Former FARC leader claimed Tuesday that none of the imprisoned guerrillas the FARC wants returned in exchange for hostage releases wish to return to the guerrilla force.
Olivo Saldaña, former FARC boss now turned ‘peace facilitator’, indicated from his cell in Colombia’s Bellavista prison that none of the 853 guerrillas imprisoned by authorities wish to return to the guerrilla movement in an accord which would involve the government returning guerrillas in exchange for the release of hostages.
“What we have here is dissent within the organization … the FARC are blackmailing Colombian society, the country, the families of hostages who are unjustly rotting in the mountains … here in the prisons, are those who the FARC claim as theirs and want returned in the humanitarian exchange,” explained Saldaña.
“Today these guerrillas say no to the humanitarian exchange; today they say yes to demobilization, yes to peace and yes to reconciliation,” added Saldaña in a report by news site Las Voces Del Secuestro.
The former guerrilla chief declared that Tuesday, when Colombia’s High Commissioner for Peace recognises that the 853 imprisoned guerrillas wish to be accepted into the Justice and Peace process, “will be a historic moment for the country.”
“The decision of the imprisoned FARC members is unanimous: it is to no longer rely on weapons, violence, the guerrilla struggle or the injustices we have been committing for many years,” concluded Saldaña, indicating that what the guerrillas now want is to be pardoned and the chance to return peacefully back into society.