Colombian military says it found uranium linked to FARC

[struggle4progress]

Posted on Wed, Mar. 26, 2008
By FRANCES ROBLES
[e-mail]

Colombian authorities said they seized up to 66 pounds of low-grade uranium hidden off the side of a road in southern Bogotá on Wednesday, which the Colombian Defense Ministry said belonged to FARC guerrillas.

The Defense Ministry said the discovery adds weight to the evidence found in a laptop belonging to slain guerrilla leader Raúl Reyes, which showed the rebels were interested in buying and selling the uranium on the international underground market.

But the 30 kilograms of uranium found in plastic bags dug about three feet from a road in southern Bogotá was ''impoverished,'' the ministry said, and in that state could not have been used to make a radioactive bomb. Authorities were waiting for further analysis to determine how dangerous the material found really is, Armed Forces commander Freddy Padilla told a news conference late Wednesday.

It was not clear if Colombian authorities meant that they had found depleted uranium, which is the residue left after the mineral is processed to make nuclear energy or nuclear weapons. In its natural state, uranium has low radioactivity and it has to be enriched through a sophisticated process to generate nuclear energy or to make nuclear weapons. According to Colombian daily El Tiempo, the country does not possess the technology to enrich uranium ...

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/471631.html

*snork*