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LatinNews Daily Report - 16 April 2014

In Brief- Colombia

SECURITY| Farc attack on Pan-American Highway. On 15 April the governor of Colombia’s south-western department of Cauca, Temístocles Ortega, told the local media that presumed members of the guerrilla Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) had set off a bomb on a section of the Pan-American Highway. While no one was injured in the attack, Ortega said the blast produced a massive hole that rendered a tract of the highway, which links Colombia to neighbouring Ecuador, inaccessible for road vehicle traffic. According to Ortega an explosive charge was placed inside a sewer hole located on the highway in an attack similar to another reported on 1 April which took place on a different section of the Pan-American Highway and was attributed to the Farc’s ‘Jacobo Arenas’ front. Ortega said that these attacks appear to have become the Farc’s new modus operandi in the area, presumably part of the Farc’s efforts to prevent the exploitation of Colombia’s natural resources. The Pan-American Highway is one of Colombia’s main transport arteries and it is often used by oil firms operating in southern Colombia to transport crude to refineries in Ecuador. Describing the latest incident as "worrisome", Ortega warned that “if this is their new tactic... it will become impossible to monitor the large number of sewer holes in all of Colombia’s roads”.

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