US embassy cable - 05BOGOTA7358

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BOGOTA 007358 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/01/2015 
TAGS: PGOV, PHUM, PTER, CO, FARC, ELN Peace Process 
SUBJECT: GOC POSES NEGOTIATION OFFERS TO GUERRILLAS 
 
 
Classified By: Charge Milton K. Drucker; reasons 1.4 
(b) and (d) 
 
Summary 
------- 
 
1. (SBU) In mid-June and July, the GOC sent several 
communiques in an attempt to resuscitate negotiation 
processes with both the National Liberation Army of Colombia 
(ELN) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). 
The GOC hoped to restart preliminary peace negotiations with 
the ELN with the help of a third party, four months after the 
ELN ended the Mexican facilitation process.  With the FARC, 
the GOC aimed to secure a prisoner exchange to free the 
sixty-three political hostages held by the FARC (including 
the three American prisoners).  The ELN response repeated 
standard complaints against the government and claimed that a 
peace process would be "difficult."  The FARC refused the 
GOC's offer and called for an investigation into the legality 
of the Simon Trinidad and Sonia extraditions.  End summary. 
 
ELN Peace Negotiation Offer 
--------------------------- 
 
2. (U) In the first attempt to resuscitate peace talks with 
the ELN since April, the Colombian government offered the 
National Liberation Army (ELN) another opportunity for 
mediated discussion on June 12.  The offer was lightly 
rebuffed on July 24 and became public.  Restrepo sent three 
messages to the ELN leadership (COCE), the latest on July 30, 
suggesting that the ELN and GOC establish a working group 
abroad to negotiate a ceasefire.  The ELN terminated talks in 
April after months of impasse over the ELN's unwillingness to 
suspend kidnappings during talks abroad.  In July, Spain's 
former Prime Minister Francisco Gonzalez offered to serve as 
a mediator, but neither the ELN nor GOC accepted the offer. 
The GOC's offer remained confidential until July 24 to allow 
the ELN to consider the terms away from public scrutiny. 
 
Begin unofficial translation of ELN Communique: 
 
Open Letter: Answer to the Government on the Dialogue Proposal 
 
The majority of Colombians long for peace with social 
justice, the democratization of the country, and a move 
towards necessary transformations of the state.  The state 
should guarantee all people a future of well-being and 
opportunities to exercise at will. 
 
After these three long years, the current government has 
applied a strategy of denying the existence of internal 
conflict, rooted in social, economic, and political problems. 
 
 
The fact that it has moved ahead with a so-called negotiation 
with the paramilitaries, the primary state instrument of 
genocide realized in Colombia, does not mean that the current 
government has an interest in peace.  Instead, it has a 
policy of favoring those who have carried out aberrant crimes 
against the humble, unprotected citizens of Colombia for 
decades.  To that end, the Government has demonstrated over 
time that it favors victimizers while victims are left 
forgotten forever, and hunted. 
 
To have a real interest in peace implies siding with the 
unprotected.  But this government prioritizes the production 
of laws that favor the victimizers and neglects the drama of 
millions of displaced people and the other havoc that makes 
up the Dante-esque universe dubbed "humanitarian crisis" by 
the government. 
 
The denial of internal conflict, favoring the paramilitaries 
and failing to resolve the humanitarian crisis proves to the 
nation and to the world that the government does not have an 
interest in peace.  Therefore the ELN, knowing the necessity 
of searching for peace, has reviewed its proposals carefully 
and deems it difficult to consider the possibility of opening 
dialogue with the government. 
 
We know that many sectors stand ready to support a peace 
process in which they could be active, not mute, 
participants.  Like us, they believe that the nation has been 
put upon by the conflict and can only be rebuilt with 
everyone's participation. 
 
We resolve that the offer to establish a viable peace process 
is not in our hands.  For us, peace is not the demobilization 
and disarmament of the insurgency, but rather that it allows 
us to overcome the causes that drove us to war in the first 
place.  Expressing our thinking clearly is our best 
contribution towards the exploration of constructing a path 
towards peace. 
Central Command 
National Liberation Army 
Mountains of Colombia 
July 24 
 
End text and translation. 
 
 
Humanitarian Exchange Proposal to the FARC 
------------------------------------------ 
 
2. (U) On July 26, GOC officials offered to restart 
negotiations for a prisoner swap or "humanitarian exchange" 
with the FARC.  In the latest proposal, the GOC maintained 
that it would not consider a demilitarized zone, but 
eliminated the ceasefire pre-requisite.  The FARC replied on 
August 3 that it would only consider an exchange within a 
demilitarized zone, and separately asked the Inspector 
General, Edgardo Maya, to investigate whether the 
extraditions of FARC leaders Simon Trinidad and Sonia were 
legal. 
 
3. (C) With GOC concurrence, the French, via a retired 
consul, recently met with the FARC to discuss a humanitarian 
exchange.  French Ambassador Camil Rohou told the Ambassador 
on July 30 that he was not optimistic but Paris wanted to try 
one more time.  He suggested that he was not aware of all the 
details of the French initiative, and complained that the 
Catholic Church and two ex-presidents (Samper and Lopez) were 
re-engaging on the topic, which could lead to confusion.  He 
has organized a meeting with these parties to ensure the 
proliferation of channels were coordinated in some way. 
After meeting the French envoy, the FARC announced it had 
unilaterally freed Duverney Orozco, a soldier taken hostage 
during the June 26 Teteye attacks.  The FARC claimed that 
liberating Orozco was a gesture of good will and it hoped the 
Colombian government would reciprocate. 
 
4. (C) Comment: If the ELN agreed to negotiate or the FARC 
authorized a swap, Uribe's political credibility would only 
increase.  Critics who contend that Uribe is only interested 
in a paramilitary peace process would be proved wrong.  On 
the other hand, the perception of flexibility by the FARC 
and/or ELN could enhance their stature with the international 
community.  ELN leadership remains divided on whether to 
participate in a meaningful peace agreement, hence the lack 
of any real response.  Some evidence indicates that members 
of the ELN leadership are cooperating closely with the FARC, 
which has no interest in improving Uribe's stature by working 
with him.  The FARC's repeated demands to include Simon 
Trinidad and Sonia, both extradited to the United States, may 
now be negotiable but its insistence that the GOC create a 
new, two-municipality "demilitarized zone" makes an exchange 
less likely.  End comment. 
DRUCKER