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Talking about talks
This time negotiations might eventually bring peace
Sep 1st 2012 | BOGOTÁ | from the print edition

Santos the bold
A SECRET known for months to a small group ofpolitical insiders first became a cocktail-party rumour and then, this week, a nationwide bombshell. In a brief televised message on August 27th Colombia’s president, Juan Manuel Santos, confirmed reportsthat a small team of officials has been talking to leaders of the FARC guerrillas to lay the groundwork for formal peace negotiations. These could start as soon as October 5th in Norway. They willdoubtless be long and hard. But their prospect raises the hopes of Colombians that half a century of internal armed conflict may at last be drawing to a close.
According to well-placed sources,exploratory talks have been held at regular intervals in Havana since January. The two sides have now reached a framework agreement. Its core is an agenda for formal negotiations which covers legal guaranteesfor the guerrillas and their future participation in democratic politics, as well as land restitution and the issue of FARC involvement in drug-trafficking. Formal talks would start in Norway butwould mainly be held in Cuba. A second guerrilla group, the ELN, this week said it wanted to join in.
Mr Santos had previously said that a precondition for proper peace talks was that the FARC declare aceasefire. It should soon become clear whether he has dropped that demand—just as the FARC have given up their insistence that talks be held in Colombia—or whether the guerrillas will silence theirguns.
The president said that he would “not repeat the errors of the past”, that any negotiations would have to lead to “the end of the conflict” and that the army would maintain its presence in“every centimetre” of the country. In other words, these talks will be nothing like those held between 1999 and 2002, when President Andrés Pastrana withdrew the army from a Switzerland-sized safe haven...