FARC rebels attack police station in Colombia

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) were reported twice so far to have violated the two-month ceasefire they declared from 20 November while negotiating an end to their conflict with the Colombian state; an attack on a police station on 15 December, attributed to Front 34 of the FARC, further reduced the credibility of their pledge. Police in the district of Murindó in the north-western department of Antioquia repelled a 45-minute gunfire attack or shelling of their offices, El Espectador reported, citing EFE and the broadcaster Caracol. A deputy-governor of Antioquia Santiago Londoño Uribe, told Caracol that the FARC had "harrassed" Murindó with gunfire or shelling some 10 times in the past two years. There were no reported casualties in this attack. On 14 December a former president Ernesto Samper Pizano wrote a letter to Colombia's negotiators in Havana urging them to reach an agreement during the ceasefire on "minimal humanitarian" norms to reduce harm to civilians from fighting, RCN Radio reported. Samper was president in 1993-98 although his reputation was tarnished by allegations that a drug cartel contributed funds to his election campaign. Samper wrote that it was "indispensable to protect the civilian population" before peace was attained. The chief negotiator Humberto de la Calle, who was Samper's vice-president in 1994-6, was earlier cited as saying that the aim of talks was not to "humanize" the decades-long conflict with the FARC but end it. Samper wrote that the "humanisation of the conflict whose termination is being negotiated is not an option but an ethical obligation, born of clear constitutional and legal mandates."