16 Killed in Colombia; Rebels Suspected

Suspected Marxist rebels massacred 16 peasants, including women and children, in a remote area of lawless Arauca province, police said Saturday.

The attack came less than an hour before the New Year arrived in the village of Puerto San Salvador, 230 miles northeast of Bogota, Arauca police chief Col. Rodrigo Palacio said.

He said the killers, believed to be members of the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, had accused the peasants of collaborating with right-wing paramilitary militias. Six men, six women and four children were killed.

Leftist rebels have long battled the paramilitary fighters of the United Self-Defense Forces for control of Arauca, one of Colombia’s most violent provinces and a strategic corridor for smuggling drugs and arms from across the border in Venezuela.

The paramilitary group is involved in a peace process with the government and has demobilized more than 3,000 fighters this year. The FARC has shunned government offers to start negotiations.

The massacre came the same day that President Alvaro Uribe extradited a top FARC commander to the United States on drug trafficking and terrorism charges. It was the first such extradition of a FARC leader, and raised fears of reprisal.

The chief of Colombia’s armed forces put his troops on high alert after Ricardo Palmera, a former rebel peace negotiator believed to have been heavily involved in the group’s financial operations, became the first FARC leader to be sent for trial in a U.S. federal court.

The extradition came after the FARC failed to comply with an ultimatum from Uribe to free 63 hostages, including three Americans.

Colombia’s 40-year-old conflict kills more than 3,000 people every year.