War and peace

FARC says rebels will not surrender weapons in event of peace

by Joel Gillin

The FARC on Tuesday said the rebels refuse to demobilize and surrender their weapons in the event of peace during the installation of the rebel commission in charge of negotiating the end of the conflict with the military.

As the 30th round of peace talks got underway in Havana, Cuba, the FARC rebel group introduced their new technical sub-committee team, while rejecting concepts recently expressed by the government regarding the “End of Conflict” agenda point.

In August, the government announced the creation of a sub-committee called the “Strategic Transition Command.” According to government pronouncements – including those of President Juan Manuel Santos -the team was to be involved in the transition, demobilization, and the surrender of weapons of the FARC.

MORE: Colombia announces 10 member sub-committee to discuss bilateral ceasefire with FARC

The rebel group has complained that the announcement of the government committee, led by General Javier Alberto Flórez, “generated confusion and biased information that disfigured the purposes of the technical sub-commission.”

The announcement of the “transition” command – which the rebels described as unilateral – “forced the FARC to proceed to form a Guerrilla Normalization Command, not a transition command, with the mission to study the return of the military force to its constitutional role of defending the borders and no irregular use for domestic public policy issues,” according to the group’s statement.

According to the FARC, their argument is that the “End of Conflict” item of the General Agreement of Havana – upon which the talks are based – only mentions the “Abandonment of Weapons” without specifying a particular group.

This, they argue, implies that the point applies to the two “contending parties.”

“In our view, this issue, which will require a long truce and implementation of agreements, means weapons won’t be used to do politics. This applies to guerrilla and state,” the FARC statement reads.

Through the FARC’s Spanish-language Twitter account, the group said “neither the FARC nor the State will use arms to do politics; let’s demilitarize the country, let’s arm the conscience.”

Sources