No military or verbal truce for FARC rebels, Colombia says

BOGOTA (Reuters) – Colombia’s government will not hold back militarily or with words in its offensive against Marxist rebels, President Juan Manuel Santos said yesterday, after FARC guerrillas said his hostile attitude was threatening peace negotiations.

Latin America’s longest-running insurgency has heated up in recent weeks after a series of kidnappings and conflicts across the country while government and rebel negotiators meet in Cuba to try to reach a deal to end the five-decades-old war.

Both sides traded barbs this week, with Santos saying rebels should compensate thousands of farmers who were forced to flee their lands, and FARC leader Timochenko charging that Santos’ statements were hampering delicate talks in Havana.

“The gauge for the government is in Cuba. As we move forward (with the peace process) we are satisfied. If we do not move forward, we get up from the table,” Santos said in a weekly address broadcast on local television.

“Here there is no truce of any kind, not militarily, not judicial, not even verbal,” he said.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC, has repeatedly called for a bilateral ceasefire, which the government flatly rejects. The FARC ended a two-month unilateral ceasefire on Jan. 20.

Since then fighting has heated up, especially in southern Colombia, where guerrillas maintain a strong presence, and which is a key route for smuggling drugs.

The war of words is also simmering.

In a letter published on Friday, FARC leader Timochenko called on Santos to help “save” the peace process. “Peace is saved with concrete agreements, and not with letters and pronouncements,” Santos retorted on Saturday. Various peace efforts in Colombia since the 1980s have brought mixed success, with some smaller armed groups demobilizing. But the FARC, Latin America’s biggest rebel group, has pressed on, funded in large part by drug trafficking.