-Caveat Lector-
{{So they admit they will continue to use kidnapping. AKE}}
Monday January 22 7:49 PM ET
Colombian Rebels Reject Call for End to Kidnaps
Reuters Photo
By Jason Webb
BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - Colombia's main rebel force
said on Monday it would keep holding civilians for ransom
and using homemade bombs despite a government plea for
gestures to boost public support for peace talks before a
key deadline.
Manuel ``Sureshot'' Marulanda, who has spent more than half
his 69 years leading the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia (FARC), rejected concessions to make the war more
humane. The conflict has claimed 35,000 civilian lives in
the past 10 years.
Government peace envoy Camilo Gomez met Marulanda in the
FARC's steamy lowland enclave, which itself is a key
negotiating point. President Andres Pastrana must decide by
Jan. 31 whether to allow the FARC to continue unmolested in
the demilitarized zone in southern Colombia the size of
Switzerland, which he granted them two years ago to get
peace talks going.
Gomez called on Marulanda to return to the formal
negotiating table and asked him to make concessions to boost
flagging public support for the peace process, which is
putting pressure on Pastrana to get tough with the rebels.
``We Colombians want to see action soon which reduces the
conflict and means that civilians are not affected by it,''
Gomez said in a letter to Marulanda made public on Monday.
The FARC and a smaller leftist group, the National
Liberation Army (ELN), are holding thousands of civilians
hostage for ransom, as well as hundreds of military
prisoners.
Many of the hostages were caught by ``miracle fishing'' --
setting up roadblocks at which civilians are stopped and
anyone who looks wealthy is taken prisoner.
Gomez also asked the rebel chief to order an end to attacks
on villages and towns with inaccurate but powerful homemade
mortars fashioned from gas canisters. Hundreds of civilians
have been killed in the past few years and whole villages
smashed to rubble under barrages of gas canister bombs.
But the weather-beaten Marulanda, a former poor farmer who
is usually media-shy, told reporters that he could not
oblige.
Farc Doesn'T ``Kidnap,'' Only Collects Taxes
He said his forces did not kidnap people but merely enforced
payment of revolutionary taxes.
``The people they say we kidnapped, we didn't kidnap them.
We passed a law and we're going to call on all of those we
think have the money, from ($1 million), to make a
contribution,'' Marulanda said.
The FARC also needed gas cylinder bombs to defend itself
against the more conventionally equipped army, he said.
``What's the difference between a cylinder that's got 12 or
25 kilos (25 or 50 pounds) of gunpowder and a 500-kilo
(1,100-pound) bomb they fire from an OV-10 or a Mirage or a
C-37?'' he said, referring to three types of military
airplane.
The FARC has refused to continue formal peace negotiations
since last November, when it accused the government of not
doing enough to fight right-wing paramilitary death squads
responsible for the majority of massacres of peasants
suspected of collaborating with rebels.
Pastrana, now in France trying to attract European aid and
investment to his battered country, has bet his presidency
on a negotiated peace. But he has also secured almost $1
billion in mainly U.S. military aid as part of his ``Plan
Colombia,'' designed to destroy the world's biggest cocaine
business.
Asks Rebels to Cut Attacks to Boost Peace (Copyright � 2001
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