Colombia’s leftist Farc rebels said yesterday they would seek a bilateral ceasefire next month at the start of peace talks with the government aimed at ending half a century of war, and expressed hope that this latest attempt to end the conflict would succeed.
But the proposal could complicate the process from the start because Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos said this week there would be no ceasefire during the talks.
“We are going to propose a ceasefire immediately when we sit at the table,” senior commander Mauricio Jaramillo told a news conference in Havana.
“Better said, we are going to fight for it. We are going to discuss it there in the table, but it is one of the first points,” he said.
A decade ago, the rebels used a ceasefire to beef up their military operations and establish a multibillion-dollar drug-trafficking network. – (Guardian service)