[News] Slain Colombian Insurgents Held Secret Talks with U.S. Diplomats

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20080304/index.htm

For Immediate Release:
March 4, 2008

Slain Colombian Insurgents Held Secret Talks with U.S. Diplomats

Declassified State Department Memo Describes 
Clandestine 1998 Meeting with Colombian 
Guerrillas Central to Current Saber-Rattling in Andean Region

For more information contact:
Michael Evans - 202/994-7029
<mailto:mevans at gwu.edu>mevans at gwu.edu

Washington, D.C., March 4, 2008 - Two senior 
Colombian guerrilla leaders killed in Ecuador 
last weekend in a cross-border raid by Colombian 
forces held secret talks with U.S. diplomats ten 
years ago in Costa Rica, according to a 
<http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20080304/19990108_chicola-reyes.pdf>declassified 
memorandum of conversation published on the Web 
today by the National Security Archive and 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/world/americas/04venez.html?_r=1&oref=slogin>cited 
in today's 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/world/americas/04venez.html?_r=1&oref=slogin>New 
York Times.

The slain insurgents, Raúl Reyes and Olga Marín, 
met secretly in Costa Rica in December 1998 with 
a U.S. diplomatic mission led by Philip T. 
Chicola, then director of the State Department's 
Office of Andean Affairs. The meeting was 
particularly sensitive in that the guerrilla 
group represented by Reyes and Marín, the 
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), 
was listed on the State Department's list of 
Foreign Terrorist Organizations. The FARC remains 
Colombia's oldest and largest rebel army.

Stressing "the absolute requirement for 
confidentiality," Chicola told Reyes and Marín 
that the U.S. wanted to "to develop a channel of communication" with the FARC:

I told the FARC representatives that while the 
[United States government] had no preconceived 
agenda or structure as to how the discussions 
might proceed, we wanted to use the meeting to 
describe our views on counternarcotics, the peace 
process, the [kidnapping of] New Tribes 
Missionaries (NTM), and the practice of 
kidnapping and attacks on U.S. interests in 
Colombia. Beyond that, we were open to discuss, 
or at least listen to, any topics the FARC wished to raise.

Reyes replied by noting the "historic importance 
he attached to the meeting," adding that 
"changing world and domestic circumstances" had 
brought the parties to the table.

He praised President [Andrés] Pastrana and his 
apparent commitment to a successful peace 
process. He also reflected on the "illegitimacy 
of the [Ernesto] Samper regime and its rampant 
corruption by narcotraffickers. Reyes expressed 
satisfaction at the opportunity to talk directly 
to the [United States government] and claimed 
that information that reached US about the FARC 
via the press and other sources was invariably 
untrue and distorted by anti-FARC interests.

Especially important for the U.S. was the 1993 
kidnapping of the three New Tribes Missionaries 
in Panama by FARC guerrillas. Chicola told the 
FARC emissaries that a "full accounting" of the 
missionary kidnappings "would greatly facilitate" 
future exchanges with the U.S. and that any 
future kidnappings or other attacks on U.S. 
interests in Colombia "would definitely preclude" 
further U.S.-FARC contact. The kidnapping and 
killing of three more Americans by FARC forces 
later that year likely ended whatever channels 
had been opened by the Costa Rica talks.

At the time, the U.S. was in the process of 
dramatically augmenting its counternarcotics 
programs in Colombia, a goal that at times seemed 
to clash with then-Colombian President Andrés 
Pastrana's commitment to reaching a comprehensive 
peace agreement with the FARC, which derived a 
substantial amount of its income from the drug 
trade. Chicola told the FARC representatives that 
"regardless of this meeting or any other positive 
peace process developments" that the U.S. would 
"continue its eradication and other counternarcotics programs" in Colombia.

Reyes has for many years been the public face of 
the FARC in meetings with foreign governments and 
other officials. His killing and the military 
incursion into Ecuadorean territory that led to 
it have touched off an intense round of 
saber-rattling in the Andean region. Both Ecuador 
and Venezuela have expelled Colombian diplomats 
and massed military forces on the Colombian 
border, with Ecuador having severed diplomatic 
relations entirely. Colombian officials also 
claim to have recovered Reyes' laptop computer, 
which they say contains evidence that Venezuela 
has funneled some $300 million to the FARC.

----------
Read the Document

January 8, 1999
<http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20080304/19990108_chicola-reyes.pdf>Memorandum 
of Conversation Between USG Representatives and 
Representatives of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)
U.S. State Department cable, Secret, 9pp.
Source: State Department Appeals Review Panel 
declassification release under the Freedom of Information Act





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