Colombia rebuffs FARC's 'thorny' ceasefire
Bogota (AFP) - Colombia's president on Thursday rebuffed a ceasefire by the FARC guerrillas, calling it a gift with "thorns," as an attack by rival rebel group ELN dashed hopes of a respite from the conflict.
President Juan Manuel Santos welcomed Wednesday's declaration of an indefinite unilateral ceasefire by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), but stuck to his refusal to declare a bilateral truce.
His office issued a statement praising the FARC's move -- the leftist rebels' first indefinite ceasefire since they opened peace talks with the government two years ago -- as a "good start toward de-escalating the conflict."
But Santos, who has faced fierce criticism from the opposition for negotiating with the guerrillas, added that there was more to the gesture than met the eye.
He underlined that the ceasefire is not unconditional: The FARC have said they will retaliate if their fighters come under attack.
"They've just sent us a Christmas gift: a unilateral, indefinite ceasefire.... It's like a flower we've received," the president said in a speech.
"But when we open the gift there's a stem full of thorns."
The leading critic of the peace process, Senator Alvaro Uribe -- a former president who mentored Santos and reacted with disgust when his one-time protege opened negotiations with the FARC -- said the rebels' ceasefire declaration amounted to "blackmail."
"The FARC wants the army to stay quiet so they can fortify themselves or blame the military if the violence continues," he wrote on Twitter.
However, the European Union and the United Nations office in Colombia both welcomed the ceasefire declaration and voiced optimism it would accelerate the peace process.
The FARC had declared Christmas ceasefires in each of the past two years, but this is the first that does not carry an expiration date.
The talks in the Cuban capital Havana are the most promising bid yet to end the five-decade conflict, which has defied three previous attempts.
- ELN attack -
But in a sign of the difficulties still ahead, the National Liberation Army (ELN), a rival guerrilla group, attacked an army patrol Wednesday in the eastern department of Arauca, killing two soldiers and wounding three civilians, the military said.
The wounded civilians were left "fighting for their lives," the army said.
The Santos administration and the ELN this year held preliminary talks on beginning a peace process, but so far they have not officially sat down at the negotiating table.
Santos said Wednesday no talks with the ELN could be opened unless they freed the mayor of the northwestern town of Alto Baudo, whom the government accuses the rebels of kidnapping on Tuesday.
"We know the ELN has this mayor," he said.
"If they really want to enter a peace process, they have to renounce this tactic of kidnapping, which is one of the most cowardly crimes that any organization can have."
The Colombian conflict has drawn in multiple leftist rebel groups, right-wing paramilitaries and drug gangs at various times since the FARC was founded in the aftermath of a peasant uprising in 1964.
The fighting has killed 220,000 people and uprooted more than five million, according to the government.
Santos, who made the peace process the centerpiece of his administration, has repeatedly rejected the FARC's demands for a bilateral ceasefire, arguing the rebels would use it to regroup.
The talks were thrown into crisis last month when the FARC captured an army general who headed an anti-rebel task force in the jungle-covered department of Choco, their highest-ranking captive in 50 years of conflict.
They defended the move as a legitimate act of war taken in the absence of a ceasefire, but released the general on November 30 to revive the stalled peace negotiations.
