Great Start to FARC Negotiations

From AP:

The [Colombian] government's lead negotiator, Humberto de la Calle, sought to set a businesslike, cordial tone in brief remarks at a joint news conference at a lakeside hotel north of Oslo. He said the government seeks "mutual dignified treatment" in the talks and doesn't expect the sides to see eye-to-eye ideologically.

His opposite number from the Western Hemisphere's last remaining major insurgency, Ivan Marquez, said the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, had come to Oslo "with an olive branch."

Then he began railing against Colombia's "corrupt oligarchy," its alleged masters in Washington, "state-sponsored violence," the government's "deceptive and backward" land policies, and the "vampires" of transnational oil and mining that FARC says are ravaging the nation.

"We want to denounce the crime of capitalism and neo-liberalism," Marquez said during a 35-minute discourse that denounced some companies and individuals by name, including a cousin of President Juan Manuel Santos and a relative of 1 of the government negotiators.