AFP (with additional material by BBC and Reuters). 14 January 2002. Colombian rebels to return to peace talks.
LOS POZOS -- Rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have accepted Colombian government safety guarantees to restart peace talks, a French diplomat working to revive the stalled talks announced here. French ambassador Daniel Parfait, who coordinates the so-called 'group of ten' countries that actively support Colombia's peace process, arrived in this town in rebel-controlled territory Monday with a bevy of diplomats in an attempt to coax the FARC rebels back to the negotiating table. "The conditions exist to re-launch, in an immediate way, the peace process in Colombia," Parfait said, reading a statement to reporters. Both President Andres Pastrana and FARC leader Manuel Marulanda had accepted the statement, Parfait said. He made the announcement flanked by James LeMoyne, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's special advisor on Colombia. Speaking after Parfait, FARC spokesman Raul Reyes said he accepts "the terms in the declaration" read by the diplomats "and supported by the United Nations" in the name of his group. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) has dropped its objections to returning to talks, which have been stalled since last October. Reyes, said that the FARC was satisfied that military controls placed around the safe haven would not endanger the peace talks. The countries actively supporting the Colombian peace process are Cuba, Sweden, France, Spain, Italy, Norway, Canada, Switzerland, Mexico and Venezuela. Each country had a representative at the talks. Pastrana will address the nation at 9:00 pm (0200 GMT Tuesday) to talk about the events, officials at the presidential palace said. In Bogota, former army chief retired Gen. Alvaro Valencia said the deal was a victory for Pastrana after the recurring frustration of talks in which the guerrillas hardly ever budged an inch on anything. "For the first time, the government acted tough and made the FARC accept their point of view. That hadn't happened in these three and a half years," Valencia told Reuters. FARC leader Manuel "Sureshot" Marulanda agreed to Pastrana's demand that he clearly state that the guerrillas were not threatened by security controls around their safe haven and that they should start implementing last year's "San Francisco Agreement" to negotiate a cease-fire. "The government and the FARC have expressed to the group of facilitating countries their determination to put the Agreement of San Francisco de la Sombra immediately into practice and reach concrete agreements in a short period," Parfait said. The announcement comes some four hours before 9:30 pm (0230 GMT Tuesday) by which the FARC -- Latin America's oldest, largest, and best-equipped guerilla movement -- had agreed to abandon their Switzerland-sized safe haven. The FARC was represented by spokesmen Reyes and Joaquin Gomez, while the Catholic Church was represented by Medellin Archbishop Alberto Giraldo, a top national religious leader, and Pope John Paul II's envoy in Colombia, Beniamino Stella. Top government peace negotiator Camilo Gomez was in the area -- officially to talk with local residents, but was likely consulted at different stages of the negotiations. His presence was a strong indication of the government's desire for peace. While talks were ongoing some 500 residents of nearby San Vicente del Caguan marched up to a chain-link fence surrounding the negotiators, clamoring for peace and waving Colombian flags. "We come asking for peace for Colombia, we don't want more war or more misery, we want peace but with social justice," screamed Ligia de Castro, 60, as she waved the Colombian flag, making the negotiators turn. The head of Colombia's armed forces, General Fernando Tapias, said earlier that 13,000 soldiers were ready to storm the demilitarized zone if the peace talks failed. Early reactions to the turn of events were positive. News of the deal sent a wave of joy through the nearby town of San Vicente, where people in jeeps honked horns and waved Colombian flags. Local radio began to broadcast a song entitled "We are peace." Luis Carlos Villegas, head of an influential association of industrialists, said he heard the news "with enormous satisfaction." Legislator and ex-guerrilla Antonio Navarro, who thought that conflict was imminent, was "happily surprised" at the turn of events. "It seems we will have to canonize the special UN envoy" as well as the ten diplomats and the clerics "for having obtained this miracle," he gushed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barry Stoller http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ProletarianNews
