Killing of 10 Soldiers Deals a Setback to Colombian Peace Talks with FARC Rebels
|
Version 0 of 1. BUENAVENTURA, Colombia — After more than two years of peace talks, the finish line seemed to be getting closer. In the last few months, the rebels had declared a unilateral cease-fire, pledging to stop carrying out attacks, and had promised to stop recruiting child fighters. The two sides had even agreed to work together to find and destroy the thousands of land mines littering Colombia after five decades of war. But suddenly, that progress suffered a major setback when at least 10 soldiers were killed late Tuesday night in what the government said was an attack by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. The clash occurred in a hamlet in western Colombia called La Esperanza, or Hope. President Juan Manuel Santos called it a “deliberate attack” by the FARC and said the military could resume bombing guerrilla encampments, lifting a ban he imposed in March for the sake of the peace talks and extended just last week. “This implies a clear break of the unilateral cease-fire pledge,” Mr. Santos said in a televised news conference. “This is a reprehensible action that will not remain unpunished and demands decisive measures, and it will have consequences for those involved.” He ordered the military to hunt down the guerrillas who had carried out the attack, which the army attributed to a FARC bloc that is considered to be among the most aggressive. But Mr. Santos did not suspend the peace talks. “Acts of this nature and seriousness demonstrate once more the need to accelerate the negotiations to put an end to this conflict,” he said, backed by military officers and other officials. Earlier on Wednesday, a military official said that the soldiers were attacked with grenades, gunfire and explosive devices. He said one FARC fighter was killed. It was the first large-scale skirmish since the FARC declared a unilateral cease-fire in December. “More than anything, this has an impact on public opinion — many people don’t understand how you can keep negotiating — and a major political impact,” said Ariel Avila of the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation. In Havana, where the peace talks have been taking place, Félix Antonio Muñoz, a FARC negotiator who uses the nom de guerre Pastor Alape, responded to news of the attack by blaming the government for continuing its military actions. “It appears that the cause is the incoherence on the part of the government, to be ordering military operations against a guerrilla force that has declared a truce,” he said. When Mr. Santos surprised Colombians in 2012 by announcing that he had agreed to start peace talks with the FARC, the odds against success seemed steep. Over the years, other rounds of talks had failed, leaving a legacy of disappointment and cynicism. But in recent months, the two sides have taken several promising steps. The FARC declared a cease-fire that it said would last indefinitely. The government, while refusing to join the cease-fire, said that the FARC had largely stuck to its promise not to carry out attacks. “The end of the longest-running conflict in the Americas is within reach,” Sergio Jaramillo, one of the Colombian government’s lead negotiators in the talks, said last week, sounding a note of both optimism and caution. “But we cannot claim victory or success until we’re done, because this is still really very tough.” In February, the FARC said it would stop recruiting fighters younger than 17. Then, in March, the two sides announced the initiative to work together to remove land mines. Soon afterward, Mr. Santos ordered a one-month halt to the aerial bombing of FARC encampments. Last week, he extended the respite for another month. Since the peace talks began, there have been other clashes with the FARC that resulted in a large number of casualties. In July 2013, the military reported that 15 soldiers died when the rebels attacked an oil pipeline. Last November, the FARC captured an army general, Rubén Darío Alzate, which forced Mr. Santos to suspend the talks until he was released. “The negotiations will definitely continue, but it won’t be the same,” said Jorge Restrepo, the director of the Conflict Analysis Resource Center, a research institution. He said that Mr. Santos “will have to make a credible demonstration of military power against the FARC, and that will imprint a different dynamic in the negotiations.” The latest attack comes at a critical time, threatening some of the recent momentum. The newspaper El Tiempo posted an editorial on its website Wednesday morning describing the situation as a crisis. It questioned whether the FARC had orchestrated the attack to try to force the government to accept a full truce, in which both sides agree to stop fighting while talks continue, a longtime goal of the rebels. Still, the editorial said, talks should continue. Opponents of the peace process moved quickly to condemn the attack and criticize Mr. Santos for continuing to negotiate. “The FARC commits murder and the answer of the government is, we’re going to accelerate the negotiations,” said former President Álvaro Uribe, a fervent opponent of the peace process, speaking on television. “What that does is cause more damage to the country.” |