Colombia's government and leftist rebels will sit down forpeace talks on Monday, November 19, hosted by Cuba, in a bid to end ahalf-century-old civil conflict, the last one plaguing Latin America. It is thefourth attempt at dialogue between the Colombian government and Latin America'soldest and largest insurgency, which was founded in 1964. The tone was tenseafter negotiators met north of Oslo on October 18: Former vice presidentHumberto de la Calle urged the rebels to lay down their arms while FARC numbertwo Ivan Marquez denounced "assassin" capitalism.
An agenda was set for the negotiations, beginning with thethorny issue of rural development. The FARC took up arms almost 50 years agoover land ownership, which is held in the hands of a few. More than half of thecountry's largest properties are controlled by 1.15 percent of the population,according to a 2011 UN report.
"The war in Colombia has mainly been a rural war thathas affected a great number of farmers," said Alejandro Reyes, sociologistand analyst for the website Razon Publica. "The rural issue is a goldenbridge that allows the guerrillas to get out of the conflict and entermainstream politics," he said.
But the two sides must also agree on how to end hostilities,incorporate the rebels in political life, curb drug trafficking and compensatevictims of abuses committed by guerrillas and government troops. Hundreds ofthousands of people have died and four million have been driven from theirhomes in the conflict, according to the United Nations.
President Juan Manuel Santos, in power since 2010, has urgedColombians to "heal the wounds" of the conflict, and called on theFARC to "respect the agreed agenda." The rebels denied that they hadany hidden agenda. Tanja Nijmeijer, a Dutch woman who joined the FARC afterstudying in Colombia, warned that peace would not result from the"silencing of weapons" but from "social justice."
The Colombian government is refusing to take the heat offthe rebels, whose ranks have been cut in a US-backed manhunt over the pastdecade. The FARC now counts 9,200 fighters hiding out in rural areas, accordingto the government. A second communist guerrilla group, the 2,500-strongNational Liberation Army (ELN), may also join the peace talks.
