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Slain Colombian Terrorist (Reyes)Held Secret Talks with U.S. Diplomats

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20080304/index.htm

declassified document from the U.S. national security archives.

so much for the policy of not negotiating with terrorists. But we have seen that policy broken before during iran-contra.

Now being that Ecuador and Venezuela, held meetings with the FARC to mediate a hostage release and were deemed as "supporting" the FARC for doing so. Does that mean the U.S. is also supporting the FARC with the meeting.

I am pretty sure the U.S. doesn´t support FARC, but it does show a double standard, by us here and by the U.S. and Colombian media.

By cali373 on Mar 14, 2008, 10:12 in Politics & the war.

juancegomez says on Mar 14, 2008, 11:18:

They were not thaaaaat secret...by now, at least.

Andrés Pastrana mentions the event in his book about the peace process.

A Colombian government representative was also present.

Nothing too strange about negotiating (or just talking) at a time when FARC were in talks with the Colombian government.

Too bad FARC killed three U.S. citizens in 1999 and failed to reasonably punish those responsible, making those earlier talks almost meaningless.

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Mr. Hollywood says on Mar 14, 2008, 14:59:

I actually read the whole document. It's an interesting insight into both the US Gov and the mind of Raul Reyes. Reyes sounds strangely earnest on the subject of things like agrarian reform and the "disintegration of rural culture" yet completely in denial or dishonest as he denies that the FARC has any involvement in kidnapping.

It's worth reading just to understand the form this kind of dialogue often takes.

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cali373 says on Mar 15, 2008, 08:22:

My question is what did the US Gov want out of this meeting?

Smile if you are a thinker!

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Mr. Hollywood says on Mar 17, 2008, 09:40:

That seems obvious: A back channel line of communication and influence. If things had unfolded differently in the Pastrana-Farc negotiations, it would have been a valuable line of communications.

Sometimes the gap is just to large to span, though.

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