BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombian authorities are offering up to $2.7 million in bounty for the body of the founder and chief commander of the FARC rebels, who died after 40 years fighting the state, a top army official said on Tuesday.
FARC chief Manuel "Sureshot" Marulanda died of a heartattack in March four decades after he formed the RevolutionaryArmed Forces of Colombia, or the FARC, Latin America's oldestinsurgency, the rebels said on Sunday.
His death was a heavy blow to the FARC, which has alreadybeen weakened by the deaths of several top commanders over thelast year in military strikes under President Alvaro Uribe'sU.S.-backed security crackdown.
"Without a doubt this has become a objective for us," saidArmy chief Gen. Mario Montoya. "It will be important for us tocarry out identification of this body."
A peasant himself, Marulanda founded the FARC in 1964 as aMarxist-inspired ragtag army that grew to become a powerfulsubversive force with more than 17,000 fighters controllinglarge swaths of Colombia.
Under Uribe's government, the rebels have been steadilyweakened and driven back to remoter parts of the country andviolence has dropped sharply. But the rebels are still acapable force in areas where state presence is weak.
A FARC commander on Sunday acknowledged Marulanda diedafter an illness. But military officials do not dismiss thepossibility he was wounded in bombardments around that time onthe southern jungles where he was believed to be hiding.
The United States and European Union label the FARC acocaine-trafficking terrorist group. But the rebels are stillholding scores of hostages kept for years in jungle camps,including French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt andthree Americans.
(Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta, writing by Patrick Markey,editing by Philip Barbara)
