CUBA: Colombia's FARC voice support for rural protesters as new round of peace talks open in Cuba

Record ID: 349738

  • Title: CUBA: Colombia's FARC voice support for rural protesters as new round of peace talks open in Cuba
  • Date: 19th August 2013
  • Summary: HAVANA, CUBA (AUGUST 19, 2013) (REUTERS) (NIGHT SHOTS) PEACE NEGOTIATORS REPRESENTING THE REVOLUTIONARY ARMED FORCES OF COLOMBIA (FARC) ARRIVING FOR PEACE TALKS (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) IVAN MARQUEZ, LEAD NEGOTIATOR FOR REVOLUTIONARY ARMED FORCES OF COLOMBIA (FARC), SAYING: "May the right to social protests not be criminalised. We hope the government - with its well-worn hab
  • Embargoed: 3rd September 2013 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Cuba
  • Country: Cuba
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA162XK54NMBT03UL0IB8EDILQN
  • Story Text: Rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) opened their latest round of peace talks with the government on Monday (August 19), voicing
    support to a rural protest in the Andean nation's volatile northeast.
    The two sides have been meeting in Havana intermittently since November, trying to end a nearly half century-long conflict in which at least 100,000 people have died and millions have been displaced.
    Before entering the talks, FARC lead negotiator Ivan Marquez read a statement demanding that social protests - which are set to paralyse 30 of the 32 country's departments in rejection of state economic policies - not be criminalised.
    "May the right to social protests not be criminalised. We hope the government - with its well-worn habit of identifying every popular protest of social nonconformity with the FARC -- does not use violent treatment with state security forces against those who aspire, by protesting, to obtain swift and efficient solutions to their repressed problems," he said.
    Marquez also called on the government to review free trade agreements that the rebels argue were endorsed with the United States without considering the economic reality of the country.
    "May this be the time to draw attention to the national government so that they start reviewing the free trade agreements it endorsed without considering the national economic reality and ignoring the precarious situation of our productive sectors," he said.
    Marquez also questioned why the government's management of rural property titles.
    "What is the reason to not hand-in property titles to the farmers, whom during years have inhabited and worked their lands in Catatumbo and other regions? Why the fear to recognise the farmers' reserve areas if there is a law that guarantees them? We demand that justice be done. I send fatherland greetings on this protest day to the students, teachers, health workers, flower growers, bakers, rice farmers, milkmen and finally to the sectors in charge of food production and to the political and social movements that today raise their voice against injustice," he said.
    Impoverished farmers in Catatumbo have blocked roads and clashed with police in the past two months to protest the government's regular fumigation of illegal coca crops, which they say is their only means of subsistence.
    The confrontations have resulted in the deaths and injuries to dozens of people, including police officials who were maimed by explosives.
    The FARC is strong in Catatumbo, an area that borders Venezuela and where the state oil company Ecopetrol has operations. But with little employment outside the farming of coca - the raw material that makes cocaine - the FARC has become more empowered over the years.
    The second biggest rebel group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), also operates in the area.
    The protesters want a substantial increase in spending on roads, health, education and job creation.
    Police claim the rebels are behind the protests and have fomented the unrest but farmers deny that.
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