The deal comes after four years of talks in Cuba, in which government and FARC negotiators reached agreements on agrarian reform, political participation, reparations of victims, fighting illegal drugs and punishment for crimes committed during the fighting.
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“We’ve won the most handsome of all battles: the peace of Colombia”, the chief FARC negotiator, Ivan Marquez, said at the announcement in Havana.
Once an agreement is announced, Mr Santos will need Congressional approval to hold a popular vote to endorse the terms of the deal.
The two sides said they had reached an agreement to end the conflict and build a stable peace, in a joint statement read out by representatives of Cuba and Norway, who are mediators in the talks.
With Colombia’s government and the country’s biggest rebel movement announcing an agreement on a historic peace deal, The Associated Press explains how the conflict began and developed over the decades. The conflict has killed an estimated 220000 people and displaced millions.
The FARC’s top envoy to the talks, Ivan Marquez, said that “we have concluded the most handsome of all battles, building the basis for peace”.
The plebiscite, which Colombia’s constitutional court recently ruled could go ahead, is widely expected to take place within weeks.
“Colombians: the decision is in your hands”.
“The war is over but also there is also new beginning”.
FARC rebels of the 32nd Front of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, sit in a boat as they patrol the Mecaya river in the southern jungles of Putumayo, Colombia, Aug. 11, 2016.
United States President Barack Obama spoke by phone with Mr Santos on Wednesday to congratulate him on finalising details of the agreement, the White House said.
“Colombia without war has everything ahead of it”, he said.
In June, the Secretary-General travelled to Havana, where he witnessed the bilateral signing of a ceasefire and the laying down of arms and noted that the “peace process validates the perseverance of all those around the world who work to end violent conflict not through the destruction of the adversary, but through the patient search for compromise”. But here’s a quick rundown of what Colombia’s peace deal consists of – what Santos described in an televised address Wednesday night as the five main points.
Exploratory talks have been underway but no agreement has been reached on a final agenda for peace dialogues.
The Colombian government and the FARC guerrillas signed a formal conclusion of the peace talks Wednesday after nearly four years of negotiations in Havana.
The peace accord still must be certified in a national referendum, which will ask voters to approve or reject the deal. Polls show most Colombians loathe the FARC and show no hesitation labeling them “narco-terrorists” for their heavy involvement in Colombia’s cocaine trade, an association for which members of the group’s top leadership have been indicted in the U.S. Meanwhile the FARC held on to a Cold War view of Colombia’s political and economic establishment as “oligarchs” at the service of the U.S. Still, violence is at its lowest level in decades.
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Uribe, whose father was killed by FARC guerrillas, insists he and his party are not against peace but rather the terms agreed so far in Havana, and vowed this month to actively campaign for a “no” vote in the plebiscite.
