Tuesday, August 24, 2010

FARC'd

Along more or less the lines I mentioned yesterday, the Colombian government rejected the FARC's suggestion of using Unasur as a forum for dialogue.

"What the Colombian government demands of the guerrilla is that they free all the hostages without condition, that they cease the activity of kidnapping, and that of planting land mines, and they cease the recruitment of children, which is a modern expression of slavery. Moreover they must be able to demonstrate to the Colombian public that violence is senseless," Garzon said.

The government also argued that it preferred bilateral, rather than multilateral, negotiations.  This isn't a tenable position, however, given the fact that the conflict spills over into neighboring countries.  Like it or not, it's a regional problem.

1 comments:

leftside 12:22 PM  

If Colombia was serious about peace it would take advantage of this opportunity. FARC seems ready for a deal. UNASUR is as good of a venue as anything FARC would accept. But, as usual, it is about the hard liners in Colombia saving face and not wanting to give an inch. The demands are not going to get anywhere (I love the idea of FARC "demonstarting to the public that violence is senseless," while the Colombian state is the worst perpetrater of state violence in Latin America and greatly militarizing the region through the US bases).

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