Reuters; AP. 6 January 2002. Colombia Postpones Stuttering FARC Peace Talks; Colombian Rebels Question Government's Commitment to Peace as Holiday Truce Ends.
BOGOTA -- Colombia's government said on Sunday that it had agreed to postpone deadlocked peace talks until Tuesday because FARC guerrillas, who warned negotiations are at breaking point, requested an extra day to study its proposals. The meeting to attempt to revive peace talks with the 17,000-strong Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia -- which have bogged down over rebel objections to military controls around their enclave -- has been pushed back from Monday, a government spokesman said. The announcement came hours after senior FARC commander Raul Reyes said peace talks could break down unless the government ended such measures as military overflights of the rebel haven and an entry ban on foreigners. "The (peace) process is in a critical state, paralysis, and it's going to be hard for it to get out of that," the gray-bearded, diminutive Reyes told local television. Two days of talks broke down in an exchange of angry communiques on Friday as negotiations got off to a bad start -- after the end of two months of total stand-off -- over the issue of security controls on the enclave. Reyes said the government must ease its controls around the rebel zone before any progress could be made. But the FARC then asked the government for an extra day to study its proposals, the official spokesman said. Meanwhile, Colombia's second-largest guerrilla army has accused the armed forces of endangering the peace process by stepping up military actions during a unilateral rebel truce that ended Sunday. The National Liberation Army, or ELN, vowed to halt kidnappings and bombings of oil pipelines and electrical towers during the 20-day truce that began Dec. 18. In a communique read late Saturday to local RCN radio, ELN founder and leader Nicolas Rodriguez said the rebels had fulfilled their promise but accused the army of using the truce to secure military gains. Rodriguez said the actions raised "grave questions for a real peace process." There was no immediate response from the government of President Andres Pastrana, who had welcomed the holiday truce as a step toward peace. A new round of talks with the ELN is scheduled for Friday to create a framework for formal negotiations aimed at ending the rebel army's decades-long insurgency. Soldiers killed an ELN fighter during military strikes Sunday in Antioquia province, the army said. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barry Stoller http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ProletarianNews
