Colombia to sign new peace deal with FARC today in Bogotá

 

Colombian President, and recent Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Juan Manuel Santos and the leader of the FARC guerrillas Rodrigo Londono will sign a second amended peace deal today in Bogotá’s Teatro Colon. The second deal, which was agreed just 6 weeks after Colombians shocked the polls by narrowly voting ‘No’ and rejecting the terms of the initial deal, is a revised version of the first peace deal. In reality only a few modifications have been made to the 310 page document, and, as with the first deal, controversy surrounds this new one. Many of the leaders of the ‘No’ camp, in particular ex-President Alvaro Uribe, have remained strongly critical of the revised deal – Uribe has demanded that the new deal be presented to the public in a second referendum, whilst Santos has clearly signaled his determination to make sure this deal happens by sending it to congress to be ratified. Since Colombia’s congress is controlled by a slim majority of Santos’ party the deal is likely to pass.

Unlike the lavish signing ceremony that preceded the previous referendum, this new ceremony will be relatively low-key. It will begin in the opulent, yet small, Colon Theater at 11am today, and is not expected to last for as long as the previous ceremony.

 

 

Tense times in Colombia?

For many the new peace deal, and the permanent ceasefire that that implies cannot come too soon, as the country shows troubling signs of a return to the violent retaliation that characterized the FARC’s last foray into politics in the 1980s and 90s. During that period thousands of members of the FARC-affiliated Union Patriotica (UP) party were assassinated. Over the past week alone 5 community organizers and activists were murdered in some of the regions most impacted by the violence and some fear that this may be a precursor to an increase in violent retribution against those associated with the peace process and the move into politics that the FARC will make.

Another cause for tension in the country is the continued and strong resistance of Uribe, who still remains incredibly popular in Colombia, to the new deal. He has urged his followers to resist the deal and seems certain to continue to criticize and attempt to resist the installation of the terms of the second peace deal.

What does seem certain, however, is that today will officially mark the end of Colombia half-century long civil war, bringing the country one-step closer to the peace that most crave and deserve.

Chris