Colombia's 2014 presidential elections play role in peace talks.
| Autor | Gaudin, Andres |
Throughout all of 2013, and certainly for many months to come, the political life of Colombians has been and will be marked by the peace talks between the administration of President Juan Manuel Santos and the guerrilla Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) underway in Havana, Cuba, since November 2012 (NotiSur, Dec. 14, 2012). In recent weeks, after many encouraging moves by both sides, a series of contradictory signs--radically different in some cases--has cast a shadow on the process and demeaned the level of the dialogue.
Analysts from different perspectives believe that the cause has much to do with the approach of next year's legislative and presidential elections. In the past month, as polls began to show a drop in support for Santos, whom a majority of Colombians now regard as a "weak leader" and lacking the character to dialogue with the rebels, the president has been trying to show that he is "tough."
Santos ordered a ruthless repression of a social protest in the northeastern area of Catatumbo, which ended with the police killing four campesinos (NotiSur, Aug. 2, 2013). Then, on Aug. 8, he said that he had ratified an order for military leaders to "kill Timochenko, wherever he is." Timochenko is the nom de guerre of Rodrigo Londono Echeverry, top leader of the FARC. Santos' kill order did not stop him from saying the following day, "It has been proven that the best way for people to understand each other is through dialogue, which is why I'm willing to sit down right now and talk with Timochenko."
FARC offers four-point plan for discussion
On July 29, after a brief respite, the two sides met again at the Palacio de las Convenciones in Havana to begin the 13th round of peace conversations, dealing with the integration of the guerrillas into legal political life if an agreement is signed. As is customary at the beginning of each stage of negotiations, the FARC again demonstrated its stunning ability to raise high-impact ideas. This time it suggested to the government a discussion on four points and surprised everyone with its self-criticism, admitting its responsibility in the drama that has punished Colombian society since confrontations began between the FARC and the Colombian armed forces.
The four points, to which the government had not responded by the end of the 13th round of talks, were: 1) drawing up a "political- and social-opposition statute that guarantees, among other things, the right to form political...
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