According to a joint communique, the two sides have reached an agreement on a final and definitive bilateral ceasefire, the abandonment of arms, security measures against paramilitary organisations and the prosecution of criminal behaviour that may threaten the implementation of peace agreements. Mr. Ban announced he also will be there, and the presidents of Cuba, Venezuela and Chile – the three nations sponsoring the now nearly 4-year-old peace talks in Havana – were also expected to attend.
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Colombia’s government and the FARC guerrilla force agreed Wednesday on a definitive ceasefire, taking one of the last steps towards ending Latin America’s longest civil war.
The deal is to be formally announced Thursday at a ceremony with Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC commander Timoleon Jimenez.
Foreign leaders and officials including UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon would attend the ceremony early on Thursday afternoon, it added.
Spanning more than half a century, the conflict has also involved other rebel groups and is estimated to have claimed more than 250,000 lives and displaced almost seven million people.
“Tomorrow will be a great day!” he wrote on Twitter Wednesday.
Individuals acquainted with the discussions state the contract, whilst not your final peace contract, indicates both attributes have chose to finish a turmoil that started in 1964 once the Revolutionary Military of Colombia, or FARC, was started like a peasant activity within the hills of Tolima state.
After more than three years of often prickly negotiations in the Cuban capital, President Juan Manuel Santos’ government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, announced Wednesday that they had settled the final differences on how 7,000 rebel fighters will demobilize and hand over their weapons once a peace accord is implemented. And in Santos, a US -educated economist and scion of one of Colombia’s richest families, the rebels found a trusted partner who hailed from the conservative elite but wasn’t bound by its prejudices.
Likewise, other attendants will be the President of the Dominican Republic, in his capacity as President of CELAC; the President of El Salvador, and the special envoys for the peace process from the United States and the European Union.
“The peace deal will only further add to the sense that this is a completely new Colombia than the Colombia of 20 years ago”, he added. Negotiators missed a self-imposed deadline for signing the final accord in March.
The Colombian conflict started as a rural uprising in the 1960s.
The majority of Colombians alive today have never known their country to be undivided and at peace.
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The Colombian government maintains that an eventual final peace accord should be put to a vote in a referendum. Polls say most Colombians can’t muster the thought of seeing rebel leaders behind atrocious war crimes walking the streets freely let alone occupying seats in a democratic congress whose legitimacy the FARC didn’t even recognize until recently.
