By Richard McColl
BOGOTA, Colombia
FARC guerrillas, currently engaged in peace negotiations with the Colombian government, on Wednesday announced an indefinite cease-fire beginning Dec. 20.
“We’ve resolved to declare a unilateral end of hostilities for an indefinite amount of time, which should turn into an armistice,” the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, said in a communiqué on its website.
But the rebels warned that the unilateral cease-fire would end if “our guerrilla structures are the target for attacks by the armed forces.”
The announcement was greeted positively by Liberal Party Sen. Luis Fernando Velasco who told the El Espectador newspaper that the move as an “immense step forward,” and added, “this is the gesture that the country has been crying out for.”
The FARC has waged an armed conflict against the Colombian state since 1964 which has resulted in the deaths of 220,000 people and the displacement of another five million. The guerrilla group has in the past called for cease-fires during the Christmas holiday period but never before one of an indefinite nature during on-going peace negotiations.
The peace talk which began in November 2012 have reached agreements on the issues of agrarian reform, political participation and illicit drugs.
Currently, the talks are addressing the issue of the victims of the conflict and Tuesday the FARC convened with a group of victims chosen by the National University and the UN.
The FARC has long pushed for a bilateral cease-fire, a move Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has flatly refused, drawing on experiences from the last time a cease-fire was implemented, during the presidency of Andres Pastrana.
Between 1998 and 2002 an area the size of Switzerland was ceded to the FARC in which to conduct peace talks but the guerrillas used the period to recruit, rearm and reorganize its forces.
President Santos, however, in an interview with W Radio, said earlier Wednesday that he was waiting for concrete actions from the FARC that would permit a deesclation of the conflict.
Santos has not yet commented on the FARC’s new cease-fire declaration but the guerrillas’ group spoke directly to the president in its statement.
“Let this be the opportunity to call attention in a direct and clear manner to President Santos for showing his pleasure once again via Twitter, for the deaths of some of our companions in arms and ideologies last Sunday. War is not something to enjoy but for regret,” it read.
www.aa.com.tr/en
