In its daily Report from Havana the Peace Delegation of the FARC-EP reported some questions by national and international press FARC commander Jesús Santrich answered before entering the peace talks on Thursday.

About the recent declarations of Colombian Minster of Defense that the capture of the North American soldier was called “kidnapping”, Santrich recalled that “there is a difference between kidnapping and capturing a mercenary in a war zone”.

The minister said the FARC were “flagrantly violating” the commitments made about kidnapping. However, we should recall that in February 2012, the FARC-EP announced their decision (autonomously made, by the way) to stop the practice of retaining people for financial reasons, which they have complied to the letter. The capture of a North American soldier in a warzone is another issue. It would be quite bizarre to oblige one force in a conflict not to capture any enemies, while the counterparty captures dozens of civilians every day, allegedly militias, guerrilla fighters or supporters of the guerrilla.

A second question, reported the FARC Report was about the sensitive issue of victims. A lot of time and money has been spent in Colombia to convince people of the “fact” that the FARC are the main victimizers of the war en that they don´t want to recognize it. So the question wasn´t any surprise: “Are the FARC willing to accept that your acts have been serious?” Santrich made clear that “we deeply feel the pain of all the victims. We are going to open our minds and our hearts for the discussion, so that the reconciliation can be real”. But he also outlined the importance of not using the issue of “pardon” as an instrument to demonize the guerrilla referring to several campaigns carried out by the Colombian mass media to point at the FARC as the only responsible of war crimes.   

Another question was about the alleged participation of the FARC in the kidnapping of a professor, which raised protests in Colombia. Santrich said it would be impossible for the FARC-EP to respond to questions based on suppositions and false accusations.