Colombia is to stop air raids on Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels for a month, President Juan Manuel Santos said on Tuesday — a major stride in a peace process aimed at ending Latin America’s longest-running civil war.
Peace talks have been underway since 2012, but the president’s gesture was an unprecedented step toward ending the conflict, which has killed more than 200,000 people and displaced more than 5 million.
“To start the de-escalation of the conflict, I have decided to order the minister of defense and armed forces commanders to stop bombing raids on FARC camps for a month,” Santos said in a television address.
Photo: EPA
The FARC declared an indefinite, unilateral ceasefire on Dec. 18 last year, but Santos had until now rejected a bilateral ceasefire without a definitive peace deal.
Air raids are the government forces’ main strategy for taking out the guerrillas.
“As far as the FARC’s unilateral ceasefire ... one has to acknowledge that they have been complying,” Santos said.
He added that once the month suspension of bombing missions was up, the military would make an assessment on how to move forward.
“We certainly are not going to give up bombing raids if we perceive an imminent threat,” Santos said. “If in the course of our patrolling, carrying our routine military control of an area, confrontations take place, those are the rules of the game.”
The Colombian conflict has killed 220,000 people since the FARC was launched in 1964.
The peace talks in Havana, which began in November 2012, have produced partial accords on several issues, but have yet to yield a final deal.
On Saturday, Colombia’s government and FARC rebels announced they had reached an agreement on demining.
Santos, who was elected to a second term in June last year on a pledge to end the war, also announced on Tuesday the creation of a peace commission made up of politicians from the right and left, former guerrillas, religious figures, business people and indigenous leaders.
He said the panel’s goal would be to advise him in what he called the final phase of the peace process.
Political scientist Jaime Zuluaga said the peace process is going in the right direction.
“This is an step forward — one of the most significant in recent months,” Zuluaga said.
Analyst Ariel Silva of the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation said Santos is pressuring the rebels to negotiate.
“It is what any president would have done,” Silva said.
Negotiators seeking to end the more-than five-decade guerrilla war at the talks in Havana are under growing international pressure to guarantee justice for crimes committed during the conflict.
Former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan warned during a recent visit to Havana that the International Criminal Court could step in if the final peace deal did not bring justice for victims of the war.
Cuba and Norway are guarantors of the peace process. Now in recess, the full-fledged talks are due to resume on Tuesday next week.
The FARC, with about 8,000 troops, admits its insurgency has affected civilians, but denies having committed crimes against humanity or violated international humanitarian law.
The National Liberation Army (ELN), a much smaller rebellion of about 2,500, is not part of the dialogue between the government and the FARC.
However, preliminary discussions on starting separate peace talks are underway.
Still, Santos on Tuesday ordered a ramping up of military attacks against the ELN.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was