POLITICS-COLOMBIA: FARC, ELN Actions Hinder Peace Talks

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Yadira Ferrer

BOGOTA, Sep 19 2000 (IPS) - The peace process between the Colombian government and the country’s guerrilla forces confront major difficulties due to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia’s (FARC) harbouring of a hijacker wanted by justice and the National Liberation Army’s (ELN) recent mass kidnapping.

The peace process with the FARC, which is to enter a decisive phase Wednesday with the discussion of a proposed ceasefire, is now in jeopardy because the rebels are refusing to hand over their fellow member Arnobio Ramos to the authorities.

Ramos, head of one of the FARC’s fronts, took over an aircraft on Sep 8, forcing its landing in the insurgent group’s demilitarised zone as he was being transported from the city of Neiva to Bogota for trial.

Colombia’s high commissioner for peace, Camilo Gómez, who left Monday for the site of peace talks, said the delay in handing over Ramos “is generating suspicions about the use of the demilitarised zone, meaning that the issue must be resolved immediately.”

The FARC, Colombia’s largest guerrilla force, responded to the government in a communique Monday that they would not be pressured by the hijacking incident, as there are many more important matters to discuss at the negotiating table.

In the statement, read by Joaquín Gómez, one of the FARC’s top commanders, the rebel group says that “peace is not achieved through ultimatums,” and that any breakdown in peace talks would be the “sole responsibility of the government.”

If the president “wants to use this incident to rupture the process and thus avoid the responsibility of resolving the Colombian people’s must urgent problems, he will have to answer to the country.”

The hardline approach of the government and the FARC’s refusal to turn in the fugitive have become “a new obstacle that is once again endangering the peace process,” said political analysts from the state-run National University.

The demilitarised zone the government created for peace talks with the FARC in November 1998 has been the target of criticism from representatives of the security forces and other sectors who say the guerrillas are using the area to build military strength, plan further attacks, exercise their own form of justice and protect drug traffickers.

On another front, the ELN’s kidnapping of 53 people in two operations carried out Sunday in Cali, a city in the nation’s west, is damaging that guerrilla group’s recently renewed contacts with the government.

The police reported that the ELN guerrillas released 15 of the hostages Monday as a result of pressure by state security forces.

The mass kidnapping is the second to occur in Cali, where the same guerrilla group took nearly 160 churchgoers hostage in May 1999 to force the opening of peace talks with the government.

According to National University political experts Héctor García and Marcos Romero, government negotiations with the FARC and contacts with the ELN, the nation’s second largest guerrilla group, are going through a difficult phase and that the various parties should reconsider their positions.

García told IPS that a breakdown in the peace processes would lead to “the closing of a space for political debate” and an escalation of the decades-long internal war that is primarily affecting the civilian population.

The university experts agree that the ELN kidnapping incident on Sunday would hurt the process underway to lay the groundwork for peace talks with that rebel group.

Colombian Vice-President Gustavo Bell and Ombudsman Eduardo Cifuentes said Monday that with this new ELN kidnapping incident is a violation of international human rights law.

President Andrés Pastrana also condemned the ELN action. His government had renewed contacts with the guerrilla group just last week, after several months of inaction due to the refusal of the residents of Bolívar department, in the northeast, to grant the rebels a demilitarised zone in the region for the purpose of holding a national convention.

In the end, the people of southern Bolívar ultimately agreed to allow the creation of a space for the convention, in which the rebels plan to work with representatives of civil society to define an agenda for peace talks.