Epress.am News from Armenia
On Mar. 1, 2008, Colombia’s military killed a top rebel leader and 16 of his comrades in a predawn air strike against his jungle camp in neighboring Ecuador.
The death of the commander known by his alias Raul Reyes was “the biggest blow against the FARC in its history,” said Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos, referring to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, Bloomberg reported.
Reyes, who was wanted for extradition by the United States on drug-trafficking charges, was a Marxist union leader at a Nestle dairy plant in Caqueta province before going underground and joining the FARC decades ago.
He was the FARC’s most visible spokesman, regularly delivering anti-capitalist missives on the group’s website, and one of the most influential voices of the 7-member Secretariat.
In the early hours of the morning on Mar. 1, 2008, national police and military forces in Yerevan dispersed peaceful demonstrations that had been going on for 10 days non-stop in Liberty Square protesting the official results of the presidential election. Later that same day, people spontaneously gathered in the square in front of the Aleksandr Myasnikyan statue, across the street from Yerevan City Hall. In the evening, a state of emergency was declared and the army called in to quell the protests, who used “excessive force and violence” which resulted in the death of 10 people, including Gor Qloyan.
Till today, no arrests or charges have been made in connection with Gor Qloyan’s murder.