The deputy commander of Colombia’s Armed Forces will head a military commission in charge with negotiating a bilateral ceasefire with the FARC.
General Javier Florez will lead the commission of military personnel meeting first with FARC in Cuba on Friday.
Florez is in addition to three colonels and one admiral the government announced Wednesday would be a part of the sub-committee discussing a ceasefire and the FARC’s transition back into civilian life. The other names of the sub-committee will be announced in the coming hours.
“This military sub-committee will have the task of dealing with issues such as the guerrillas surrender of the weapons and demobilization,” said Colombian Senator Mauricio Lizcano, quoted in El Espectador.
The sub-committee will work in parallel with the government and the FARC’s negotiation team currently discussing reparation of the victims of the conflict.
Democratic Center say ceasefire talks are ‘humiliation’
Former president Alvaro Uribe turned to Twitter to express his disgust with the government’s decision to let high-level military personnel discuss a possible bilateral ceasefire.
“It’s a disgrace that our military is going to negotiate with their enemies, the terrorists in Havana. We [Democratic Center] are going to talk about it tomorrow at 9.30am,” Uribe wrote on Twitter.
Qué dolor que manden a nuestros militares a negociar con sus “pares” los terroristas de La Habana. Mañana nos referimos a las 9.30am
— Álvaro Uribe Vélez (@AlvaroUribeVel) August 21, 2014
Uribe, who served two presidential terms from 2002 to 2010, took a no tolerance stance against FARC and one of his main priorities was to defeat armed rebel groups as FARC and ELN.
The former president’s statement comes in the wake of his fellow party member Alvaro Hernan Prada.
Prada, a Representative in Colombia’s lower house for Democratic Center, referred to it in harsh phrases. He called it a “humiliation” and added that a dialogue sends a misleading message of surrender and can have consequences for the national security.
The ceasefire sub-committee
Wednesday Colombia’s government revealed that four high-ranking military officers will be a part of a sub-committee to negotiate a bilateral ceasefire with the country’s largest rebel group, the FARC, at the peace talks in Havana, Cuba.
MORE: Colombia to send 4 military officials to negotiate bilateral ceasefire with FARC in Havana
This special sub-committee will establish a timeline for an eventual disarmament and definitive ceasefire, through the analysis and review of similar national and international conflicts that ended positively, according to a joint communique on the FARC’s website.
Peace talks between the FARC and the Colombian government have been ongoing since November 2012. So far, both parties have come to agreements on the topics of agrarian land reform, political participation, and illicit drugs. They are currently discussing reparations for the victims of the armed conflict, with demobilization and an overall peace deal to be discussed in the future.
Sources
- El subcomandante de las FF.MM. encabeza comisión de militares que viajarán a Cuba (El Espectador)
- Alvaro Uribe’s Twitter Account (Twitter)
- Constancia/ “Es humillante la participación de la fuerza pública en La Habana”: Álvaro Hernán Prada (Centro Democratico Website)
- Joint Communique #40 (FARC-Ep peace website)