“Timochenko,” the leader of rebel group FARC on Saturday expressed skepticism about the success of Colombia’s peace talks.
In an open letter to Colombians for Peace, a peace advocacy group headed by former senator Piedad Cordoba, the FARC leader said that “it is not possible to arrive to true peace without there being structural modifications to the unfair scaffolding on which the Colombian political regime stands.”
In the letter, Rodrigo Londoño Echeverri, alias “Timochenko,” laid out his plans for a situation where a peace agreement could not be drawn up.
“In the case that it is not possible to end the confrontation at this opportunity, we advance towards the construction of a treaty of regulation of the war,” wrote the guerrilla leader.
Timochenko said that the renewed war treaty should include the “question of the bilateral use and employ of explosives and the indiscriminate bombing of densly populated zones, monitoring the complaints of the victims and the decent treatment of our prisoners in the prisons.”
The guerrilla leader expressed his lack of conviction in the talks through Twitter on Saturday where he wrote that in Oslo there are “two clearly conflicting positions, monopolist businessmen and the hard-working and fucked people.”
Oslo: dos posiciones claramente contradictorias, la de los empresarios monopolistas y la del pueblo trabajador y jodido.
— Timoleon Jimenez (@timochenko_farc) October 20, 2012
Timochenko warned that “they aimed at a surrender of the FARC-EP at the table, [but] now understand the dialogue is over profound changes.”
Aspiraban a una rendición de las FARC-EP en la Mesa, ahora entienden que el diálogo es por cambios profundos. Por eso se salen de casillas.
— Timoleon Jimenez (@timochenko_farc) October 20, 2012
In the letter to Colombians for Peace, the guerrilla leader did not rule out a ceasefire. “Likewise, we also forward the proposed bilateral cease-fire on hostilities, and expressed our willingness to discuss with the national government a treaty like the one mentioned above.”
“In our opinion, we have to to lead towards the end of the armed expression of social and political conflict that now compromises the life of the whole nation and the future of our people,” wrote Timochenko in the letter. “It is a commitment of all the guerrillas and as such will be taken with all seriousness that the moment requires.”
The FARC were criticized after the official launch of the peace talks on Thursday when they seemed to be bringing up issues that were not on the agreed agenda, including issues about the restructuring of the Colombian social and democratic model that the government said were not up for discussion.