Morning Star.png FARC Must be taken off US Terror List for Colombia Peace Progress James Tweedie, The Morning Star, London, 30 January 2016 Colombia's FARC guerillas must be removed from lists of terrorist organisations to pave the way for peace, US and EU leaders were told on Thursday. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) urged the European Union to remove it from its designated terrorist list as Cuban-mediated peace talks in Havana reached an advanced stage. The rebels, who have fought a 50-year war against the army and paramilitary death squads, are ready to lay down their arms and participate in elections as they did in 1984. But the then government soon reneged, murdering thousands of members of the communist-led Patriotic Union (UP), including its president Jaime Pardo. "The most fair and consistent thing is to erase the FARC from the list of terrorist organisations with the same swiftness with which we were included," FARC chief peace negotiator Ivan Marquez told the European Parliament committee on foreign affairs via video conference on Thursday. "Taking the FARC off the terrorist list removes obstacles to normalisation and facilitates the reincorporation process for former rebel fighters." FARC prisoners released Earlier this week the UN approved a request for a monitoring mission for the peace process from both sides, while the government finally honoured its commitment to free some 30 FARC prisoners. Speaking ahead of a visit to the White House next Thursday, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos asked the US to follow suit, along with cancelling arrest warrants for alleged drug trafficking against FARC leaders. The US has for decades supported Colombia's brutal war against peasants and workers under the cover of its so-called "War on Drugs." From: <http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-63ef-Colombia-Farc-must-be-taken-off-U S-terror-list-for-peace-progress#.VqxF3LJ9600> http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-63ef-Colombia-Farc-must-be-taken-off-US -terror-list-for-peace-progress#.VqxF3LJ9600 -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
