Residents Angry at Colombia’s Land Deal With Rebels

With the government nearing a deal to give rebels control over a Delaware-size territory, the area’s residents expressed anger Saturday that plans were going ahead despite their objections.

Delegates from the government and the leftist guerrilla group, National Liberation Army, or ELN, presented residents in Bolivar state on Friday with the first concrete details of the demilitarized zone where peace talks would be held.

Rebel control over the 1,860-square-mile territory would last for nine months, and it would be patrolled by locally appointed civic police and an international monitoring committee of 150 people to ensure that the rights of residents living in the area are protected, according to the 84-point plan, published Saturday in El Tiempo newspaper.

Hundreds of police and soldiers in the area would have to leave the demilitarized zone, which would encompass the towns of Cantagallo and San Pablo, 185 miles north of the capital, Bogota, according to the document.

Commanders of the 5,000-strong ELN have vowed to honor residents’ rights and to refrain from using their stronghold to harbor kidnap victims for ransom--a major source of their financing.

But residents--fearing the kind of heavy-handed rule reported inside a larger demilitarized zone controlled by another rebel army--have threatened protests and roadblocks if the government approves the plan. They said the government should have consulted with them while drafting the document.

“How is it possible to discuss the rules without talking with the communities?” Lincoln Castilla, a member of an organization opposed to the zone, said in an interview with a local radio station Saturday.

Preparations to cede territory to the ELN began early last year but were shelved after residents mounted roadblocks and demonstrations. The plan was rekindled when the ELN in December released 42 police and soldiers it had captured, a signal for many that the rebels wanted peace after more than three decades of fighting.