U.N. Secretary Ban Ki-moon, Latin American leaders and a US special envoy were present for the ceremony, The Associated Press reports. But a 15-year, US -backed military offensive thinned rebel ranks and forced FARC’s aging leaders to the negotiating table in 2012.
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After more than three years of negotiations in Havana, the Colombian government and leftist FARC guerrillas announced Wednesday they had reached a bilateral ceasefire. “We are working for a Colombia at peace, a dream that is starting to become a reality”.
The Colombian conflict started in the 1960s as a rural uprising for land rights that spawned the communist FARC.
The deal went further than many had hoped, with the FARC committing to putting a final accord to the Colombian people in a plebiscite, a promise made by Colombian President Juan Manual Santos that had been a key sticking point.
There remains one agenda item – “implementation, verification and ratification” – to be resolved before the full peace agreement can be signed by July 20, the most recent deadline imposed by President Juan Manuel Santos.
Significantly, the agreement addresses how some 7,000 rebel fighters (many of whom were kidnapped by the rebels as children, The New York Times notes) will eventually disarm and demobilize.
“So that the disgusting night ends and the path to peace and hope opens”.
It has attracted a multitude of leftist rebel groups, right-wing paramilitaries and drug gangs over the decades.
In attendance were United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, a special U.S. envoy and the presidents of Cuba, Chile, Venezuela and other Latin American countries. Many families are still searching for missing loved ones.
The presidents of Cuba, Venezuela and Chile – the three nations sponsoring the now nearly four-year-old peace talks in Havana – were also expected, and the Obama administration was sending its special envoy to the talks, former diplomat Bernard Aronson.
Santos has also promised to let Colombians vote on accepting the final accord in a national referendum, and his government isn’t taking acceptance for granted. The Obama administration was sending its special envoy to the peace talks, former diplomat Bernard Aronson.
The breakthrough – while not yet a final peace accord – means a permanent end to fighting in a half-century conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of people in the jungles of the major cocaine-producing country.
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The FARC leadership’s decision to leave behind armed struggle and transform into conventional politicians leaves Colombia with just one significant guerrilla group – the National Liberation Army, or ELN.
