Colombia: Cease-fire between FARC and government to affect Colombia plan?

After years of conflict, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC and the central government have signed a nine-point peace plan, bringing hope for a return to a life with social justice in this war-torn country. It could also mean a forced about-turn in US policy in the continent.

The Colombian government representatives Camilo Gomez (High Commissioner for Peace) and Special Envoy Juan Gabriel Uribe and the Commander-in-Chief of FARC Manuel Marulanda Velez and his spokespersons from the Table for Dialogue and Negotiation signed a nine-point document in which both sides agreed to an immediate cease-fire.

For the time being, the areas occupied by the two forces will remain the same, on either side of a dividing line composed by five provinces. Both sides agree to respect all the democratically-elected persons and government officers, while an agenda is drawn up to begin negotiations for peace. The document refers to a “negotiated political solution...without armed conflict”.

FARC insisted that the government renounce paramilitary activities, including kidnapping of politicians, which has sown a climate of terror in the country and which FARC has been combating in its campaign for social justice in another of South America’s cases of power-hungry oligarchies holding down an impoverished people, under the protective umbrella of the United States of America.

The document referred to the “historical responsibility before the people of Colombia that in the middle of difficulties and sacrifices, there is faith and hope that they can live in peace in their country with social justice”.

This cease-fire could mean an early exit for the United States’ “advisors” which are backing the regime in Bogota. These soldiers have been actively combating FARC revolutionary forces under the pretext that FARC was responsible for the supply of cocaine onto the streets of the USA. This claim was exposed as untrue in a recent article published by Pravda.Ru (Coca versus lies: FARC victim of false accusations).

The US policy in South America is a history of support for oppressive regimes whose members, corrupted by an over-zealous CIA, are ready to open up the continent for the incursions of the US financial institutions, which bleed the continent and its people dry.

Juan BLANCO