Written by Secretariat of the FARC-EP

April 03, 2009

Please receive the cordial greeting of the guerrillas of the FARC - EP.

March 24, 2009.

The epistolary dialogue about the problem of war and peace, assembles each day more and more Colombians, and stirs up the adherence of the most varied organizations and personalities of the world, under the certainty of the political character that covers the confrontation.

We are sure that the recent unilateral liberation of six prisoners to instances of your important management, stimulates the collective effort for the Solution that we are looking to the immense drama that Colombia lives.

Colombians for the peace is trying to give a birth to the hope of the country that it feels deeply to be a national being which means that our historical destination cannot be either the civil war or the indefinite subjection to a corrupt and unjust, eminently militaristic Regime that guards political and economic interests of an oligarchic minority and of a privileged, undemocratic elite which excludes the society, deaf to the anxiety of the national majorities and insensible to the claims and needs of the humble people.

  As FARC - EP we are sure that another Colombia is possible and that it can be forged to political alternatives towards the elaboration of the project of a new society more equal, enclosing and fair.

We want to repeat that we are ready for an exchange of the war prisoners and in disposition not to do the dialogue place an insuperable obstacle, privileging the freedom of the prisoners in power of the contending parts.

For our spokesmen Pablo Catatumbo, Carlos Antonio Lozada and Fabián Ramírez we claim effective guarantees recorded in protocols which are agreed with us, that define way conditions, time and place, and publicized with enough anticipation.

 It becomes necessary that in addition to the CPP accompaniment there has to be observers of the international community.

These requirements are not a caprice. You and the whole country attended the provocations and the real risk that made a detour and almost they frustrate the unilateral liberation of four uniformed ones, of Alan Jara y Sigifredo López who relieves us of recounting previous innumerable situations of identical invoice and conception.

 In its missive they ask us to return to the topic of the economic retentions, on which we previously already reflect with all our frankness. It happens that the government, for the sake of its struggle counterinsurgent, impels an artificial and lying main opinion looking for an fallacious and manipulative effect in the population .

The official numbers insist, across an insistent campaign, that the FARC-EP has more than     3. 800 retained ones by economic reasons under its control.

We have consulted with all military-political structures of us which are deployed in the national territory and can report that actually, there exist only 9 retained ones under the responsibility of the FARC - EP according to the concept of the law 002.

The militarism at any cost and the disinformation that distinguishes this government has poisoned his recognized perfidy in fact. We remember that in the previous letter we enumerate the universe of the actors in Colombia, who practice this form.

We want to stress the importance of keeping the freedom flag for the political prisoners, most of whom are victims of assemblies not different from the governmental strategy of dissuasion to any project attempt of alternative and political option, as well as also not to allow to extinguish the struggle on these official and systematical crimes publicized like "false positives", the forced disappearances and the displacements that shake the world opinion.

We are analyzing the proposals of Senator Piedad Córdoba directed to invigorate the way towards the peace with social justice, and in this frame we announce the commitment to send to their relatives the evidences that these 20 military men and police officers are alive who are our prisoners at the moment , when we have favorable conditions.

 Bearing in mind the same request, the rest of the biggest Guevara will be dedicated to his mother in date and place that we will indicate further on when the situation of public order should allow it, simultaneously that we raise the request to Colombians for the Peace to demand the national government the delivery of the corpses of commanders Raúl Reyes and Iván Ríos to their relatives.

Yours sincerely:

Secretariat of the Central Staff of the FARC - EP

Mountains of Colombia.