Spanish govt accused of tricking Colombian soldiers into Lebanon mission

The relatives of three Colombian soldiers who died during a UN peacekeeping operation in southern Lebanon said on Monday the Spanish Army had tricked them by telling them they were on a low-risk mission.

"I want all Colombia to know that the Spanish government told them: 'behave yourselves and we will send you to Lebanon as a reward.' The government should not lie. When the army sends people overseas it's because there are problems," said Ramon Luzano, uncle of dead solder Yeisson Castano.

Castano and his countrymen Jefferson Vargas and Juan Posada died, alongside three Spanish blue-helmeted UN troops, when the armored vehicle in which they were traveling was attacked by a car bomb close to the southern Lebanon city of Jiam.

The soldiers were serving in the Spanish Army and working for the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Lebanon.

In the western-central Colombian city of Pereira, Vargas's family called on the Colombian Army to bring the young man's body home.

"He would ring us nearly every day. He was thinking of returning to Colombia on July 20, when he was to leave Lebanon. But he was very happy there," Vargas's mother Sofia Moya told local media.

Relatives complained that they had received no support from the Spanish government, even though Spain's Defense Minister Jose Alonso promised they would receive compensation and that the bodies would be buried with full honors in Madrid.

Spain's 78,000-strong armed forces has 4,300 foreign troops including Ecuadorians, Colombians, Bolivians, Peruvians, Venezuelans, Dominicans and Argentines. Spain has sent 1,100 solders to southeast Lebanon since August last year and around 120 of them are from Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia.

Source: Xinhua