Colombian conflict ends with weapons handover

COLOMBIA: Colombia declared its conflict with the Revolutionary Armed Force of Colombia (FARC) officially over yesterday, as the rebel group handed over the last of its weapons.

The leftist FARC, Colombia’s largest rebel group, gave the last two containers of weapons and explosives to the United Nations, marking the official end of a conflict that has spanned more than 50 years.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos called it ‘‘an historic day for the country’’ at a ceremony to mark the occasion in Fonseca, La Guajira province, on the eastern border with Venezuela.

‘‘Now we can develop parts of the country we were never able to develop before,’’ Santos said.

The government lost access to many of the country’s regions as a result of the ongoing conflict, which began in 1964, and was unable to control a growing drug trade.

The weapons will be melted down and recast as peace memorials to be displayed in Colombia, at the UN headquarters in New York, and in Cuba’s capital, Havana, where the peace talks took place over almost four years.

A total of 8112 guns and 1.3 million cartridges were collected by the UN, according to Jean Arnault, the head of the mission in the country. That is more weapons than the 7132 the UN had originally reported in June.

The FARC signed a ceasefire deal with the government in June 2016, after more than 50 years of fighting.

Around 220,000 people lost their lives in the conflict.

The UN, which was supervising the handover, removed the final shipment of weapons from a demobilisation camp in Fonseca, one of more than two dozen zones where FARC members have been living since the start of the year.

Roughly 7000 FARC fighters have demobilised under the accord, which allows the group 10 unelected seats in Colombia’s Congress through to 2026, and grants amnesty to the majority of exfighters.

Rebels convicted by special courts of human rights violations will avoid traditional prison sentences, instead performing reparations work such as removing land mines. – DPA, Reuters