Republican News · Thursday 24 January 2002

Negotiations to resume in Colombia

BY SOLEDAD GALIANA

The Colombian government and FARC guerrillas have agreed to continue with the peace process, averting a threatened army offensive hours before a midnight deadline on Sunday 20 January. "Today, we have something we have never had before," Colombian President Andrés Pastrana said in an address on Sunday night, referring to a timetable with specific dates and themes to be resolved by the negotiators. During his speech, Pastrana also announced that the demilitarised zone where government and guerrilla are holding their negotiations would remain until 10 April, when the government would have to decide if it is to be renewed.

In a 12-point statement read by the government's peace commissioner, Camilo Gomez, and FARC senior commander Raul Reyes, the two sides announced they will "immediately" launch talks aimed at creating the conditions that would allow for the signing of a ceasefire agreement by 7 April.

FARC also agreed to study an end to rebel roadside kidnappings while the government committed itself to make some efforts to crack down on right-wing paramilitaries.

President Pastrana, under pressure by those sectors opposed to the peace process inside and outside Colombia - namely, the Colombian military and the US government - to put an end to the process that began three years ago, had said he would order troops to take back the demilitarised area he ceded to the 17,000-member FARC for talks unless the rebels agreed to a ceasefire schedule.

Agreement was reached after more than eight hours of meetings, deep in the rebel safe haven, in which diplomats from ten countries and representatives of the United Nations and the Vatican participated as facilitators.

To keep negotiations on track, the two sides agreed to establish an international commission to mediate disagreements and monitor each side's compliance with promises made at the peace table. In addition, Colombia's political parties - including all candidates for this year's presidential elections - and civic leaders will be invited to the peace talks over the next few weeks to participate in what promise to be turbulent negotiations.

Discussions dealing with Colombia's unemployment - now reaching around 22% - will be part of the negotiations. But more importantly, the government also agreed to discuss the issue of paramilitarism. Colombian death squads frequently work alongside the military, with which it shares common interests, and have massacred many innocent civilians.

The breakthrough has temporarily eased a crisis caused on 9 January, when Pastrana had declared an end to negotiations and given FARC 48 hours to abandon the demilitarised area. This deadline was extended to allow for the intervention of UN staff and foreign diplomats. Negotiations had been stalled since October, when Pastrana imposed military controls outside the demilitarised area, a move that FARC denounced as being in breach of the talks' initial agreement.

In the past week, FARC bombed an important bridge leading into the demilitarised area, ambushed a patrol of army soldiers and shot down a US UH-1N transport helicopter that was taking part in one of the poison-spraying missions of the infamous Plan Colombia. About 35 people died in the fighting, most of them members of the Colombian Army.

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Freedom of press under fire in Basque Country

A Spanish public prosecutor has accused the directors of two Basque newspapers of inciting killings, collaborating with an armed organisation and issuing threats. The accusations stem from the publication of an interview with the Basque armed organisation, ETA. The interview was published over a year ago and was picked up by the media at national and international level.

The director of the Basque GARA newspaper, Mertxe Aizpurua and of the Basque language newspaper, Martxelo Otamendi, face investigation by Judge Baltasar Garzon (known for causing the detention in London of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet) in the cases of two councillors killed some time after both papers published an interview with ETA.

Otamendi pointed out that it is common media practice all around the world to interview the different parties involved in armed conflicts. Aizpurua stressed the fact that there is no precedent in Europe of criminalising a newspaper for the publication of an interview.