Post submitted by Adam SiegelRepresentatives from Colombia and Ecuador are forging ahead with bi-lateral talks despite recent roadblocks that have escalated tensions between the two countries. Provincial government leaders from both countries met in Colombia on Tuesday for talks focused on security and border issues, and Foreign Ministers Jaime Bermudez and Fander Falconí will meet in Ecuador on November 3 to continue a dialogue that began in September during the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York.
Formal relations were discontinued in March of 2008 in the tense days following the Colombian military raid of a FARC camp in Ecuadoran territory, but in recent months the presidents of both countries have expressed a willingness to re-engage—but only under very specific circumstances. The result has been deliberate and cautious talks between various government officials (with the prodding of the OAS and the Carter Center) as each country seeks to secure the confidence-building measures in order to ensure that eventual negotiations result in public victories for both parties.
The conflict between Colombia and Ecuador ultimately centers around two core issues: Colombia, internally confident that the FARC has been pushed to a breaking point, is focused on security—it wants to ensure that the FARC does not gain a stronghold at the border with Ecuador as it is being uprooted from within the country. Ecuador is focused on the issue of sovereignty—it does not want to become involved in Colombia’s internal conflict, and it wants a clear repudiation of the “terror has no borders” ideology that justified Colombia’s incursion into Ecuador. The primacy of these issues domestically—security in Colombia and sovereignty in Ecuador—means that both countries are treading extra carefully to avoid any missteps that would appear as concessions or capitulations.
As if this doesn’t complicate matters enough, an Ecuadoran judge issued an arrest warrant last week for Gen. Freddy Padilla, the head of the Colombian military forces, who was supposed to meet his counterpart in Ecuador as part of the re-engagement process. Fearing arrest, Padilla cancelled, and yet another reminder of the underlying tensions between these two countries was brought center stage. The other planned meetings will continue, and this setback will be one of many. Nevertheless, a decade of fraught relations between Colombia and Ecuador means that many more obstacles will have to be cleared, and many more emotions will have to be settled, before a true degree of trust is established. For their own political reasons both Uribe and Correa seem to want reengagement; the question now is whether strategic considerations can overcome entrenched differences in national perspective and emotion.
Image- BBC Mundo
Online Sources- El Espectador, El Universo, Mercopress, CNN
1 comment:
Hugo Chavez, Rafael Correa, and Daniel Ortega are losers in their efforts to sink Colombia and favor Demagoguery, Populism and Idiotic "Socialism". They supported the FARC Terrorists, Criminals and Drug Dealers.
The "Bolivarian" Revolution only buys the Miserable and Ignorant.
The FARC are Criminal Drug Dealers that recruit Illiterate peasant adolescents and children by Brute Force. Their methods are Coward Terrorism that kills many Children, Women and the Old.
Army Soldiers, Airstrikes and a Money War have caused great damage to the FARC
Why Colombia's Leftist Guerrillas Are Defecting - By John Otis - Time.com
October 30, 2009
Why Colombia's Leftist Guerrillas Are Defecting
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1931814,00.html?xid=rss-topstories
Some excerpts :
By contrast, as the army hammers rebel positions, many of the FARC deserters say they were desperate to get out. "Every day it's one or two deaths in combat or five or six deaths in a bombing," says a 21-year-old former rebel explosives expert who goes by the nom de guerre Visages. "Many rebels decide that they better get out before it happens to them."
Even FARC higher-ups are throwing in the towel. Perhaps the most high-profile deserter was Elda Mosquera, a one-eyed female comandante better known as Karina, who led a series of devastating guerrilla attacks in the late 1990s. Hemmed in by soldiers last year, Karina cut a deal for herself and her rebel boyfriend. Now she appears on armed forces radio to urge her former comrades-in-arms to give up. "For us, it's much better for these terrorists to turn in their weapons than to die on the battlefield," says General Miguel Pérez, commander of the army's rapid reaction force, based in the southern town of La Macarena. "That's because when rebels desert, it demoralizes the remaining guerrillas."
The exodus has produced a virtuous circle for the army. Deserters often provide key intelligence for army operations, and as the military strikes more blows against the FARC, more guerrillas lose their will to fight. Last year, an army raid that killed FARC spokesman and No. 3 leader Raúl Reyes was based on information provided by a rebel turncoat. A few days later, the bodyguard of Iván Ríos, a member of the FARC's ruling secretariat, pulled off a mafia-style hit job. He executed his boss with a shot to the forehead, cut off his right hand as proof, then turned himself in to the army to collect a $2 million reward.
Prophesizing.com
Vicente Duque
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