FARC demands Colombia government release classified files

 Colombia's FARC rebels called on the government Wednesday to release classified military and intelligence files about the half-century old civil war, saying full disclosure is key to any future reconciliation between the two sides.
The Bogota government should "proceed to open up its official archives and definitively declassify information regarding various issues related to the conflict," said Joaquin Gomez, a negotiator for the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia group.
Gomez called for the creation of a special commission that would oversee the documents and, in consultation with members of the FARC, determine which records would be declassified and made available to the public.
He said among the documents that the FARC is keen to have access to are records from the Colombian military, police and intelligence agencies.
The rebel leader also expressed interest in records that he said are currently in the possession of the United States, without specifying what the content of the documents is.
Washington for decades has worked closely with Bogota on intelligence and anti-drug trafficking operations, as well as anti-insurgency efforts.
"The role of the commission would be to obtain information currently under the control of the United States, as a routine formality that would take place" in the normal course of the peace negotiations, Gomez said.
There was no immediate response on the part of the government delegation to this latest rebel demand.
Negotiators for the FARC, Latin America's biggest rebel group, and the Colombia government are seeking to end their more than five-decade guerrilla war.
The talks hit a rough patch on Tuesday, when the rebels insisted they would not sign onto any accord that requires their members be imprisoned for their role in the protracted conflict.
The negotiations in Havana, launched in November 2012, have produced partial accords on several issues, but have yet to yield a definitive peace deal.
For the past seven months government and rebel negotiators have been discussing the delicate question of reparations for victims.
The conflict, which has drawn in several leftist rebel groups, right-wing paramilitaries and drug traffickers at various times, has killed 220,000 people and uprooted more than five million since it erupted in 1964.