Former Senator Piedad Cordoba said Wednesday that guerrilla groups FARC and ELN are willing to agree on a cease fire while negotiating peace with the government.
“The FARC and ELN are willing to accept a cease fire,” Cordoba, who is barred from holding office over her alleged ties to the FARC, said in a press conference.
The politician, who officially has been kept out of the preliminary talks between the administration of Juan Manuel Santos and the rebels, asked her and other social organizations to “surround and take place at the table” of eventual peace talks.
Cordoba admitted that “the decision of accompanyment is taken at due time by the FARC, the ELN and the government.”
Additionally, the former senator said Colombia should ask for the extradition of FARC guerrillas “Simon Trinidad” and “Sonia,” who are imprisoned in the United States.
“Simon Trinidad” is serving 60-years in the U.S. for conspiracy and kidnapping. The FARC leader was also allegedly involved in a 2002 murder of a young boy accused of being an informant for the army. According to reports the child’s body, stuffed with explosives and gift-wrapped, was then delivered to Colombian police.
The other convicted FARC member Cordoba is seeking to be returned to Colombia is Anayibe Rojas Valderrama, alias “Sonia,” a convicted drug-trafficker and suspected kidnapper, thought to be a leader of the lethal 14th Front of the FARC’s Southern Bloc.
Cordoba claimed that she is campaigning for the repatriation of the two guerrillas because “extradition cannot be an obstacle for peace.”
The banished senator, who is one of the least popular politicians in Colombia because of friendly relations with Hugo Chavez and her alleged ties to the FARC, also claimed the presence of the Venezuelan president “is important in the proceedings as Colombia is his neighboring country.”
Santos on Monday announced there had been “exploratory talks” with the FARC about coming to a negotiaed end of the country’s nearly 50-year old conflict.
