U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said at the start of a meeting on the issue held in a NY hotel that removing the landmines is an “essential” part of reconstruction after the achievement of a peace agreement between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, guerrillas.
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The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a Marxist guerrilla group launched in 1964, is holding its 10th national conference in El Caguan, its Switzerland-sized stronghold, to ratify a peace accord hashed out in almost four years of talks.
Dozens of members of Colombia’s largest guerrilla group have started gathering in a campground in the remote central savannah as they prepare to approve a historic peace deal and re-forge their 52-year-old organization as a political party.
Rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC, dance during a concert in the Yari Plains, southern Colombia, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016.
Starting Saturday, several hours from the town by a muddy and strut-busting dirt road, the FARC is holdings its 10th and final conference as a guerrilla army to ratify the agreement reached last month with government negotiators in Cuba.
The development comes less than two weeks before he will sign a peace agreement with the Marxist FARC rebels.
“For four years I have wanted to discuss the peace process with my opponents”, said Santos, whose invitations to talk have been routinely rejected or ignored by Uribe.
The hard-line former president is ideologically opposed to the leftist rebels and could face major legal issues once a Truth Commission and a Transitional Justice Tribunal begin investigating war crimes, many of which were committed by the military under Uribe’s watch or by paramilitary groups with ties to Uribe’s political allies and family.
“If our adversaries want to tout they won the war, that’s up to them”, Timochenko said in his inaugural address, surrounded by all seven members of the FARC’s secretariat, its top decision-making body.
“The biggest satisfaction will always be to win the peace”, Londono said.
The trend in the FARC-EP Conference, which held its third period of sessions today, has been unanimous support by the guerrillas to the peace agreements signed in Havana, Commander Pablo Catatumbo asserted.
It will then be put to a vote by the Colombian people in a decisive referendum on October 2.
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Once the FARC give their blessing to the deal brought home by their negotiators after almost four years of talks in Cuba, Londono and President Juan Manuel Santos will sign it on September 26. “This moment is what every Colombian is waiting for”.
