The Borneo Post

Government not complying with Colombia peace deal — FARC

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HAVANA: The leader of Colombia’s ex-rebel group FARC has warned in a letter to President Juan Miguel Santos that his government was failing to meet its obligation­s under a peace deal signed last year.

Rodrigo Londono urged Santos to comply fully with the Havana peace accords, accusing him of breaching the “minimum guarantees” of the pact they signed last November to end Latin America’s oldest conflict.

In the letter published by FARC on its website on Monday, Londono said the government had yet to release all FARC prisoners accredited to a commission set up under the deal, and had failed to suspend arrest warrants for FARC members.

“There are thousands of excombatan­ts...who do not receive the monthly payment of 90 per cent of the minimum wage” which had been agreed, and they still had no access to health care, he said.

Londono called on internatio­nal guarantors of the peace deal, including the UN and the Vatican, to ensure “the great work of peace stays afloat.”

And he urged Colombians “not to remain impassive in the face of this grave situation”.

FARC relaunched as a political party in early September, with a change of name to the Common Alternativ­e Revolution­ary Force. Londono was elected the party’s leader at its first congress.

Santos on Tuesday presented a list of 51 judges who will participat­e in a special court system set up under the peace deal to investigat­e, prosecute and adjudicate crimes carried out during the conflict.

The half- century of conflict left some 260,000 people confirmed dead, 60,000 unaccounte­d for and seven million displaced. — AFP

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