Rebels on the beauty catwalk

Bogota, Colombia, Sept 10: Wearing bikini bottoms and not much else, a group of suspected Colombian rebels strut up and down an improvised catwalk in a mock beauty pageant video shown on local television.
In what authorities suspect were rare images of a rebel Christmas party, the near-naked men wore improvised sashes across their chests as a host in a ski-mask shouted insults about the male contestants.

"Her measurements are: round, wide and built like the back of a horse," said the host, in an apparent parody of Colombian beauty pageants. He was standing before a poster of Cuban revolutionary hero Ernesto "Che" Guevara.

Army General Francisco Pedraza on Tuesday said troops found the 40-minute video during a raid on a house in southwestern Colombia. He added pageant contestants and the crowd were members of the Cuban-inspired National Liberation Army, or ELN.
In the video, a crowd of women giggled and heckled the men. A Christmas tree stood in the corner of the room.

But the tape's mood shifted darkly, cutting from the party to images of four men with their hands bound behind their backs, who warily declared their ages on camera. The television station said they appeared to have been kidnapped by the rebels, who rely on ransoms for cash.
Colombia's four-decade-old war pits more than 20,000 Marxist guerrillas against outlawed paramilitary gunmen and the armed forces. The conflict claims thousands of lives a year, and is funded by the kidnapping industry and the drug trade.

Bureau Report