Timoleón Jiménez stated that there is distrust inside FARC-EP in regards to an agreement presented by the Colombian government.
Rodrigo Londoño Echeverri, aka Timochenko, FARC-EP Chief
Published in telesurtv.net, translated by Lisbeth Mechter exclusively for SouthFront
The chief of Colombia’s Revolutionary Armed Forces – People’s Army (FARC-EP), Rodrigo Londoño, also known as “Timochenko” claimed that is not possible to sign the peace treaty on March 23rd due to discrepancies on the location zones of guerrilla militants, fact that has backed away the advances on the bilateral ceasefire.
Nevertheless, Timochenko highlighted that the negotiations haven’t stopped and guaranteed that FARC-EP will do the necessary to keep moving forward and find a way out to the mentioned obstacle.
“In La Habana talks we are drifting from one crisis to another, till we reach the final agreement, it has always been like that”, the leader of the insurgent group claimed to an interview given to EFE.
Continuing with the cited interview, Timochenko said that “…until today we are very close to get an agreement”. He also stated that there were two agreements pretty advanced in regards to a definitive bilateral ceasefire and the dismantling of para-militarism that they wanted to present. “We had already said that it was impossible to reach a final agreement on March 23rd, but it was possible to accomplish something, nothing better than the definitive ceasefire, with which we could have announced Colombia: The war is over”, Timochenko added.
However he cleared out that such possibility is in standby due to a crisis related to the zones were militants would be located during the bilateral ceasefire. “The design they (the government) presented was basically a prison in the middle of the jungle, without any contact with civil population (…) In 50 years of war they couldn’t take us from people, now they wanted to take us out by means of an agreement” , the chief of FARC-EP said.
FARC-EP delegates for the peace talks expressed their commitment not to sign a peace treaty on March 23rd if the cited agreement doesn’t fulfill the necessary conditions to put an end to the conflict. The possibility of reaching an arrangement within the agreed term has toughen due to the complexity of the subjects and the negotiations between the delegations of FARC-EP and the government after more than three years of talks in the permanent headquarters of La Habana.
For three years, the Colombian executive and FARC-EP have been negotiating a peace agreement to put an end to a conflict that has torn the country for over fifty years now. The process is on its final stage, thus it’s expected that both parts hold a meeting on March 23rd in La Habana to advance in the negotiations of a definitive peace treaty.
