The high cost of implementing the agreement – as much as $70 billion over the next decade, largely in aid programs for demobilized guerrillas – could also dissuade voters from approving it, said Ariel Avila, assistant director of the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation in Bogota.
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Ban said earlier this month that the political mission will operate in 40 widely dispersed locations and require about 450 observers and a number of civilians.
There is a risk that Colombia’s second rebel movement, the much-smaller but more recalcitrant National Liberation Army, could now expand its presence. “As President, I’ll ensure that the United States remains their partner in that process”, she said in a statement Thursday.
It was under Bill Clinton’s presidency that the US began pumping billions in anti-narcotics and counterinsurgency aid to Colombia’s government.
Most opinion polls suggest Colombians will back the deal, but the nation is deeply divided and caught in a heated debate over what sort of justice the rebels should face. To endorse this document, the Colombians are called to participate in a referendum on October 2.
In December 2014 the FARC announced its first unilateral cease-fire and, in a show of good faith, the following March the Colombian government suspended aerial bombings of guerrilla targets.
Santos also declared a definitive ceasefire, although one has been in effect since June. It will remove the fear we have all grown up with after so many years. USA tanks and army supplies helped Colombia’s government thin the population of the rebel troops; about 50 percent of the rebel forces died in battle in 2016. She spoke to Susy Hodges about her reaction to the peace accord.
Just prior to the announcement, President Raul Castro handed the final agreement to Santos and Timoleon Jimenez, commander of the FARC-EP.
Colombia’s chief negotiator Humberto de la Calle said: “The war is over”.
After years of talks and a 52-year civil war, the Colombian government and FARC rebel group announced they have reached agreement on all terms of a peace deal.
Colombians celebrated the historic agreement even while expressing doubts about whether the guerrillas they’ve grown to loathe will honor their commitments to lay down their weapons, confess human rights abuses and help eradicate illegal coca crops that helped fuel Colombia’s conflict after insurgencies elsewhere in Latin America were defeated.
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A copy of the signed deal will be transferred for storage to the Swiss Federal Council in Bern so that it can have status as a special humanitarian agreement under the Geneva Conventions.
