HAVANA (AP) - Colombia's main rebel group is appealing to U.S. President Barack Obama to free a guerrilla leader serving a long prison term in the United States. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia says Simon Trinidad's presence at the current peace talks with the Colombia government in the Cuban capital of Havana would be an "immense" help to negotiations. The FARC rebels named Trinidad to their negotiating team in September, even though he is serving a 60-year prison term....

Today the Colombian government and FARC started their peace negotiation in La Habana, whose purpose is to put an end to the armed conflict of almost fifty-years. Meanwhile the Colombian government has disposed a law to compensate the victims of the confrontation. This would be implemented and verified once all the subjects reach a definitive agreement. In the meeting it will be discussed an integral agricultural development plan, a subject that has a historical background and the rising of...

The discussions, which had been set to begin on Thursday, are the latest attempt to resolve a five-decade war that has left thousands dead and millions more displaced since the founding of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. Negotiations promise to be complicated, with items on the agenda that will almost certainly cause roadblocks and heated discussion. The five-point agenda kicks off with an analysis of rural development. "Delegates of the national government and the...

A series of attacks in Colombia’s southern region by insurgent group FARC has left two policemen and five civilians injured, reported local media Sunday. Authorities have blamed Colombia’s largest guerrilla group, FARC, for three separate attacks in the southern departments of Cauca and Caqueta over the weekend. Guerrillas from FARC's 6th Front reportedly launched an assault with guns and explosives against a group of government soldiers in the municipality of Corinto, Cauca...

Colombians were petitioning to retrieve more than 800,000 hectares of land allegedly seized by leftist rebels, a key issue of the ongoing peace talks to end the five-decade-long armed conflict in the Southern American country. On the other hand, the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) was pressing the government to tackle uneven land distribution between the rich and the poor, a key demand of the movement since its inception, El Tiempo daily reported Sunday. The issue was...

The Colombian government and the FARC rebel group are holding preliminary peace talks in Norway that are expected to set the stage for formal talks in Cuba next month. However, there are already signs of some disagreement, with the government saying it will not stop military operations against the rebels during the talks and FARC, of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, saying it is willing to discuss the issue any time. Negotiators from the two sides appeared together in public for...

The Colombian government has opened "exploratory talks" with its largest rebel aimed at ending a half-century insurgency, President Juan Manuel Santos said Monday. Santos' announcement in a brief televised address confirmed mounting rumors of talks, supposedly held in Cuba, between representatives of his government and the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which is largely a peasant army. Santos offered no details of the talks, such as when they began, where they...

Nine FARC guerrillas, among them the alleged commander of the 37th Front, have died in combat in the north fo Colombia, the country's Ministry of Defense said Wednesday. Roberto García Márquez, the commander of the Colombian navy, said that among the "FARC" members killed is the commander of the 37th Front, alias "Silvio" or "El Frances," whose real name was Luis Enrique Benitez Cañola. Benitez Cañola had been a member of the FARC...

Nursing a bullet wound but looking healthy, French reporter Romeo Langlois emerged from the jungles of southern Colombia on Wednesday after being held 33 days by the nation’s largest rebel group. Released to an international delegation and brought to the village of San Isidro in the department of Caqueta, Langlois, 35, said the guerrillas shared what little food they had and treated him with respect. “Other than being detained for a month while I was wounded, everything was...

In a telephone call to journalists, a woman claiming to be a Farc member said the rebels were holding Romeo Langlois as a prisoner of war. Her statement appears to contradict a Farc announcement in February saying it was ending its policy of kidnappings. Mr Langlois disappeared while filming troops destroying cocaine laboratories. Prisoner of war A group of journalists covering the disappearance of Mr Langlois said they received a telephone call from a woman who said she belonged to the...