[News] Slain Colombian Insurgents Held Secret Talks with U.S. Diplomats
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Tue Mar 4 11:18:58 EST 2008
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
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863-9977
www.Freedomarchives.org
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