FARC: Is Cuba the new Colombian peacemaker?

[flamingdem]

http://www.voxxi.com/farc-cuba-colombias-peacemaker/#ixzz2CmV4z997

Posted on November 20, 2012 By Global Post Politics

As the hosts of a new round of peace talks between Colombian officials and leftist FARC rebels, the Cuban government will be supplying more than coffee and refreshments.
Havana has a major stake in helping end Latin America’s longest-running civil conflict. While Cuban authorities have kept relatively quiet about their role in bringing the two sides together, a peace deal would be a major diplomatic achievement for Raul Castro’s government and a blow to Washington’s attempts to punish Cuba for keeping ties to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

Colombia’s Marxist-Leninist insurgency was partly inspired by Fidel Castro’s 1959 Cuban Revolution. The Castro government has paid a steep price for its links to the Colombian rebels, some of whom have taken refuge on the island over the years.

Their presence in Cuba has been one of Washington’s main justifications for keeping the country on the State Department’s black list of “state sponsors of terror” since 1982. It’s more than a symbolic designation, since it threatens to punish global financial institutions that do business with Havana, among other sanctions.
All eyes on Cuba to achieve peace deal

As FARC leaders arrived for the beginning of talks Monday, top rebel negotiator Ivan Marquez announced a holiday-season cease-fire stretching to Jan. 20, pledging to suspend attacks on Colombian troops and sabotage against government infrastructure. The unilateral move was intended “to strengthen the climate of understanding necessary so that the parties … achieve the purpose desired by all Colombians,” said Marquez.
Colombia’s defense minister said Monday afternoon that the government’s campaign against the FARC would continue, despite the rebel cease-fire announcement.

But if Cuba can make the cease-fire permanent and help deliver a peace deal, the FARC would likely be transformed into a legitimate political party in Colombia. That would make Cuba’s inclusion on the terror list obsolete, analysts say, even if anti-Castro hardliners in the US Congress try to block a change.

more at link

[Judi Lynn]

1. Wouldn't that be fantastic? Love the last paragraph, too:

Santos, who is nominally a conservative, visited Cuban President Raul Castro in Havana prior to hosting the most recent Summit of the Americas in Cartagena. Santos then took a leading role in criticizing U.S. policy toward Cuba at the April meeting, calling for an end to U.S. trade sanctions against the island and Washington’s efforts to exclude Cuba from regional gatherings.

Thanks, flamingdem. Rec.

[flamingdem]

2. I was just thinking that over!

I'll have to look for more about that because I remember the visit but not that he was quite that direct in criticizing Cuba policy. Now why would he go that far, it must be that the sentiment is so strong in Latin America that his is a moderate to conservative position!

Take that Marco noforeignexperience Rubio