FARC admits to holding general

Colombia's FARC rebel group announced Tuesday it is holding army General Ruben Dario Alzate, whose kidnapping this past Sunday led to the suspension of 2-year-old peace talks aimed at ending the nation's half-century-old civil war.

General Ruben Alzate, Corporal Jorge Rodriguez and army adviser Gloria Urrego "were captured by our units, on the grounds that they are enemy military personnel, traveling in their official capacity, in an area of war operations," the guerilla group's Ivan Rios said in a statement on FARC's official website.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has demanded that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia immediately release Alzate, saying that the future of peace talks depended on it. Immediately after the kidnapping, Santos ordered peace negotiators not to travel to Havana, Cuba for talks with the rebel group until the general, the soldier and the civilian lawyer traveling with him were freed.

"The FARC have to understand that, although we're negotiating in the middle of the conflict, peace doesn't come by resorting to violence and undermining conflicts."

FARC leaders in Havana called Santos's decision to suspend talks "impulsive."

"The peace process whose advances have activated hope for reconciliation should not be put at risk," negotiators for the rebel group announced in a written statement at a news conference in Havana.

Alzate, 55, is one of Colombia's most-decorated generals and a graduate of both the U.S. Army War College and the Command and General Staff College in Kansas.

FARC, a leftist guerilla organization which emerged in the mid 20th century in Colombia to battle rural poverty, has fought a dozen Colombian governments since its inception. The conflict has killed more than 200,000 people since it began almost five decades ago.

A US-backed offensive has weakened the rebel group substantially over the last 10 years, and in 2012, the Colombian government launched historic peace negotiations with the group.

bw/es (AP, AFP, Reuters)