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09-25-2016, 04:11 AM
BOGOTA: Colombia will turn the page on a half-century conflict that has stained its modern history with blood when the FARC rebels and the government sign a peace deal on Monday.
President Juan Manuel Santos and the leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Rodrigo Londo** -- better k**wn by his **m de guerre, Timoleon "Timochenko" Jimenez -- are set to sign the accord at 5:00 pm (2200 GMT) in a ceremony in the colorful colonial city of Cartagena on the Caribbean coast.
It will be preceded by a tribute to the Colombian military and police, presided over by Santos, and a prayer for peace and reconciliation at an 18th century Catholic church in Cartagena´s old town.
The guests will include UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, US Secretary of State John Kerry and a cortege of Latin American leaders -- **tably Cuban President Raul Castro, whose country hosted the nearly four-year-long peace talks that produced a final deal on August 24.
The 2,500 expected attendees have been invited to wear white. The ceremony is the second-to-last step in ratifying the peace deal.
Colombians will vote on it in a referendum on October 2. Recent polls show the "Yes" camp in the lead.
The FARC, a Marxist guerrilla group, launched its war on the Colombian government in 1964, in the aftermath of a peasant uprising that was brutally put down by the army. Over the decades, the conflict has drawn in several leftist rebel groups, right-wing paramilitaries and drug gangs, leaving a legacy of death and destruction: more than 260,000 people killed, 45,000 missing and 6.9 million forced to flee their homes.
"We are turning the page on the war to begin writing a new chapter of peace," Santos said on Wednesday in an address to the United Nations after submitting the 297-page accord to the Security Council wrapped in the yellow, blue and red of the Colombian flag.
FARC delegates unanimously ratified the deal on Friday at a national conference in El Diamante, a remote and sweltering site deep in the rebels´ traditional stronghold in southeastern Colombia.
"The war is over," declared their chief peace negotiator, Ivan Marquez, to a burst of applause and cheers from rebel delegates dressed in civilian clothes.
If all goes according to plan, it will be the FARC´s last meeting as a guerrilla army. Under the deal, the group is **w to relaunch as a political party.
The rebels came to the negotiating table after being weakened by a major army offensive led by then-defense minister Santos, who served in the post from 2006 to 2009 before becoming president.
After an army raid killed the previous FARC leader, Alfonso Ca**, in 2011, Timochenko, his successor, wrote to Santos proposing fresh peace talks -- the fourth such effort, following failed attempts in 1984, 1991 and 1999.
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President Juan Manuel Santos and the leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Rodrigo Londo** -- better k**wn by his **m de guerre, Timoleon "Timochenko" Jimenez -- are set to sign the accord at 5:00 pm (2200 GMT) in a ceremony in the colorful colonial city of Cartagena on the Caribbean coast.
It will be preceded by a tribute to the Colombian military and police, presided over by Santos, and a prayer for peace and reconciliation at an 18th century Catholic church in Cartagena´s old town.
The guests will include UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, US Secretary of State John Kerry and a cortege of Latin American leaders -- **tably Cuban President Raul Castro, whose country hosted the nearly four-year-long peace talks that produced a final deal on August 24.
The 2,500 expected attendees have been invited to wear white. The ceremony is the second-to-last step in ratifying the peace deal.
Colombians will vote on it in a referendum on October 2. Recent polls show the "Yes" camp in the lead.
The FARC, a Marxist guerrilla group, launched its war on the Colombian government in 1964, in the aftermath of a peasant uprising that was brutally put down by the army. Over the decades, the conflict has drawn in several leftist rebel groups, right-wing paramilitaries and drug gangs, leaving a legacy of death and destruction: more than 260,000 people killed, 45,000 missing and 6.9 million forced to flee their homes.
"We are turning the page on the war to begin writing a new chapter of peace," Santos said on Wednesday in an address to the United Nations after submitting the 297-page accord to the Security Council wrapped in the yellow, blue and red of the Colombian flag.
FARC delegates unanimously ratified the deal on Friday at a national conference in El Diamante, a remote and sweltering site deep in the rebels´ traditional stronghold in southeastern Colombia.
"The war is over," declared their chief peace negotiator, Ivan Marquez, to a burst of applause and cheers from rebel delegates dressed in civilian clothes.
If all goes according to plan, it will be the FARC´s last meeting as a guerrilla army. Under the deal, the group is **w to relaunch as a political party.
The rebels came to the negotiating table after being weakened by a major army offensive led by then-defense minister Santos, who served in the post from 2006 to 2009 before becoming president.
After an army raid killed the previous FARC leader, Alfonso Ca**, in 2011, Timochenko, his successor, wrote to Santos proposing fresh peace talks -- the fourth such effort, following failed attempts in 1984, 1991 and 1999.
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