The FARC supreme leader formally ordered all FARC units of the country to drop their arms on Monday, 00.00 a.m., local time, just as the Colombian armed forces are expected to, according to a prior announcement on Friday by President Juan Manuel Santos.
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“This means nothing more and nothing less than the end of the FARC as an armed group”, Santos said, adding that the final peace deal would be signed in Colombia.
“Never again will parents be burying their sons and daughters killed in the war, ” Timochenko told journalists.
Now, after protracted negotiations, the government has announced a peace deal with rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) that promises to end kidnappings, rehabilitate thousands of young fighters and implement long delayed social and political reforms.
The leader of the FARC guerrillas on Sunday called a definitive cease-fire with the Colombian government that essentially brings an end to more than 50 years of armed conflict in the South American nation. “All rivalries and grudges will remain in the past”.
The rebel gathering will be held from September 13-19 in an expanse of grasslands surrounded by jungles near the former guerrilla stronghold of San Vicente del Caguan in southern Colombia. Ten congressional seats – five in the Senate and five in the lower house – will be available for FARC delegates.
On October 2, Colombians will go to the polls to cast ballots in a referendum that Santos hopes will endorse the peace agreement. Another 16 seats will be reserved for activists in rural areas neglected by the state.
Not all hostilities are ending under the deal with the FARC, however. Critics of the peace process contend that will further boost the rebels’ post-conflict political power.
But the conflict appears to be reaching an end point, having exacted a fearsome toll: some 260,000 dead, 45,000 missing, and 6.9 million people uprooted from their homes.
Opponents of President Santos and some human rights groups have criticized a key part of the deal that says guerrillas who confess their crimes won’t spend any time in prison and will instead be allowed to serve out reduced sentences of no more than eight years by helping rebuild communities hit by the conflict.
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The deal does not include a smaller leftist group, the National Liberation Army (ELN).
