#246 The Peace Process in Colombia and U.S. Policy
By Cynthia J. Arnson, Phillip Chicola, William D. Delahunt, Jan Egeland, Benjamin A. Gilman, Caryn C. Hollis, Luis Alberto Moreno, Augusto Ramírez-Ocampo, Alfredo Rangel Suárez
From the Preface
As this document goes to press, the eighteen-month peace dialogue between the government of President Andrés Pastrana and guerrillas of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC) was in crisis. Following the brutal assassination of a 53-year-old dairy farmer -- a sophisticated bomb was placed around her neck and detonated hours later when she refused to pay $7,500 in extortion money -- President Pastrana blamed the FARC and cancelled an international gathering to discuss drug crop substitution, alternative development, and environmental protection scheduled for the end of May. Within days, however, Colombian government officials, including the Attorney General and then the President himself, indicated that someone other than the guerrillas might have been responsible for the deadly attack. The FARC, for its part, denied involvement. Although a formal rupture in the peace talks was avoided, the incident served to underscore deep frustration with the FARC's behavior and with the peace process in general. Indeed, despite repeated initiatives by the government, reciprocal gestures from the FARC were conspicuously absent.
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