Havana - Peace negotiators from the Colombian government and FARC guerrillas traded accusations Monday over a clash that left 11 soldiers dead last week, but vowed to continue the two-year-old peace process.
Also Monday President Juan Manuel Santos was booed by protesters for the second time in as many days over his handling of the peace process.
Demonstrators in Medellin, where the president travelled to attend a meeting with business leaders, blew 'vuvuzela' horns and waved banners as they charged he was not showing enough support for the military.
On Sunday opponents of the peace process interrupted the president with shouts and the blowing of whistles at a tribute in Bogota to soldiers fallen in Latin America's oldest armed conflict.
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) insisted the army provoked the recent clash, which left 11 soldiers and two rebels dead, by laying siege to its fighters, and said the unilateral ceasefire they declared last December was still in force.
But the government's chief negotiator at talks to end the five-decade conflict, Humberto de la Calle, said the FARC had violated their truce.
"The FARC broke their own word, their promise to declare and respect a unilateral ceasefire," he told journalists in Havana, where the talks are being held.
However, he said the government was committed to continuing the peace process.
"Despite everything, despite what some people say, dialogue is the instrument that can end this war in the least painful, least drawn-out and above all the strongest and most lasting manner. Ending the war is more imperative now than ever," he said.
AFP
