Photo: GUILLERMO LEGARIA / AFP / Getty Images
By: EFE
Monday, September 30
Biden decides to remove the FARC from the US list of terrorist groups
The government of US President Joe Biden decided to remove the extinct Colombian guerrilla from the FARC its black list of terrorist organizations and notified Congress of its intention, a legislative source confirmed this Tuesday.
That source in Congress explained that the notification was received this Tuesday, a day earlier of the fifth anniversary of the signing of the peace agreement between the extinct guerrilla group and the Government of Juan Manuel Santos (2010 – 2018) .
The notification to the US Legislature is the previous step for the withdrawal of the FARC from the list of terrorist groups of the State Department.
There is no fixed term for this new policy to take effect, details and On its website the Foreign Ministry of the United States, which explains that the Secretary of State, in this case Antony Blinken, is the maximum responsible of that resolution.
More than 90% of FARC members have held up their end of the peace deal. Colombia & the EU already took them off the terrorist list, it’s time for the US to do the same.
IMPORTANT: this does not apply to FARC dissidents, nor other insurgent groups. https://t.co/0nDqFByR4E
– Marco Frieri (@MarcoAFrieri) November 23, 2018
Blinken could have made the decision discretionary or justified by two circumstances: that the reasons that motivated the terrorist designation are no longer in force or that removing that group from the black list is due to the interests US nationals.
Earlier, State Department spokesman Ned Price declined to confirm at a news conference Tuesday whether Biden has already reached a final decision to remove the FARC from the list and limited itself to saying that the policy towards the former guerrilla group was being reviewed.
“The State Department has given the Congress notifications about the next actions in relation to the FARC ”, said Price, who refused to give details about the content.
Sources with knowledge of the process had advanced to The Wall Street Journal that the Biden government was going to remove the FARC from its black list and that the official announcement could arrive as soon as this Tuesday.
The FARC were included in that US list of terrorist organizations in 1997. As a result, its members were prohibited from entering the United States, and their access to the international financial system, based on the dollar, was restricted, among other punitive actions.
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