Peace talks are underway to end one of the world's longest-running insurgencies, but the possibility of a deal appears increasingly remote.
The Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as FARC, are continuing talks in Cuba to end their almost 50-year old conflict.
But an initial ceasefire declared by FARC at the beginning of the peace talks that opened in Norway last October lapsed in January, and there's been renewed fighting between the two sides.
Kerri Worthington reports.
Colombia's President, Juan Manuel Santos, has threatened the Marxist rebels with a renewed military offensive if peace talks between the two parties break down.
Government and FARC rebel negotiators are holding talks on the thorny issue of land reform, which tops a five-point peace process agenda.
Discussions also include the surrender of weapons by the rebels, turning the FARC into a political party, the illegal drug trade and reparations for victims of the conflict.
The FARC has accused President Santos of telling lies, describing as "mendacious" a Santos-led media campaign blaming the rebels for pushing peasants off their land, as the government tries to avoid talks on agrarian reform.
In an address broadcast throughout Colombia, President Santos has rejected the rebel's complaints, vowing the army will continue fighting the rebels until a truce is called.
"If we do not move forward, we get up from the table. I hope we continue to move forward and, in the meantime, the rules of the game are very clear: there's no truce here at all."
The Colombian government has called the FARC ceasefire and calls for a continued armistice a sham.
The FARC emerged in the 1960s in response to a yawning prosperity gap between Colombian peasants and the wealthy owners of huge haciendas or estates.
The five-decade-long conflict has dislodged some 3.7 million people in Colombia, among the highest numbers of internally displaced people in the world.
Thousands of other Colombians have fled the country.
Australian anthropologist Steven Bunce has just returned from the country, where he's been undertaking field work for his PhD.
Mr Bunce has questioned whether peace talks can go FARC's way, as the movement is no longer strong nor is it popular.
"Initially they started to fight for land rights for peasants, this is way back in the 60s. Since then, since the drug trade took off and since they've lost support and have been decimated by the army and the paramilitaries, and particularly the (Alvaro) Oribe government, which was 2002 to 2010, that was a major blow to their base. But throughout that time, the reason why Oribe was able to do what he did with the FARC was that they had lost all legitimacy. You know, their ideology wasn't valid anymore. They were just seen as a mafia group that terrorised communities, that were fighting for resources that they could use to sustain their armies."
A rebel commander who recently turned himself in says rank-and-file FARC fighters hiding out in Colombia's jungles are also pessimistic about the peace talks.
Alexander Garcia, who deserted the FARC after 22 years of fighting, says incessant military bombardments are demoralising the rebels.
Like many in the FARC's ranks, Alexander Garcia says he went to the group at 12 years old as poverty forced him to leave his family and join Latin America's biggest insurgency.
But he's told Reuters newsagency his original idealism has gone.
"There's a loss of ideology in the guerrilla movement; there's a leadership problem because some commanders treat the troops very badly. So some people are tired of going along with some leaders and you could say the old communist values no longer exist. They're over. Well, not completely, but if they are there they have been minimised and have been running thin, so a lot of the origins of the guerrilla movement have been lost."
Anthropologist Steven Bunce says the sense that the conflict has outlived its usefulness goes hand-in-hand with fatigue among the general population, which could bode well for reaching an agreement.
"It's been a 50 year conflict and also a lot of people really... they talk about older generations having only known war and they don't want that to trickle over into three generations, so there was a lot of popularity for Santos offering to negotiate. But it looks like the FARC are still being very radical and quite vague about what it is that they want. They talk about land distribution, agrarian reform, environmental policies and more consideration for Colombia's natural resources. But I think that in terms of reaching a definitive agreement, it's still a long time away."
An Australian expert in Latin America and its drug trade, Oliver Villar, believes external forces are standing in the way of any end to the Colombian insurgency.
The Charles Sturt University academic and author says the conflict is effectively a permanent war.
"To have talks at the moment is nothing new in Colombian history. It's an ongoing thing. But the chances for peace though, I think, are very dim. Funding for Colombia from the United States, which is mostly military, continues. So there's a real interest both from Washington and from Bogota, regardless of the diplomacy going on, to finish with the insurgency. So I think that's the reality check on the ground."
Dr Villar says the US and the Colombian governments' official version of the war against the FARC is that they're fighting terrorists linked to the drug trade.
"Those who benefit the most from the drug trade, those who produce, grow and distribute, are the elite themselves and I would say a faction within the elite, which I would describe as a narco-bourgeoisie. These are the people that have direct links to the right-wing paramilitary death squads, which the DEA (US Drug Enforcement Administration) knows very well that they're the ones distributing the drugs to the United States and elsewhere. And these are the same people who are also receiving the money in aid for the war on drugs and the war on terror against narco-terrorism."
Dr Villar says exaggerating FARC's involvement in the drug trade also masks the human rights record of the Colombian government and the right-wing paramilitary groups it supports.
He says Colombia is one of the least-equal societies in the world and there's great demand for change by mass movements within the country.
"So even if the insurgency was to be wiped out, resistance to what I would call state terror will continue in various forms. And the criminality that does come from drugs, from poverty and so on, which is exacerbated by the Colombian political and economic system, that too will continue and will probably be even worse without the insurgency."
