Colombia says Venezuela, Cuba help end conflict with FARC rebels

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos says Venezuela and Cuba are contributing to Colombia’s efforts to end the conflict with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Santos, who started a round of talks with FARC rebels ten months ago, said on Wednesday that he believed the negotiations in the Cuban capital Havana could put an end to a 50-year conflict.

“Venezuela and Cuba are helping us, they are saying, ‘Get rid of warfare; today it’s an anachronism,’” Santos said during a speech at Harvard University in the US.

“They know that through armed struggle they will not achieve anything. They will not achieve power.”

The Colombian president also stated that even if the talks, which are set to resume on October 3, succeed, Bogota will face problems in re-integrating members of the resistance into society.

“You have to stimulate the businessmen to accept the people who were in arms as a normal person, part of society… This is a big challenge.”

The Colombian president added that ending the war with the FARC rebels could assist in stimulating investment in his country.

“More investment and effective social investment, more equality, more social justice, that’s a way of building peace.”

FARC is Latin America’s oldest insurgent group and has been fighting the government since 1964.

Bogota estimates that 600,000 people have been killed, and some three million others have been internally displaced by the fighting.

The rebel organization is thought to have around 8,000 fighters operating across a large swathe of the eastern jungles of the Andean nation.