Pubdate: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 Source: News & Observer (NC) Copyright: 2001 The News and Observer Publishing Company Contact: http://www.news-observer.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/304 Author: Michael Easterbrook, Associated Press Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/area/Colombia COLOMBIA PEACE COMMISSION TO URGE CEASE-FIRE BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - Colombia's leading newspaper reported Sunday that a peace commission will urge warring parties in Colombia's decades-old armed conflict to declare a cease-fire this week. If accepted, the proposal would require the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC - the nation's largest rebel army - to renounce its practice of extortion and kidnapping. It would oblige the government to curb violence sponsored by rightist paramilitaries and to halt indiscriminate fumigation of drug crops. The drug sprayings - funded through part of a $1.3 billion U.S. aid package - are the backbone of Washington's drug war in Colombia, the world's biggest supplier of cocaine. The sprayings are a prerequisite of further U.S. support. Members of the civilian peace commission told El Tiempo that the six-month proposed truce would spur peace accords to end 37 years of fighting, which kills at least 3,000 people a year. "If it's accepted, it would give a huge boost to the peace process," Daniel Garcia-Pena, a former government peace envoy, told The Associated Press on Sunday. During a February peace summit, President Andres Pastrana and Manuel Marulanda, chief of the FARC, agreed to create the "Commission of Notables," as the three-member committee is called. It wasn't clear what day the commission would propose the truce - which would begin in December. Attempts to reach members for comment Sunday were unsuccessful. The proposal comes at a low point in the nearly three-year peace negotiations, with many Colombians deeply skeptical of the guerrillas' desire for peace. Terrorist attacks in the United States have increased pressure on the Colombian government to take back a Switzerland-sized safe haven it ceded to the 16,000-strong FARC to launch talks. A decision to end the zone would probably be the death knell for negotiations. Meanwhile Sunday, a kidnapped German who allegedly escaped from the FARC after two months in captivity said he will return to his native country soon. Even though the army and a spokesman for the German Embassy have said Thomas Kuenzel, 48, broke loose from his captors and fled to safety, the leader of a southwestern Indian reservation where Kuenzel was found said he had been voluntarily freed by the rebels. During a brief news conference Sunday in Bogota, Kuenzel declined to comment on his release or the fate of his brother, Ulrich, and a friend, Reiner Bruchmann. Rebels abducted the three men on July 18 from southwestern Cauca province. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake