CUBA: Colombian peace negotiator touts hopeful results in peace talks with Marxist rebels

Record ID: 349813

  • Title: CUBA: Colombian peace negotiator touts hopeful results in peace talks with Marxist rebels
  • Date: 20th December 2013
  • Summary: HAVANA, CUBA (DECEMBER 20, 2013) (REUTERS) LEAD COLOMBIAN GOVERNMENT PEACE NEGOTIATOR, HUMBERTO DE LA CALLE JOURNALIST A SIGN FOR THE GOVERNMENT OF COLOMBIA (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) LEAD COLOMBIAN GOVERNMENT PEACE NEGOTIATOR, HUMBERTO DE LA CALLE, SAYING: "Being responsible and without setting false expectations, I can say that the results reached so far in terms of agreemen
  • Embargoed: 4th January 2014 12:00
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  • Location: Cuba
  • Country: Cuba
  • Topics: Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVASMTZ1TWD66RPZX5WHAZSNTAS
  • Story Text: The Colombian government on Friday (December 20) said advancements made in peace talks with the armed rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), were "hopeful" while also acknowledging it had hoped for more progress.
    In more than a year of peace talks the two sides managed to reach some partial agreements in agrarian reform and the FARC's future participation in politics as they look to end nearly 50 years of armed conflict.

    "Being responsible and without setting false expectations, I can say that the results reached so far in terms of agreements at the peace talks with the FARC are important and hopeful," lead government negotiator Humberto De la Calle said.
    De la Calle closed out the year of peace talks in Havana saying he hopes the following year will lead to agreements in the fight against drug trafficking.
    The government accuses the FARC of funding itself through the drug trade though the group says it is financed through voluntary contributions.
    The issue of drug trafficking is the third item of five points on the agenda to end the conflict which has left more than 200,000 people dead.

    "We've ended an intense and productive year at the negotiating table in Havana. We would have liked, I must say, better results, but we've advanced all the same," De la Calle added.
    However, the FARC criticized the government's practice of eradicating or fumigating coca fields in rural Colombia. The coca leaf is used to make cocaine and other coca based narcotics.

    "The fight against drug trafficking should not be used as a perverse excuse to continue a war in rural communities to strip them of their land and continue to allow multinational (corporations) to plunder our countries resources," FARC peace negotiator Ivan Marquez said.
    Marquez called on further land reform saying it should remain in the hands of poor Colombians and not be leased to international companies.

    "The punitive and military treatment poor people in the countryside get is another perversity of the regime which continues to hoard the land, giving it to foreigners in detriment to national sovereignty and the well-being of the majority. The whole country should demand immediate agrarian reform to end the latifundos (large estates), redistribute, restore and formalize land ownership in benefit of the immense rural masses who everyday more urgently need real programs, not of military consolidation, but of social investment to finally give them a dignified life, health, education and good life in general," Marquez said.
    The peace talks have been a political gamble for President Juan Manuel Santos who is seeking re-election to a second term next year.
    The peace talks are scheduled to reconvene on January 13.
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