Cuba to host Colombia-FARC peace talks

Colombian government negotiators have arrived in Havana for peace talks with leftist FARC rebels aimed at ending Latin America's longest-running uprising.

Rebel delegates, including Tanja Nijmeijer, a Dutch woman who fights alongside the FARC rebels, are already in Cuba awaiting Monday's talks that had been delayed for four days over a lack of clarity over the role of civilian representatives.

"This will be a rapid and effective process. A process of months, not years," lead government negotiator Humberto de la Calle told reporters in Bogota before boarding the plane for Havana on Sunday.

Latin America's largest rebel group, founded in 1964 and with 9,200 armed fighters now, FARC - the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - may be ready for a truce after a long string of setbacks.

In recent years, it has suffered the capture or killing of some of its senior leaders, and the depletion of its ranks to half what they were at their peak in the 1990s.

The FARC delegates have been in Havana since last week.

The negotiations were due to begin last Thursday, but were pushed back by four days as both sides said they needed time to work on "technical details to ensure the participation of civil society".

The peace talks were officially launched at a ceremony in the Norwegian capital, Oslo, on 18 October.

'Rapid process'

The negotiations will focus initially on the issue of land reform in Colombia, as it was a major reason for the uprising that brought about the establishment of the FARC in the early 1960s.

Four other points will be discussed: the end of armed conflict; guarantees for the exercise of political opposition and citizen participation; drug trafficking; and the rights of the victims of the conflict.

"This will be a rapid and effective process. A process of months, not years," said De la Calle.

He travelled to Havana on a Colombian Armed Forces plane in Bogota with four other government negotiators.

The Colombian government expects the FARC to give up its armed struggle and join the political process as a legal party at the end of the negotiations.

During the official launch of the face-to-face negotiations in Norway, FARC delegation head Ivan Marquez renewed calls for a ceasefire.

But the Colombian government has said it will not repeat the mistakes of the past - a reference to the last peace efforts, which went on from 1999 to 2002.

At the time, a huge area controlled by the left-wing rebels in the south of the country was demilitarized, which, according to critics, allowed them to rearm and weakened their will to seek a peace agreement.

According to government estimates, 600,000 people have died since the conflict began in Colombia, with millions more displaced.

The FARC, who numbered 16,000 in 2001, are now thought to have some 8,000 fighters.