Colombia delegates to the peace talks in Havana with FARC rebels

Colombia’s FARC guerrillas declared an indefinite, unilateral ceasefire Wednesday, saying they would only use weapons if they came under attack by the army.

“We have resolved to declare a unilateral ceasefire and end hostilities for an indefinite period of time, which should be transformed into an armistice,” said the leftist rebels’ peace negotiators in Cuba, where they are in talks with the Colombian government to end the 50-year conflict.

“This unilateral ceasefire, which we hope will last a long time, will end only if our guerrilla units have been the object of attacks by the security forces.”

The ceasefire will take effect at one minute past midnight on Saturday, said a statement posted on the website of the rebel delegation to the peace talks.

The FARC had declared temporary Christmas ceasefires in each of the past two years, but Wednesday’s announcement was noteworthy for the lack of an expiration date.

The guerrilla group called for international observers from organizations including the Red Cross to monitor the ceasefire.

The rebels have repeatedly called for a bilateral ceasefire as part of the ongoing peace process.

But President Juan Manuel Santos has rejected the demand, saying the guerrillas could use it to regroup, dragging out the conflict.

The ceasefire announcement will put new pressure on the Colombian government to respond in kind, said political scientist Jorge Restrepo, the head of the Conflict Analysis Resource Center in Colombia.

“This obliges the government to respond in one way or another to this gesture,” he told AFP.

The peace talks were thrown into crisis last month when the FARC captured an army general, causing Santos to suspend negotiations.

The rebels defended the capture as a legitimate act of war, but released the general on November 30 in order to revive the peace process.

The two-year-old talks in the Cuban capital Havana are the most promising effort yet to end the five-decade conflict, which has defied three previous attempts.

The conflict has killed more than 220,000 people and uprooted 5.3 million since the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) was founded in the aftermath of a peasant uprising in 1964.