Colombia's largest rebel group have kidnapped two Spanish citizens in apparent defiance to a decision by the European Union to suspend visas to leftist guerrillas.
The 15-nation group said it would not issue new travel visas or residence permits to members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as FARC, after rebels kidnapped three German aid workers in July. One of the workers escaped in September and the two others were freed in October.
But in what one European diplomat today called a new political blunder by rebels, FARC fighters kidnapped 26-year-old student Ms Natalia Suriano on December 9th along with 14 other people from a hotel near the northern city of Medellin.
Then this past weekend they abducted a second Spaniard, 46-year-old businessman Mr Francisco Alvarez, snatching him from his car near the colonial Caribbean city of Cartagena, where he had lived for the past five years, police said.
The 17,000-member FARC last week accused European countries of losing its neutrality in Colombia's peace talks and of siding with a US hard-line against rebels, whom Washington brands a terrorist organisation.
European countries are participating as observers in difficult 3-year-old negotiations between the government and the FARC, aimed at ending a 37-year-old war that has killed 40,000 people, mostly civilians, in the last decade. Europeans are also spending millions of dollars in social aid there.