Colombia rejects dialogue with FARC
BOGOTA - Agence France-Presse
Demonstrators wave posters of soldiers who have been kidnapped by FARC. REUTERS photo
Colombia on Jan. 10 rebuffed a call from the new leader of the country’s Marxist FARC guerrillas to revive peace talks and told the militants to prove the move was genuine.“We don’t want more rhetoric, the country asks for clear acts of peace, forget about a new Caguan,” President Juan Manuel Santos said on Twitter, a day after the rebels indicated they were willing to restart negotiations. Caguan was the name given to failed peace talks held between 1999 and 2002. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) said Jan. 9 there were “issues we are interested in dealing with,” in negotiations, in a statement from rebel chief Timoleon ‘Timochenko’ Jimenez posted on a rebel website. “Before the nation, (we hope) to address privatizations, deregulation, the absolute freedom of trade and investment, environmental degradation, democracy in a market economy, and military policy,” Jimenez said. But he did not offer further details about the proposal, only suggesting a return to the “agenda that was abandoned in Caguan.” The FARC is Colombia’s oldest and largest guerrilla force, believed to have 8,000 members, and has been at war with the government since its launch in 1964. The group’s last leader, Alfonso Cano, was killed in an army raid in early November, leading to the succession of Timochenko, whose real name is Rodrigo Londono.
