MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Santos warns FARC if peace talks collapse they will end in “the grave or in prison”

The Colombian president and public opinion are becoming frustrated with the slow moving peace talks

Colombia's FARC rebel leaders negotiating peace with the government must return to the jungle and end their days on the battlefield or in prison if talks under way in Cuba collapse, warned President Juan Manuel Santos.

Santos, who bet his political legacy on bringing peace to Colombia, said the FARC, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, has little choice but to turn in their weapons and end a conflict that has killed more than 200,000 people since it began five decades ago.

“They would have to return to Colombia and face the destiny of all other FARC leaders who ended up in the grave or in prison,” Santos explained, when asked what would happen if the talks failed.

More than three dozen FARC commanders are in Havana working through a five-point agenda that would let the two sides declare peace. Santos said FARC leaders who remain on the battlefield such as Rodrigo Londono, known by his war alias Timochenko, would be tracked down and captured or killed.

In his final year of a four-year term, Santos said he is not concerned the Marxist rebels' inclusion in the political system would shift the tone in Colombia toward the extreme left, calling their Communist rhetoric out of touch with a modern society. On the contrary, he said, their involvement would strengthen the country's democracy.

“The FARC, with its antiquated Communist discourse from the 1960s, will not go anywhere. It's a discourse that is totally obsolete,” said the president, the scion of one of the nation's wealthiest and most powerful families.

“If it modernizes, if it realizes that the concept it has of how a state functions in today's world has no validity, that it has been a failure, if it changes the discourse, then it could have an option,” said Santos about the FARC political hopes.

Santos is also running out of time because his four years are coming to an end and his re-election bid in May 2014 is not receiving a good public opinion message. In effect Colombian public opinion seems to be getting fed up with the ongoing peace talks and would prefer the iron hand of his predecessor Alvaro Uribe who had no mercy towards the guerrilla, turned the tide back and put them on the run

The latest opinion poll from Polimetría for Caracol Radio the main broadcaster in Colombia showed that 29% would vote for an Uribista candidate before Mr Santos, 24%, if elections were held this August.An 8% supports a left wing candidate, 3% others and 35% doest not know or prefers not to reply.

Last February Santos re-election had a support of 28% and an Uribista candidate, 18%.