BOGOTA: Tanja Nijmeijer, the FARC rebel group's Dutch-born spokeswoman in peace talks with the Colombian government in Havana, says she sometimes gets homesick and would love to make a brief visit home.
"I have missed my country so much in recent years. I used to listen to Radio Nederland and when I would hear the Dutch national anthem I got homesick and sad," Nijmeijer, 34, said in an interview from Havana with the Anncol news portal, which is close to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
"I would love to go to Holland for about two weeks, among other things to explain to people why I am involved in Colombia's struggle, and what the situation is in Colombia. But for now, it is just not possible," said Nijmeijer, who has been fighting with the rebels for a decade.
She also said that she was committed to fighting "globalized capitalism" and if she were not in Colombia, could have ended up doing so "in Holland, in Spain, in any other country in the world."
The Colombian government and the leftist FARC guerrilla group launched their first peace talks in a decade last month in Oslo, and were expected to resume full-fleged negotiations in Havana on Monday.
The sides have not agreed to a ceasefire, so the conflict -- Latin America's longest insurgency -- continues to claim lives.
Nijmeijer originally went to Colombia as an English teacher, then joined the FARC in 2002, reportedly shocked by the disparities between rich and poor.
She made the headlines in 2007, when advancing Colombian soldiers came upon her diary in a hastily abandoned FARC jungle camp.
The diary, published in Colombia's leading newspaper El Tiempo, detailed petty squabbles among the rebel leaders, privileges the leaders enjoy, and how far the guerrillas had strayed from true Marxist ideals.
Her critiques in the diary apparently enraged FARC leaders, and there were calls for her execution, according to accounts of her life with the rebels. But Nijmeijer's language skills were vital to the guerrillas, and she appears to have worked as an interpreter and translator for the insurgents.
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