Colombian government, rebels struggle to keep peace process on track.
| Autor | Gaudin, Andres |
Just when the government of Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and the guerrilla Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) were showing clear signs of progress toward signing an agreement to end a half century of armed conflict, "those who live off war"--as the president called critics who contend that such social conflicts can only be explained using military language--made several alarmist statements aimed at destroying the dialogue taking place in Havana, Cuba.
Spokespersons for the government and the rebels had made it known that in May they might announce an agreement on the first of six points--the agrarian issue--included in the conversations begun in November 2012, with the Cuban and Norwegian governments acting as guarantors and the Chilean and Venezuelan governments as observers (NotiSur, Dec. 14, 2012). Any agreement would then be submitted to a popular referendum.
The talks have been welcomed enthusiastically by Colombian society, which held a peace march on April 9, drawing a huge turnout on the streets of Bogota.
US general, Colombian ex-presidents not helpful to process
In the days before the march, ultraright former Presidents Andres Pastrana (1998-2002) and Alvaro Uribe (2002-2010) as well as the head of the US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) Gen. John Kelly made statements--"false statements," said the government--indicating that the president "bowed down to the FARC terrorists" (Uribe), or that, rather than thinking about peace, the rebels are obtaining SAM-7 surface-to-air missiles that could decisively change the outcome of the Colombian war (Kelly).
Kelly's remarkable allegation was preceded by a campaign to discredit the FARC that led the guerrilla delegation at the talks to release a communique denying, as it has done many times, that it is involved in drug trafficking--"We are revolutionaries, not drug traffickers," the statement said--and asserting collusion between military and police and the cartels that traffic the cocaine that reaches US consumers. On April 1, the rebels complained that "this campaign [against the talks] is gaining strength just as we are talking about ending the armed conflict."
Days earlier, on March 19, Kelly had testified before a US House of Representatives committee. The German news agency Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) quoted Kelly as saying, "The hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue the FARC receives from cocaine trafficking alone enable them to purchase surface-to-air...
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