The ceasefire order came after peace negotiators from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Colombian government announced Wednesday they had concluded a final accord after almost four years of talks in Cuba.
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Members of his family and Cabinet walked with him the short distance from his official residence to hand-deliver the 297-page accord to lawmakers, a move required for Colombia to hold a national referendum on the peace deal that Santos announced for October 2.
The FARC declared a unilateral ceasefire a year ago and the government has suspended aerial bombings against guerrilla camps.
With the war over with FARC, the challenge in the months ahead for the government of Juan Manuel Santos is to convince Colombians that the Final Accord is the only one attainable and necessary outcome to end years dialogue and decades of bloodshed.
Both the White House and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton congratulated Colombia on the deal and promised USA support for implementing it.
Obama spoke by phone Wednesday with Santos, congratulating him, according to a White House statement.
“We’ve won the most attractive of all battles: the peace of Colombia”, the chief FARC negotiator, alias Ivan Marquez, said at the announcement in Havana. “It is in this spirit that I stood alongside President Santos earlier this year and announced a new chapter in our relationship, Peace Colombia, which will provide a framework to reinforce security gains, reintegrate former combatants into society and extend opportunity and the rule of law”.
The accord commits Colombia’s government to carrying out aggressive land reform, overhauling its anti-narcotics strategy and greatly expanding the state’s presence in long-neglected areas.
The most contentious breakthrough came last September when Santos traveled to Havana to lay out with FARC commander Rodrigo Londono a framework for investigating atrocities, punishing guerrillas for involvement in those abuses and offering compensation to victims.
Santos’ plebiscite is not without risks.
The announcement of the deal, brokered in Havana, Cuba, was met with jubilation with thousands of Colombians taking to the streets to celebrate.
Low voter turnout is also a concern because a minimum of 13 percent of the registered voters, or about 4.4 million voters, must vote in favor for the accord to be ratified.
Colombia’s chief negotiator Humberto de la Calle said: “The war is over”. “We have to wait for the citizens’ verdict”.
Reaching the agreement has been far from easy. Ninety days later they are supposed to begin handing their weapons over to United Nations -sponsored monitors.
In what is considered among the bloodiest armed conflicts in the world and the longest in Latin America, millions of Colombians have been forced to flee their homes as the war spiraled out of control.
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The government is still fighting a smaller rebel group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), whose ongoing kidnappings have derailed efforts to open peace negotiations.
