- Title: A look back as Colombia's historic peace agreement reached five years
- Date: 23rd November 2021
- Summary: MESETAS, META, COLOMBIA (FILE - JUNE 27, 2017) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) COLOMBIAN PRESIDENT, JUAN MANUEL SANTOS, SAYING: "Today, with excitement, we mark the end of this absurd war, which not only lasted over five decades, but something worse, it lasted more than eight million victims and more than 220,000 compatriots who have died." SANTOS AND FARC COMMANDER, TIMOL
- Embargoed: 7th December 2021 18:43
- Keywords: Colombia Farc civil war drug trafficking
- Location: SEE SCRIPT BODY FOR LOCATIONS
- Topics: Conflicts/War/Peace,Military Conflicts
- Reuters ID: LVA006F4TLFT3
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES IN SHOTS 12, 34, 39, 41
WARNING: CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY
Colombia will mark the five-year anniversary of the signing of the peace accord between the government and Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels, which ushered in the end to the 52-year civil war.
The government and the FARC had been in talks in Havana, Cuba for four years, hammering out a deal to end the conflict that had killed more than 220,000 and displaced millions in the Andean country.
The talks in Havana marked the first effort in a decade to end the war - after the previous effort, launched by former Colombian President Andres Pastrana, collapsed.
In 1998, Pastrana met with then FARC leader Manuel Marulanda and agreed to the creation of a demilitarised zone the size of Switzerland in Colombia's southern jungles.
Marulanda used the talks to call for social justice.
But the rebels appeared to use the calm to rebuild their military operations and establish a multibillion-dollar drug-trafficking network. And the violence did not stop.
The talks were ultimately broken off in 2002 when the rebels hijacked an airplane.
Speaking in 2002, Pastrana condemned the FARC following the failure of the talks.
Under new leadership, Colombia's government responded with a bombing campaign against rebel camps in the thick jungle region.
Ten years on, Pastrana said the FARC was much weaker as it headed towards the talks in Oslo, set to kick off on October 15. He defended his decision to engage the FARC when he was in office.
The failure of the talks opened the door to the election of conservative Alvaro Uribe with a clear mandate to crack down on the FARC, then at its strongest with 17,000 fighters.
Soon after Uribe took power, the rebels led an attack against the Narindo presidential palace - but Uribe, whose own father was killed by FARC rebels, was firm.
"The hour of defeat, of complete defeat, has come for these bandits," Uribe said.
As the army unleashed its firepower on the rebels, the FARC fought back with devastating attacks in the heart of Bogota and a series of kidnappings that captured the world's attention.
For more than five years, a group of American contractors and presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and her assistant Clara Rojas were held in jungle prisons, brutalised and hidden from the world, except for occasional proof-of-life videos.
Rojas was released in 2008 - today, she heads a foundation that helps fight against kidnappings and extortion. Although the figure has declined over the years, even today, hundreds remain captive, she has noted.
According to Rojas, 20 years ago, some 24,000 people were kidnapped. In 2002, some 3,000 people were being held. In 2008, she said, 405 people remained captive.
The army continued to hit FARC hard - killing then-leader Raul Reyes in 2008 and later securing the release of Betancourt and the Americans in a daring operation known as "Jaque" in July of 2008 when state security forces posed as members of a leftist humanitarian organisation.
Out of office, Uribe eyed the talks with suspicion, accusing Santos's government of negotiating from a weak position.
First elected in a landslide victory in 2010, Santos saw his approval ratings drop considerably, with many Colombians believing that the security gains during Uribe's presidency were being reversed.
Halfway through his first four-year term, the president staked his reputation and political future on the new round of peace talks.
The FARC, meanwhile, ebbed low throughout Santos's first term, losing successive leaders to government attacks. The group's financial operations were also squeezed.
While Colombians were ever hopeful Santos would succeed, he has faced a monumental task to reach peace with the FARC, which has imposed tough demands in past peace negotiations.
The president insisted peace was the only goal.
His six-man negotiating team was led by former Vice President Humberto de la Calle and includes a former police chief, an industrialist, a former military head, the president's chief security adviser, and a former environment minister.
In a video message broadcast to journalists in Cuba, the FARC's bearded leader Rodrigo Londono, known by his war alias "Timochenko," urged a "civilised dialogue" to end the bloodshed and said Colombians deserved better than more bloodshed.
In Havana, Santos and Londono announced in September 2015 that the leftist guerrillas would lay down arms within 60 days of signing the deal, marking an official deadline of March 23, 2016, which eventually passed without the deal.
Both sides agreed to the creation of special tribunals to try former combatants, and have embraced an amnesty that would exclude those who committed war crimes or crimes against humanity and provide reparations for victims.
Previously, the government and the rebels reached a partial agreement on cooperating to end the illegal drug trade, in addition to other agreements on land reform and the legal political participation for rebels once they disarm.
When the first version of the peace deal was narrowly defeated by voters in October of 2016, the expanded and highly technical 310-page new agreement made only small modifications to the original text, such as clarifying private property rights and detailing more fully how the rebels would be confined in rural areas for crimes committed during the war.
The new deal was not brought to a referendum and Uribe criticized it as just a slightly altered version of the original, saying it should ban rebel leaders from holding public office and they should face jail time for crimes.
After the peace deal, rebels were transferred to live in safe zones as the United Nations oversaw the handover of weapons.
The FARC reorganized as a political party, naming it the Revolutionary Alternative Common Force and nominating Timochenko for president in the 2018 elections.
In November of 2017, the constitutional court upheld most of the provisions agreed in the 2016 peace accord for the special courts, which will mete out alternative sentences like landmine removal for ex-guerrilla leaders from the FARC who are convicted of war crimes.
To the objection of FARC leaders, the court made several modifications to the law, local media reported, opening the possibility that ex-rebels could be extradited for crimes committed after the peace process ends and that former guerrillas elected to public office could lose their seats if they fail to comply with the tribunal process.
The FARC grew out of a 1960s Marxist-inspired peasant movement demanding land reform and has been fighting successive governments ever since. The struggle has created one of the world's highest internally displaced populations.
Five years on and according to the government, about 10,000 of the 13,589 women and men from the FARC who surrendered their weapons have completed the programme to help them return to civilian life. More than half of the demobilized are actively participating in individual or collective productive projects..
Those who remain in contact with the ''Office of Reintegration'' exceed 90 percent; with more than 12,500 women and men who continue to honour their commitments to peace. According to the government, there are 822 people on the demobilized "pending to be located" list. It is unknown if they returned to illegality or whether they preferred to stop reporting in to avoid stigmatization.
Ivan Marquez, a former top commander of Colombia's demobilized rebel group FARC, was one of the negotiators of the 2016 peace deal agreed by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the government. But he disappeared just two years later in 2018 after his nephew was arrested and bundled off to the United States.
Marquez later emerged in 2019 as the leader of the so-called Segunda Marquetalia, a group of former FARC rebels who reject the peace deal and have once again taken up arms. The United States is offering up to $10 million for information that could lead to Marquez's capture, while Colombian authorities will offer up to 3 billion pesos (around $766,559).
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