IN PRINCIPLE, Colombia’s government and the FARC leftist army both think it would be a good idea to shoot less at one another while they negotiate an end to their 50-year war. In practice, that is difficult. Violence has flared since April, when the FARC attacked an army patrol, killing 11 soldiers. The attack breached a unilateral ceasefire that the FARC declared in December. The government responded by resuming bombing raids on the guerrillas.
The situation has since deteriorated. An attack on a FARC camp in south-west Colombia on May 21st killed 27 guerrillas, including a former member of the negotiating team, and prompted the FARC formally to end its ceasefire. By May 26th another 15 rebels and two civilians had been killed in several skirmishes with the army.
The escalation has angered ordinary Colombians, who are impatient with the slow pace of the peace talks, which started in November 2012. It has hardened their hostility to the guerrillas. That will make it more difficult for Colombia’s president, Juan Manuel Santos, to win political backing for an eventual peace settlement. But it has not disrupted the peace process itself.
The talks resumed in Havana on May 25th. The government strengthened its team by adding the foreign minister, María Ángela Holguín, and Gonzalo Restrepo, a former chief executive of the Éxito Group, a retailer. His role...
from The Economist: The Americas http://ift.tt/1J8XnTt
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