Santos and Lula meet in Brazil
By Daniel Brody, Editorial Director
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva met in the Brazilian capital of Brasilia on Wednesday.
The two presidents signed eight agreements covering various policy areas between the two countries.
One agreement dealt with residents of the towns of Leticia, Colombia, and Tabatinga, Brazil, which border each other. The accord signed by the presidents allows residents of both towns to freely study, live, and work in the other.
Other agreements dealt with coordinating the activities of police in the two countries, negotiations for the purchase by Colombia of Brazilian military airplanes, and cooperation in the development of biofuels.
The two leaders also spoke about how to handle FARC. Lula has been quoted in the past as supporting the idea of Brazil as a neutral place for FARC and the Colombian government to talk about peace, and Santos asked Lula to respect that handling FARC is an "internal Colombian problem."
Santos also said that in order to negotiate with FARC, that he would have to see "a real willingness from FARC, and we haven't seen that willingness."
Lula responded that he was conscious of the fact that "FARC was always a Colombian problem," and that any Brazilian help in mediating the conflict would come at the behest of the Colombian government.
"Nothing justifies terrorism as an instrument of political struggle," Lula said. "Brazil and all of the countries in the region reject terrorism."
Santos will be in Brazil until Thursday, and by then will have met with the top three candidates running in Brazil's October presidential elections in addition to Lula. Frontrunner Dilma Rousseff has noted that he would maintain Lula's stance of helping Colombia with FARC negotiations if Colombia asked for it.
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