo Chavez' offerings of $300 million in support of the group. The report says that other items of interest found on the captured insurgent's computers are plans on how to make a Dirty Bomb along with Uranium purchasing records.
The most troubling item found in the FARC memos is the name of a prominant American politician. In Article 6 of his last letter Reyes writes, "The gringos will ask for an appointment with the minister.....They say that the new president of their country will be Obama and that they are interested in your compatriots."
Here is the text in Spanish;
6. Los gringos pedirán cita con el ministro para solicitarle nos comunicara su interés en conversar estos temas. Dicen que el nuevo presidente de su país será Obama y que ellos están interesados en sus compatriotas. Obama no apoyara Plan Colombia ni firma de TLC. Aquí respondimos que nos interesan las relaciones con todos los gobiernos en igualdad de condiciones y que en el caso de Estados Unidos se requiere in pronunciamiento público expresando su interés en conversar con las Farc dada su eterna guerra con nosotros.
Es todo, Abrazos, Raúl.
Here is the translation to English,
6. The gringos will ask for a meeting with the minister to solicit him to communicate with us his interest in discussing these topics. They say that the new president of their country will be Obama and that they are interested in your compatriots. Obama will not support "Plan Colombia" nor will he sign the TLC. Here we responded that we are interested in relations with all governments in equality of conditions and that in the case of the US it is required a public pronouncement expressing their interest in talking with the FARC given their eternal war against us.
(TLC here is understood to be the Columbian Free Trade agreement)
A few things came to mind after reading something these accounts. The story could be a hoax planted by the Columbian government, which is what Hugo Chavez and Rafael Correa would want you to believe. This could be a story planted by a political rival in the US and floated out to the Net to cast suspicion on Senator Obama. That possibility could exist given the rancor and personal acrimony between the rival Democratic camps in this election cycle.If the story is true, then who are these "gringos" and how are they so sure that Obama will be elected President of the United States? How do they know Obama is opposed to the Columbian Free Trade agreement and "Plan Columbia"
The AP, Investors Business Daily and even the New York Times have picked up the story and write about the discovery of Hugo Chavez's financial support of the terrorist group and FARC's plans to sell Uranium to make a dirty bomb but make no mention of meetings between the rebels and representatives of the Illinois Senator. But in this report filed by the AP a meeting is mentioned with the following details added:
In a Dec. 11 message to the secretariat, Marquez writes: "If you are in agreement, I can receive Jim and Tucker to hear the proposal of the gringos."
Writing two days before his death, Reyes tells his comrades that "the gringos," working through Ecuador's government, are interested "in talking to us on various issues."
"They say the new president of their country will be (Barack) Obama," he writes, saying Obama rejects both the Bush administration's free trade agreement with Colombia and the current military aid program.
Reyes writes that his response to the Americans was that the United States would have to publicly express these positions.
Why would representatives from a prominent Democratic presidential candidate want to meet and want to establish a dialogue with FARC? Would someone running for POTUS want to start dialogues with foreign entities in order to fashion some pre-arranged agreements prior to their entering the White House? What next? Is he having someone measure the drapes in the Oval Office too? Seems a bit fantastic to me but I wouldn't put it past Obama given his pattern of publicly advocating a position while privately working against it. It doesn't help that earlier in the week the Obama campaign was caught in a lie regarding a senior advisor's visit to the Canadian consul general in Chicago to assure them that the Senator's hard line on NAFTA was just talk.