Colombia, Guerrillas Launch Talks

To the strains of the national anthem, the Colombian government and the oldest guerrilla movement in the Americas formally opened peace talks here Thursday aimed at ending a civil war waged for the last half a century.

Despite the pageantry, there was disappointment from both sides that the guerrillas’ legendary leader, Manuel “Sureshot” Marulanda, did not show up.

President Andres Pastrana met with representatives of Marulanda’s Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, in a public ceremony inside a Switzerland-size parcel of jungle that the government ceded to the rebels in November.

“Your children and our children have the right to live in peace,” Pastrana told the rebel negotiators sitting beside him.

The success of these negotiations is the best way to end Colombia’s role as the world’s major supplier of cocaine and an increasingly important source of heroin, said U.S. Ambassador Curtis Kamman, one of the hundreds of diplomats and citizens who attended the ceremony in this steamy south-central city.

“For the U.S., drugs are the priority, and the best way to combat them is to promote a program of peace and development,” he said.

U.S. officials met with rebel representatives in Costa Rica in mid-December, despite the fact that the United States considers FARC to be a terrorist organization, blamed for kidnapping Americans and profiting from the drug trade.

“We believe it is the best chance in the last decade, and maybe for the next decade, for an end to the cycle of violence,” Kamman said of the talks.

Along with the ambassador, observers were a mix of international celebrities and Everymen, who ranged from former Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and Colombian Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez to the local priest and Luisa Vanegas, mother of a soldier who is being held by the FARC.

The scene in the small city of San Vicente del Caguan might have been borrowed from one of Garcia Marquez’s magic-realist novels. To start with, the talks were possible because the government agreed two months ago to turn over to rebel control five townships that will serve as the setting for negotiations.

For Pastrana’s arrival, a small team of plainclothes guerrillas accompanied the president’s army security chief as he inspected the area before the meeting.

The lead-up to the meeting looked like a rock concert, with a bandstand set up in the city square. But most of the celebrities were guerrilla commanders, walking about town in smart uniforms, followed by throngs of journalists and many curious residents.

Heavily armed guerrillas poured into the city the night before, taking up positions on rooftops and in a ring around the stage. But the missing element was the aging Marulanda, whose chair sat empty on the stage next to Pastrana. Marulanda stayed away because of threats on his life, said Raul Reyes, a guerrilla negotiator.

Marulanda is a near-mythical figure in Colombia who has been fighting for leftist reforms since before the Cuban revolution. He first took to the hills more than 40 years ago with a group of fewer than 50 rebels, and now leads a well-equipped army of 15,000. He has not appeared in public for four decades and has never set foot in a modern city.

“Obviously, the absence of Mr. Marulanda frustrates a lot of people,” said Alberto Casas, a spokesman for Pastrana. “The one who has lost is him. The process doesn’t depend on one person.”

But Vanegas was not convinced.

“It’s a little less serious without Mr. Marulanda,” said the soldier’s mother, who traveled hundreds of miles to San Vicente from Mitu on the Brazilian border to ask for her son’s release. She said the only hope for her son is a prisoner swap.

The rebels seem more focused on exchanging the 300 police and soldiers they hold captive for about 450 jailed guerrillas than on any other issue. A cease-fire has not even been mentioned.

Actual negotiations could begin as soon as this weekend, but observers warned not to expect a rapid conclusion.