Cardinal Dario Castrillon confirmed on Wednesday that he has talked with the leader of Colombia’s largest rebel group as part of the Colombian hierarchy’s effort to mediate an end to the Andean nation’s decades-long civil war.The former high-ranking Vatican official said he acted under President Alvaro Uribe’s authorization for the Colombian bishops conference to initiate contacts with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
“Yes, I have had telephone conversations with (FARC chief) Alfonso Cano and with another (rebel) whose name escapes me at the moment,” the cardinal said as he emerged from a meeting with Uribe.
Castrillon said he and Cano discussed a peace proposal the FARC is preparing, but provided no further details.
Uribe said in April that the only entities authorized to talk to the FARC about the release of rebel prisoners were the Catholic Church and the International Red Cross.
Since then, however, the rightist president gave his blessing to the participation of opposition Sen. Piedad Cordoba in the promised handover of a soldier held by the FARC for nearly 12 years.
The FARC announced months ago its intention to release army Cpl. Pablo Emilio Moncayo and another soldier to Cordoba, while also promising to turn over the body of a policeman who died of an illness during captivity.
Moncayo was taken prisoner on Dec. 21, 1997, together with Cpl. Jose Martinez in a guerrilla attack on an army communications center in the southern province of Nariño.
Ten soldiers died in the attack, four were wounded and another 18 were taken captive by the FARC, who later released 16 of them while adding the two corporals to the high-value captives the rebels hoped to swap for hundreds of jailed insurgents.
But the rebels, who have unilaterally freed a dozen captives since January 2008, lost their biggest bargaining chip last summer when Colombian troops pretending to be with the Red Cross duped a FARC unit into handing over 15 prisoners.
Among those rescued in the July 2008 operation were former presidential candidate and dual French-Colombian citizen Ingrid Betancourt – the most famous of the hostages – and three U.S. defense contractors.
Last year saw the deaths of FARC founder and leader Manuel “Sureshot” Marulanda, 78, who succumbed to a heart attack, and No. 2 Raul Reyes, killed in a Colombian raid on his clandestine camp in Ecuador.
The FARC, which has battled a succession of Colombian governments since the mid-1960s, once had nearly 20,000 combatants, but is now estimated to number around 9,000.
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