Colombia’s Top Rebel Group OKs Holiday Truce

This country’s oldest and largest guerrilla group announced a holiday truce Monday, in a major step toward Colombia’s first peaceful Christmas in 15 years and a boost for efforts to end 35 years of a multi-sided civil war.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, said it will observe the unilateral cease-fire, unless attacked, for 20 days.

Earlier, a spokesman for the nation’s No. 2 insurgent organization, the National Liberation Army, or ELN, said it expects to announce a cease-fire after meeting with government officials this week. That would leave only the tiny People’s Liberation Army, right-wing private armies and the armed forces fighting, although the rebels refused to say they would stop kidnappings for ransom.

For his part, President Andres Pastrana appealed to all warring factions to emulate the FARC and join the truce.

“Let’s hope this is the beginning of a change in attitude that humanizes the confrontation and facilitates dialogue,” the president said.

The right-wing private armies declared a holiday truce last year and are believed to be willing to do so again this year. And because the FARC’s decision was arrived at after intense government pressure, the armed forces also are expected to quickly declare a truce.

“It is the least that the Colombian people can expect, that the government ceases hostilities,” said Raul Reyes, spokesman for the FARC, in declaring the Marxist guerrillas’ intention to halt their insurgency.

“We are trying to give the peace process a tail wind,” said Sen. Juan Gabriel Uribe, a government representative to talks with the ELN.

Overall peace efforts have lagged in recent months as critics have accused the government of giving away too much and getting nothing in return.

Troops were pulled out of a Switzerland-size piece of Colombia more than a year ago to create a place for talks with the FARC. A similar, though probably smaller, area is expected to be ceded to the ELN early next year.

At the same time, guerrilla attacks have intensified with the introduction of such dangerous new weapons as exploding natural gas canisters.

In the past two weeks, more than 250 soldiers, rebels and civilians have died in attacks on 15 communities and military bases. In addition, 200 electrical towers have been destroyed, resulting in damage totaling $10 million.

Local media have speculated that the intensification of the fighting was planned to make a truce more spectacular.

However, despite demands by the Colombian peace movement, the cease-fire will not include a halt to kidnappings, a major source of revenue for Colombian rebels. More than half the 2,500 Colombians abducted this year were taken by rebels.

Juan Francisco Mesa, head of the Pais Libre (Free Country) anti-kidnapping organization, said the FARC’s refusal to abstain from kidnapping shows that its commitment to peace is “without content.”

While government troops will be safe from attack during Christmas, Mesa added, “acts of war against the civilian population [such as rebel abductions] will continue.”

Without commenting on what a likely ELN truce would encompass, Pablo Beltran, the group’s spokesman, said abductions have increased because of rising U.S. aid to Colombia, which reached $289 million this year.

“We have been obliged to increase our budget in order not to be left behind,” he said in a telephone interview from outside Colombia.

Beltran called the ELN’s expected truce “a way to create a climate of understanding and more friendly conditions for Colombia.”

In that climate, the ELN expects early next year to launch a national convention, which would include government representation, to discuss a new social and economic structure that could end the fighting permanently, he said. FARC talks with government negotiators are set to resume Jan. 13.

Further temporary truces may be declared as talks progress, said Uribe. Still, the present cease-fire will clearly be only temporary.

And Colombians remember that the day after last year’s holiday truce by right-wing private armies ended, the first massacre of the year was committed.

Special correspondent Ruth Morris in Bogota, Colombia, contributed to this report.