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'Welcome to peace': Colombia's Farc rebels seal historic disarmament 'Welcome to peace': Colombia's Farc rebels seal historic disarmament
(about 2 hours later)
Colombia’s Marxist Farc rebels have concluded their disarmament, handing in all but a few of their individual weapons to the United Nations and ending their role in a half-century war that killed more than 220,000 and displaced millions. Colombia’s Farc rebels, who once terrorized the country with kidnaps, killings and attacks on towns, have ended half a century of armed insurgency at low-key ceremony in which the United Nations certified that more than 7,000 guerrillas had turned over their weapons.
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as Farc, turned in the remaining 40% of their firearms in Mesetas, a mountainous area in south-eastern Colombia. The roughly 7,000 former fighters have pledged to continue their struggle as a political movement. “Farewell to arms, farewell to war, welcome to peace,” said the Farc’s top leader Rodrigo Londoño, to a cheering crowd of former combatants at the ceremony in Mesetas, a mountainous area in south-eastern Colombia.
The 7,132 weapons will be stored in containers until they are molded into a monument for peace. Explosives and bigger weapons are being cleared from caches nationwide and a few guns will remain for security at 26 camps until they close on 1 August. “Today doesn’t end the existence of the Farc; it ends our armed struggle,” said Londoño, best known by his nom de guerre Timochenko. The Farc plan to launch a legal political party in August.
“Today doesn’t end the existence of the Farc, it ends our armed struggle,” said Rodrigo Londono, the Farc’s top commander, who goes by his nom de guerre, Timochenko. “Farewell to arms, farewell to war, welcome to peace.” “Today is a special day, the day when weapons are exchanged for words,” said President Juan Manuel Santos, who was awarded the 2016 Nobel Peace prize for his efforts to secure a deal with the Farc to end their part in a 53-year armed conflict that has left an estimated 250,000 dead, tens of thousands of people missing and forced millions from their home.
Financed by drug trafficking, kidnapping for ransom and extortion, the Farc had about 17,000 combatants in the 1990s, capable of launching military attacks close to Bogota, the capital. “Our peace is real, and it’s irreversible,” said Santos, who is now trying to achieve a similar deal with the smaller rebel faction the National Liberation Army, or ELN.
But the rebel group that began in 1964 as a peasant army demanding agrarian reform was battered deep into Colombia’s inhospitable jungles by a relentless military offensive that began in 2002 during Alvaro Uribe’s presidency. Jean Arnaut, chief of the UN peace monitoring mission in Colombia, said monitors had registered and stored 7,132 weapons, as well as munitions, which are being held in shipping containers in each of 26 special transition zones for Farc members as they prepare to enter civilian life. They have also destroyed 77 of hundreds of secret arms caches throughout the country.
The US-backed campaign improved security and helped the country of 49 million people lure back investors and tourists. Though the original peace accord was rejected by voters in a referendum, a revised deal went into effect 1 December, laying out the terms of the Farc demobilization, justice for victims of the conflict, and new guarantees for participation in politics.
Rich in commodities like oil, coal, gold and coffee, it is one of Washington’s closest allies in Latin America and has a long history of market-friendly governments. Ex-combatants are due to remain in the camps until the end of July, when the UN will remove the weapons-filled containers. The arms will be made into three monuments to be installed in Bogota, Havana and New York.
“Today is a very special day, the day weapons became words. I can say from the bottom of my heart that to live this day, to achieve this day, has made worthwhile being president of Colombia,” said Juan Manuel Santos, who was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 2016. “Our peace is real, and it’s irreversible.” Mauricio Jaramillo, a member of the Farc secretariat who began the first talks with the government six years ago in Havana, said that when he handed his weapon to the UN two months ago felt a “huge sense of commitment with Colombia”. He often doubted the day the Farc would end as an armed group would come “but it was always what we worked towards,” he told the Guardian.
Although the government promises to provide protection, the Farc is concerned about security. Thousands of former guerrillas were assassinated by paramilitaries after joining a political party during a peace attempt in the 1980s. Rank-and-file rebel fighters admitted they were nervous about future life as civilians. Jairo, 36, spent 20 years in Farc ranks before handing over his assault rifle last weekend, and he said he feared a violent backlash against former guerrillas – several of whom have already been murdered after disarming.
Santos, who took office in 2010, began secret talks with Farc commanders that led to negotiations in Cuba and a final peace accord late last year. He is trying for a similar accord with the National Liberation Army (ELN). Still, he has big plans, he said. “I want to be a lawyer to help the new party,” he said at the special transition zone in Mesetas. “First, though, I have to finish high school.”
Peace with the Farc, however, is unlikely to end violence in Colombia as the lucrative cocaine business has given rise to criminal gangs and traffickers.