CARACAS, Tuesday September 30, 2008 | Update
Politics
A Conservative parliamentarian said on Tuesday that he will
ask the Colombian Congress to declare "persona non grata"
the mayor of a Caracas municipality, Freddy Bernal, for his
participation in a recent tribute to Manuel Marulanda, the
late founder and top leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces
of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas.
"Bernal organized and funded the tribute to Marulanda," said
Santiago Castro, the Colombian legislator. According to him,
the Caracas mayor "made a statement justifying a crime" and
"mocked of hundred of victims" killed by the guerrilla leader,
Efe reported.
Castro, who holds a seat for the Conservative Party in the
Colombian House of Representatives mentioned the events that
took place last Friday in Caracas' 23 de Enero neighborhood
on the occasion of the sixth month of the death of "Manuel
Marulanda Vélez" or "Tirofijo."
04:17 PM. Western Hemisphere. "Damned empire; I curse you one thousand times; some day you will be finished off and wrecked. I curse you one thousand times, empire." This is the least that President Hugo Chávez has uttered to refer to the US government. In urging the Bolivarian Armed Forces to prepare for war, he said that a US raid on Venezuela through Colombia would trigger and spread over the region "the 100-year war."