COLOMBIA GOVT, REBELS SIGN HISTORIC DEAL TO END CONFLICT

HAVANA: Colombia’s government and the country’s biggest rebel group reached a historic deal on Wednesday evening for ending a half-century of hostilities in one of the world’s longest-running and bloodiest armed conflicts.

President Juan Manuel Santos hailed the agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia as an opportunity to turn the page on decades of political violence that has claimed more than 220,000 lives and driven more than 5 million people from their homes. He said he would hold a plebiscite on October 2 to give Colombians the chance to vote on the accord. Without their approval implementation can’t begin.

In Colombia’s capital of Bogota, some 400 people gathered in a plaza to watch on giant screen the agreement being announced by negotiators in Havana who have been working around the clock in recent days to hammer out the final sensitive details left to the end of the four years of talks. “We’ve won the most beautiful of all battles: the peace of Colombia,” the chief FARC negotiator, Ivan Marquez, said at the announcement in Havana.

As soon as his speech finished, bringing the televised event to an end, the emotional crowd on the plaza sang the national anthem and shouted “Viva Colombia! Yes to Peace!”

The accord commits Colombia’s government to carrying out aggressive land reform, overhauling its anti-narcotics strategy and greatly expanding the state’s presence in long-neglected areas of the country.