The numbers are staggering; nearly a quarter of a million people have been killed, there are an estimated eight million victims and at 6.9 million the country has the world’s largest number of internally displaced people.
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In Colombia’s capital of Bogota, people gathered in a plaza to watch on giant screen the agreement being announced by negotiators in Havana who have been working around the clock in recent days to hammer out the final sensitive details left to end the four years of talks.
The plebiscite is a binding yes-no vote on the accord, and 13 percent of the country’s eligible voters are required to turn out for the results to be valid.
After the agreement is signed – the date is still unknown – the FARC will begin mobilizing its troops to 31 zones scattered across Colombia, and 90 days later they are supposed to begin handing their weapons over to United Nations -sponsored monitors. The FARC must now embark on a bold new future of winning over the hearts and minds of their fellow citizens at the ballot box and waiting for the outcome of a heavily-contested “Yes” or “No” vote.
Moody’s Investors Service senior analyst Samar Maziad said that while the peace deal was positive for the country’s creditworthiness, “the approval of a structural tax reform later this year is critical to contain pressure on the fiscal accounts”. It includes action on six major points: rural development, political participation, ending the conflict, illicit drugs, victims’ rights and peace deal implementation, verification and endorsement.
There are many people in Colombia who think like Andrade when it comes to the FARC.
Although this is a huge step for Colombia, even if peace “wins”, it’s not a guarantee that domestic unrest and violence will end. “I know what is coming will be hard, but together we can cope”.
Santos and FARC leader Rodrigo Londoño, also known as Timochenko, have been negotiating in Havana, Cuba, since October 2012, and in September 2015 reached a crucial agreement on “transitional justice”.
“I am not asking you to trust blindly in peace”.
Among the deal’s most contentious terms is a pledge to give the FARC 10 congressional seats. From then on, the former rebels will have to win votes like candidates in any other political party. Uribe says the deal was too generous to a rebel group that in his view was almost defeated on the battlefield in 2012 when Santos initiated talks.
The war, which began in 1964, is the last major armed conflict in the Americas.
A ceasefire agreement was signed in June.
Obama spoke by phone Wednesday with Santos, congratulating him, according to a White House statement. “They are the ones called to build the new country and therefore called to the defense of peace and reconciliation, to promote a new type of political activity, the consolidation of civility and wider democracy”.
It will end the fighting and violence, which was important for both sides.
Criminal gangs born out of right-wing paramilitary groups that were active during the worst periods of the conflict have since taken over some key drug trafficking routes.
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What will peace mean for Colombia’s economy? It won power in a 2009 presidential election and was re-elected two years ago.
