Drug-dealing rebels open talks for deal to end 50-year war

Colombia’s FARC rebel movement has announced the start of peace talks to end a 50-year conflict that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos announced last week that preliminary talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, have already begun.

Cuba has acted as an intermediary and the annoucement was made in the Cuban capital, Havana.

The sides have agreed to talks in the Norwegian capital Oslo, with Havana serving as the main seat of the peace process, according to RCN Radio of Colombia

The FARC, which is heavily involved in the drugs trade, but professes a Marxist ideology, has about 9,000 fighters – but has suffered major setbacks in recent years.

In a video posted online on Monday that swung from serious to mocking, a group of uniformed FARC rebels acknowledged the possible negotiations by singing and playing the bongos but they ridiculed Mr Santos.

FARC’s leader Rodrigo Londono Echeverra, known Timelon Jimenez or Timochenko, is edited onto the introduction of the song, telling the rebels: “We join the negotiating table without hatred or arrogance.”

In video, the FARC fighters sing, dance and play the guitar in a clearing. Some are dressed in olive-green uniform and others in black T-shirts and berets depicting Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara.

“That pedantic Chucky Santos who finds the need to ask Fidel Castro to help with the FARC,” they sing, in reference to the evil doll Chucky in movie Child’s Play.