Colombia’s largest rebel group FARC will negotiate an end to the country’s armed conflict with the government “without hatred or arrogance,” said rebel leader “Timochenko” Monday.
The supreme rebel leader Rodrigo Londoño Echeverri, alias “Timoleon Jimenez” or better known as Timochenko, said this by means of a video in his first public statement since President Juan Manuel Santos announced the beginning of “exploratory conversations” to reach peace one week ago.
Apart from a brief statement from the guerrilla leader, the FARC video showed various youth of the FARC rapping and branding Santos as “pedantic and bourgeois” for needing to ask the Cuban government to mediate in peace talks between the Colombian government and the largest guerrilla group of the country.
“I’m going to Havana, this time to talk to the bourgeois that sought us but could not defeat us. I’m going to Havana, this time to talk with those that accused me of lying about peace. I’m going to Havana, so they know that with this emotion I’m going to talk about the fate of my nation,” said part of the lyrics of the song.
The video is the FARC’s first confirmation of talks between the rebels and the government. The Colombian government is expected to announce the beginning of formal peace talks this week.
