Colombia rejects Farc call for ceasefire

Rebels seek pause in hostilities for Norway summit but president says military will keep up attacks until final deal is struck

Farc leaders Marcos Leon, Ricardo Tellez, Mauricio Jaramillo and Andres Paris at talks in Cuba ahead of a peace summit with the Colombian government. Photograph: Rolando Pujol/EPA

The Colombian president has rejected a ceasefire offered by the Farcrebels to coincide with Norway peace talks in October. Juan Manuel Santos said that instead the Colombian military and police would be stepping up their offensive against the rebels.

Leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia had said during a news conference in Cuba that their first item on the negotiation agenda would be to propose a truce in the half-century of fighting that has killed tens of thousands.

"We will propose a ceasefire the moment we sit down at the table," said Mauricio Jaramillo, a spokesman and top Farc leader. "We are going to discuss it."

Santos responded in Colombia: "There's not going to be any ceasefire. We will not give anything until we get the final agreement, and I want to make that very clear."

Santos spoke after meeting with more than 100 generals and colonels. There was no immediate answer from the Farc to his stance.

Santos said during an earlier interview with Colombia's W Radio that a lasting peace could be achieved if both sides truly had the will. "Making peace requires more sacrifice, more risk, but at the end the rewards are much higher," Santos said.

The Norwegian, Venezuelan and Chilean ambassadors to Cuba were at the Havana convention hall representing their countries, which along with Cuba are facilitating the peace talks.

The Farc named three negotiators including a high-ranking guerrilla now imprisoned in the United States, Ricardo Palmera, known as "Simon Trinidad"; along with Ivan Marquez, one of the Farc's six-person ruling secretariat; and Jose Santrich, a second-tier leader.

Palmera was extradited to the U.S. in 2005 and is serving a 60-year prison term on hostage-taking conspiracy charges.

More negotiators would be announced later, Jaramillo said. Colombia has already named its five emissaries.

In Washington state department spokesman William Ostick did not respond specifically to the request for Palmera's participation, saying that the US supports Santos's efforts. "We hope the Farc will take this opportunity to end its decades of terrorism and narcotics trafficking. The United States is not a party to these negotiations. We will not comment on the negotiating positions of the parties," Ostick said.

A decade ago talks fell through after Colombia had ceded a Switzerland-size swath of terrain as a safe haven for the Farc, which it when on to use as a base to continue waging war elsewhere – extorting, kidnapping and expanding its cocaine trafficking activities.

In Havana the Farc representatives played a roughly edited video in which rebel chief Timoleon Jimenez, known as Timochenko, denied that the group had been weakened by defections and the deaths of several top leaders in recent years. "We have never been stronger or more united," Jimenez said. "They are completely mistaken, those who try to see weakness in our tireless efforts for peace."

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Ditulis oleh: Unknown - Friday, June 15, 2012