In a move set to end the longest-running armed conflict in the Western Hemisphere, the Colombian government has agreed to peace talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to be held next month in Norway.
The talks developed out of exploratory negotiations begun in February, and will be the first attempt in over a decade at negotiating an end to the over 50 years of conflict between the Colombian government and the FARC.
The FARC was formed in the early 1960s out of a strong peasant movement that was being brutally repressed by the Colombian ruling class. It has an armed force comprised of thousands of guerrillas. The FARC proposes a new society based on socialist principles of full employment, land rights for the peasantry, nationalization of the country’s resources and social peace. It has maintained strong opposition to the right-wing Colombian government on political and social issues, but has not limited its struggle to armed conflict.
In the 1980s, the FARC leadership formed an above-ground political party, Unión Patriótica, to unite and represent the Colombian Left in the political process. In the ensuing decade, however, over 5,000 UP members were brutally hunted and killed by government and death-squad forces, forcing the FARC to return to guerrilla tactics.
The FARC’s commander, Mauricio Jaramillo, has proposed an immediate cease-fire during the negotiations, but the proposal was rejected by President Juan Manuel Santos. Instead, Santos has called on the military to increase its attacks on the FARC. On Sept. 6, FARC commander José Epimenio Molina, known as Danilo García, was assassinated in a government bombing operation against an encampment. Molina was second in command to the FARC’s leader, Timochenko
Although Santos has been described in the capitalist media as more moderate than the previous president, Álvaro Uribe, he was minister of defense under Uribe, who waged an extermination campaign against the FARC until he left office in 2010.
An extreme right-winger, Uribe presided over a violent military campaign against the FARC in the early 2000s using billions of dollars in U.S. military aid to fund paramilitary death squads. He has expressed harsh criticism of Santos’ agreement to negotiate.
Santos’ rejection of a cease-fire recalls previous failed attempts at negotiations between 1999 and 2002. The failure of those earlier negotiations is widely credited to the massive, U.S.-backed military buildup under Plan Colombia. Although Cuba and Norway have helped facilitate the talks, a shadow of uncertainty has been cast on the upcoming talks, which face other obstacles. For example, the United States refuses to allow the participation of imprisoned FARC leader Simon Trinidad, who remains a political prisoner in U.S. custody, serving an unjust 60-year sentence.
Nevertheless, the FARC leadership remains “fully committed” to the discussions and has called on the Colombian people to involve themselves in and to defend the process towards “building a stable and long lasting peace.”
