With pressure mounting on Santos Farc backs off
Colombia’s armed conflict is not just being fought on the ground but in the head. And in the intense psychological war conducted over the course of the last week the guerrillas blinked first. The Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) announced that the unilateral ceasefire it suspended on 22 May would be revived for one month on 20 July. This in the wake of a plea from the ‘guarantor nations’ of the peace process for both sides to take urgent measures to de-escalate the conflict after President Juan Manuel Santos and the head of the government negotiating team in Cuba, Humberto de la Calle, stressed that Farc aggression over the last month had brought the prospect of the abandonment of the process closer than at any stage since it began in October 2012. Santos complemented his rhetoric with action, replacing the military high command with some of the most successful operational figures in the armed forces.
The ‘guarantor nations’ Cuba and Norway made their appeal to both sides on 7 July. The very next day the head of the Farc negotiating team in Havana, ‘Iván Márquez’ (Luciano Marín Arango), read a direct response from the Farc high command, or secretariat, promising to impose a month-long unilateral ceasefire to “generate favourable conditions to advance towards ... the concretion of a bilateral and definitive ceasefire”. President Santos recognised the “gesture” but said it was “insufficient”, calling for the Farc to expedite the talks “especially in the area of justice” as a bilateral ceasefire could only be possible when a general accord is struck.