The Co-Chair of the Peace Committee in the Colombian House of Representatives proposed Wednesday that FARC military commander “Timochenko” be present in peace dialogues.
According to the official website for the Andean nation’s House of Representatives, Juan Carlos Martinez, said that “the time has arrived to put the foot to the accelerator in the process and I deign that the highest leader of the FARC (Timochenko) is at the negotiation table so that the negotiations take a definitive course towards being signed.”
The representative added that previous peace dialogues with the FARC over the last 30 years have not included acting leaders of the oldest rebel group in Colombia.
Martinez then said he invited the “government and negotiators to look at the possibility of allowing the safe conduct of Timochenko” to the peace talks in Havana, Cuba “because we need a message to the citizens without doubt on the real intentions of the guerillas and the presence of Timochenko would be definitive.”
Martinez ended saying that strict time limits should not be set on the peace talks but that “general interest” would have the peace talks signed this year.
PROFILE: Timochenko
Rodrigo Londoño Echeverry known by the alias “Timochenko” is the third supreme leader of the FARC in almost 50 years of the group’s existence. He was elected by the FARC’s secretariat or seven man ruling body following the killing of the previous leader, Alfonso Cano, in 2011.