Avila and other analysts predict the agreement will win the plebiscite but that the vote may be close because of the revulsion many Colombians feel for the FARC.
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It was 1997, and the government had been fighting the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, for decades.
De la Calle told a news conference yesterday that he’s not yet sure when the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia will formally sign the deal to end more than a half-century of conflict.
Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos sent the text of a peace accord with Marxist FARC rebels to Congress on Thursday in the first step before a plebiscite to end the longest-running war in the Western Hemisphere.
Colombia’s conflict has killed more than 220,000 people and displaced millions since 1964.
“The war is over and the challenge of building a firm and lasting peace has opened up”.
The plan is that FARC rebels will lay down their arms and leave their jungle strongholds.
“I’m voting “no” because the FARC have been untruthful in the whole process”, Celis said. “We do not want there to be one more victim in Colombia”.
The war also fueled what is now an enduring divide between Colombia’s farmers, whom the FARC swore to protect, and its city dwellers, whom the rebels terrorized with kidnappings and killings.
Opponents of Santos and some human rights groups harshly criticized a key part of that deal which would let rebels who confess their crimes avoid jail and instead serve reduced sentences of no more than eight years by helping rebuild communities hit by the conflict. “This is an opportunity for Colombia to begin to heal and rebuild”, de Blasio said in a statement. After that, said Coronado, “each of the six agenda items [must be] implemented, and institutions strengthened to ensure its implementation and the security of both those who have chose to lay down their arms with this deal, as well as the people who have lived in territories that until now have been under their control”.
That law clearly states that Congress must be notified of the date of the peace referendum, according to Santos, who said he therefore also presented Lizcano with a letter authorizing the plebiscite to be held on October 2. In the past two decades, most of the killings were inflicted by the militias, which made peace with the government in 2003. “They have organized more quickly and are more nimble using social media, even though much of what they say is untrue”, he said.
“They will spend zero days in prison, they will be awarded with political representation”, Paloma Valencia, a senator in Uribe’s party, said of the rebels.
The deal has also left some human-rights advocates with mixed feelings.
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“Just as the United States has been Colombia’s partner in a time of war, we will be Colombia’s partner in waging peace”, Obama said on Thursday.
