HAVANA: Colombia's leftist FARC guerrillas said on Monday that reparations from their almost 50 year armed conflict with the state should be decided with the help of an independent panel of experts.
The proposal came at peace talks here aimed at ending Latin America's longest guerrilla war.
FARC negotiator Pablo Catatumbo said that in order to resolve the issue of reparations for victims of the war an in-depth history of it was needed.
He said FARC proposed the immediate formation of an independent commission "to study the history of the confrontation from the beginning of the violence."
"For greater historical rigor," he said, the archives of Colombia's police, military and intelligence agencies should be opened to the panel, which he said should include both Colombians and foreigners.
Catatumbo also called for reform of the Colombian judicial system as part of the peace process, saying it had been politicized by the executive branch.
The peace negotiations have been underway in Havana since November.
The FARC, founded in 1964, is the country's largest guerrilla group with an estimated 8,000 fighters.
Fighting has continued in various parts of the country during the talks, with the government refusing to call a cease-fire for fear the rebels would use it to regroup and prolong the war.
"The correlation of forces is in our favor for the first time in a long time and (a ceasefire) would give them an unnecessary military advantage," Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos said Monday.
Santos added, however, that "a guerrilla group like the FARC has to be given a way out. We can't bring them to their knees and humiliate them," he said in an interview broadcast by Radio Caracol.
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