Communiqué from Colombian Government

Communiqué from Colombian Government - FARC meeting 1/11/99

The spokesmen of the government and the FARC-EP met in La Machaca, a municipal of San Vicente del Caguan, Caqueta, January 11, 1999:

1. Both sides formalized the agenda proposals that they will be discussing and analyzing during the upcoming meetings in a manner that defines the agenda and incorporates the stages of negotiations.

2. The spokesmen of the FARC-EP turned in their moderate agenda on the Platform for a Reconciled Government and National Reconstruction.

3. The national government presented their proposed agenda via their spokesmen in their Political Change for Peace document.

4. The spokesmen remembered to incorporate their public statement into each one of the mentioned documents in a manner that Colombians are familiar with.

In this stage of the process, it is necessary that the parties that are involved in the dialogues instigate the thematic analysis of past agendas and they make the necessary internal consultations.

5. In view of the previous point, the spokesmen acknowledge two upcoming meetings on January 24 and 25 in the urban area of San Vicente del Caguan. They're hoping to achieve a single agenda.

The seven spokesmen are signing.

Reconciliation agenda of the FARC

Since their eighth conference in 1993, the FARC have clearly pursued a process of negotiations with the State. This process follows the Platform for a Reconciled Government and National Reconstruction.

*Political solution to the serious conflict that exists in the country

*The military doctrine of the National Defense of the State will be Bolivarian. The Liberator once said, "the destiny of the Army is to guard the international border. God protects our civilians from enemy arms." The FF.AA. will be the guarantor/protector of our national sovereignty, respectful of Human Rights, and they will have a size and a motive that is in accordance with a country that isn’t at war with its neighbors.

The National Police will become dependent on the Minister of Government again, restructured so that it complies with a preventive function: moralized and behaved with respect to Human Rights. National, regional, and municipal democratic participation in the decisions that compromise the future of our society. Fortification of the instruments of popular criticism. The Attorney’s office will be an independent branch of public power and the nation’s attorney general will be popularly elected. The Parliament will be unicameral. The opposition and minorities will have basic political and social rights, and access to mass media, guaranteed by the State. There will be freedom of the press. The electoral branch will be independent. The Supreme Court Justice, the Constitutional Court and the National Advisory Committee will be elected by direct vote by all judges and magistrates in the country. Moralization of the public administration and civil institutions and militaries of the State.

*Economic development and modernization with social justice. The State should be the principal proprietary and administrator of the strategic sectors: energy, communications, public service, transportation, ports and natural resources in order to positively affect economic development - social equality in the country and its regions.

The emphasis of economic policy will be on the expansion of the internal market, nutritive self-sufficiency and the permanent stimulus of production, for the small, medium, and large private industry, to self-management, small business and economic solidarity.

The State will invest in strategic areas of national industry and will develop protectionist policies around these strategies. The official economic measure should be characterized by its efficiency, its ethics, its productivity and its level of quality. There will be participation from the communities, the unions, individuals from the popular movement, academic and scientific entities in the elaboration of the decisions concerning economic policy, social policy, matters of energy and strategic investment.

*50% of the national budget will be invested in social welfare. It will have the Colombian in mind; their employment, their salary, health, education, and recreation as the focus of State policies, supported by our democratic cultural traditions and searching for society’s equilibrium in relation to the environment and nature. 10% of the national budget will be invested in scientific investigations.

*Those who are in the wealthiest percentile will bear the highest taxes in order to effectively redistribute income. The IVA will only affect luxury goods and services.

*Agricultural policy democratizes credit, technical assistance and trade. Total incentive to the industry and agricultural production. State protectionism confronting unequal international competition.

Each region will have its own elaborated development plan in conjunction with community organizations, selling off the areas where the large landed estates remain, redistributing the land, defining agricultural borders that rationalize colonization and protect natural resources from destruction.

Permanent aid for national and international trade.

*Exploitation of natural resources like oil, gas, coal, gold, nickel, emeralds, etc., that benefit the country and its regions. A re-negotiation of the contracts with multinational corporations that are detrimental to Colombia. The National Energy Commission, with State participation, sector workers and regions, will plan the energy policy.

More refineries will be constructed and the petrochemical industry will be developed. The Government will inform the community about the terms of the existing contract for the exploitation of Cusiana. With just 5,000 million barrels of reserve oil, at today’s prices and exchange rates, they would make more than $80 billion. That figure is more than six times the national budget of 1993.

Colombia will come to know how and at what rate Cusiana will be exploited and how we can include its productivity in the general plans of our development. There is a need to "sow the petroleum" for future generations, because the resource and its benefits belong to everyone.

International relations with all countries beginning to respect free self-determination of the communities and mutual cooperation. To prioritize tasks for regional and Latin American integration. Respect of the political compromises of the State with other nations. Total revision of military contracts and the interference of other nations in our internal affairs. Re-negotiation of the external debt, looking for a 10-year term, in the payment of services.

*Solution to the production phenomenon, commercialization and narcotic and hallucinogen consumption. Understood as a serious social problem that can’t be solved using military tactics, requires agreements with the participation of the national and international community and the compromise of larger nations as they are the key sources of the world demand for drugs.

The Colombian Government

These are the ten points of the agenda as they were presented yesterday to the spokesmen of the FARC in La Machaca, venue of the talks five days ago:

1. Unconditional protection of human rights and respect for International Humanitarian Law: the fundamental law of life, and other laws, must be respected as an essential base of a democratic society’s construction and by stable peace. In this sense, the kidnapping, a detrimental offense against a person’s dignity, must be finalized in a definitive form. It must manage the humanization of the conflict while the negotiations proceed and it should be a goal to achieve a cease-fire.

2. Social and economic structure: The analysis of social and economic structure should concentrate itself in overcoming the objective causes of violence: poverty and unequal distribution of income. One of the principal objectives of negotiation is to create an expanded social and economic reform that serves as a base for the construction of a country where we live together as Colombians.

3. Political and state reform: in order to deepen democracy within the context of constructing a new Righteous State, political reform should be carried out that guarantees, among other points, power separation, the existence of independently controlled organisms, electoral rules, movements and inclusive and modern political parties, real guarantees for minorities and for free exercise of the opposition.

It is necessary to proceed to State administrative reform, that allows adequate structure, not bureaucratized and efficient.

4. Alternative development and crop substitution: on the level of recognizing the social character of these phenomenon, they will look for established solutions in the alternative development for regions and willing investments by peasants in the social arena, in the agricultural sector and in the regional infrastructure. The Alternative Development Plan, incited with pilot experiences, it will be the fundamental axis in the obtainment of the actions and goals that are proposed here.

5. Protection of the Environment: it tries to construct a development model based on the environmental and social potential of the Nation, distinguished by a inclusive process of territorial arrangement, taking into account its cultural diversity and its geographic individualities. The solution to the conflict also requires the decision to respect the ecological heritage of the Nation. It is essential to preserve the environment as a source of national and global richness for present and future generations, on a sustainable and rational level of development.

6. Fortification of the justice system and combating corruption: in order to reestablish civilian confidence in the correct judicial administration, it is necessary to improve the workings of the Judicial Branch of Public Power and to strengthen its structure in a manner that guarantees credibility in the Colombian Justice system and avoids impunity and abuses of the application of the law. In order to combat corruption it is necessary to strengthen the institutions that are overseen by the transparency in the exercise, application, and execution of the public administration and private activity.

To eradicate drug-trafficking, human rights violations and corruption demand the establishment of a special legal standard and an adequate and efficient administration structure made up of the entities to whom the control corresponds.

7. Agrarian reform: Colombia possesses considerable amounts of land that aren’t being utilized in an appropriate manner and other segments belong to drug lords. Through central reform and participation from the communities, an adequate distribution of land will be sought, and in the end, among other things, subsidization for illegal crops, distributing real alternatives for the peasants with moderate exploitation of natural resources and with income-bearing productive programs for the beneficiaries.

8. Paramilitarism: Paramilitary groups essentially contradict the State department of applying justice and exercising authority and they are large factors of the armed conflict. It is impossible to conceive peace without silencing their arms, which should become an exclusive State responsibility.

9. Aid to the international community in the process: the participation of the international community is fundamental in all stages of the process: as a facilitator of the formulas of understanding that drive the negotiation, economically supporting the salvation and the central development of the conflict zones, as a witness of the acquired compromises and as an instance of verification of the fulfillment of those compromises.

10. The feasibility of the instruments that may lead to a peace agreement: a true and stable peace should be distinguished by its formulation of stipulated points as a product of political negotiation of the armed conflict. The Government considers the total participation of the Colombian people to be essential in the ratification of the agreements. A democratic instrument, an object of the agreement, will be the guarantee provided that those who are outside of the State of Law incorporate constitutional and legal normality into their actions. This will put an end to the violence and will allow the formation of a peaceful nation where equality and social justice reign.