GOC POSES NEGOTIATION OFFERS TO GUERRILLAS

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
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