'Modern-day Colombia guerillas are drug lords'

Colombian guerrilla fighters today are no more than drug lords given too much leeway by the leftist government, infamous former rebel commander Rodrigo Londono, aka “Timochenko”, said on Tuesday.

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Londono, 66, was the last leader of the Farc guerrilla army that disarmed under a 2016 peace agreement, which has failed to end the South American country’s now six-decade-old armed conflict.

He and six others were sentenced last week by a tribunal to non-prison sentences of eight years of community work - reparations for more than 21 000 kidnappings committed during the Farc’s withering war with right-wing paramilitary groups and the state.

Londono gave a rare interview at the Casa de la Paz, or House of Peace a community centre set up in Bogota in memory of conflict victims.

He was guarded by a strong security contingent and flanked by other ex-combatants he called “comrade” as he smoked to calm the nerves that bubble up when he gives interviews, he said.