Panama's FARC policy

Venezuela by all accounts looks the other way when it comes to the presence of Colombian rebels in its territory. Panama is quite another matter.

Last Friday, Panamanian police engaged in a gun battle in Jaque with several members of the 57th Front of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, taking nine prisoners. Just what the rebels were doing in the town 30 miles west of the Colombian border isn't clear.

Initial reports said they were overseeing a drug shipment on the Pacific Coast, a common transit point for U.S.-bound cocaine. The FARC has been designated one of Colombia's biggest drug cartels.

Another theory was that they came to kill a group of Panamanian  "irregulars" who had betrayed them. Yet a third was that their boat had simply run out of gas. In any case, the six have been taken to Panama City for questioning, where they will be identified, with U.S. help, to see if there are any outstanding drug or terrorism charges against them.

None of the six are talking, and local press reports said members of the Panamanian government had received death threats from the FARC demanding the prisoners be released by March 1. Three of the nine who were wounded in the gun battle are being treated in the capital's Santo Tomas Hospital.

-- Chris Kraul in Bogota

Photo: FARC rebels; Credit: Associated Press