By Richard McColl
BOGOTA, Colombia
The FARC guerrilla group has expressed a willingness to ask for forgiveness from Colombia and from its victims during its decades-long conflict with the government.
“We have always made it clear here and in our statements, that we will fully recognize those actions for which we are responsible within the framework of the armed conflict,” FARC spokesperson Carlos Arturo Lozada said late Wednesday.
He also said the group would like Colombia to organize a “collective day of pardon,” in order that all victims of the conflict could be remembered.
“We have demonstrated our willingness as well and call on Colombian society to create a day for national reconciliation and remembrance of the victims,” said Lozano.
The declaration, made by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, was a response to a verbal challenge issued by former FARC kidnap victim and current congresswoman for the Liberal party, Clara Rojas, at a forum for peace in Washington on Tuesday.
“It would be good if they would recognize their victims and say, ‘that we also have made mistakes and we have created damage and we take responsibility for our actions,’” said Rojas, the former campaign manager to one-time presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, who was also held captive for six years by the FARC.
“And why not ask publicly for forgiveness not only to the victims but also to the whole country which has suffered indirectly by way of all of their victims?,” Rojas added before an audience that included U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and various members of the U.S. Congress.
The FARC, which has continually preferred to refer to themselves as “the first victims” of the Colombian armed conflict that dates back to 1964, has been engaged in peace dialogues with the Colombian government in Havana since November 2012.
Agreements have been reached on agrarian reform, political participation and illicit drugs. Presently, negotiators from the are engaged in discussions regarding the rights of the victims and how to end the conflict.
The most recent survey showed Colombians favor the talks but many remain skseptical of the FARC and their motives, particularly after failed peace talks during the presidency of Andres Pastrana.
Pastrana ceded an area of land the size of Switzerland to the guerrilla group between 1998 and 2002 in which to hold the talks. But it was then used by the FARC to re-arm and retrain its forces. The issue of reconciliation for the victims of the conflict remains a divisive topic.
In a report released this week by Reconciliacion Colombia, an umbrella group of 47 entities in the media, the private sector and international development organizations, John Paul Lederach, a world-renowned authority on the construction of peace said establishing peace will be difficult.
“There is no clean slate with regards to reconciliation. One of the characteristics of reconciliation is to remember and change. There is no forgiving and forgetting. We must remember a painful and difficult history and acknowledge what has taken place,” he said.
