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From: Colombian Labor Monitor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Wed, 23 May 2001 11:34:50 -0500 (CDT)
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: CLM: Daily News 23 May 2001
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COLOMBIAN LABOR MONITOR
www.prairienet.org/clm
Wednesday, 23 May 2001
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE -- Tuesday, 22 May 2001
Colombia's ELN rebels reject government offer to resume talks
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AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE
Tuesday, 22 May 2001
Colombia's ELN rebels reject
government offer to resume talks
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BOGOTA -- The National Liberation Army, Colombia's second-largest leftist
rebel group, has rejected a government offer to resume preliminary peace
talks, Caracol television reported.
The ELN leadership sent a letter to peace commissioner Camilo Gomez saying
they were unhappy with government efforts to reduce the size of a
demilitarized zone they have been demanding before proper peace talks can
begin, Caracol said late Monday.
"The government proposed launching the peace process in rural areas of
Bolivar department (in the north) that would be expanded with each
agreement" reached by both sides, the television station said.
The ELN has been conditioning its peace talks to a demilitarized zone in
the north similar to the Switzerland-size one the government granted last
year to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country's
largest rebel group.
Sources close to the negotiating process said the ELN letter's tone was
very curt.
Gomez last week said the government had made a proposal to the ELN to
resume contacts suspended in mid-April by the rebels. He did not provide
details of the offer at the time.
Besides the demilitarized zone, the ELN also demanded a stronger
government crackdown against the right-wing paramilitary group United
Self-defense forces of Colombia (AUC), the ELN's arch-enemy.
President Andres Pastrana last year promised the ELN he would withdraw
troops from the San Pablo y Cantagallo township, where the rebels want to
hold a peace convention and future peace negotiations with the government,
but opposition from the AUC and some local residents has prevented it so
far.
Copyright 2001 Agence France Presse
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