Last hurdle cleared for peace deal
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and leftist guerrilla commanders have announced a breakthrough in peace talks that sets the stage to end Latin America’s longestrunning armed conflict.
In a joint statement from Cuba, Santos and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia said they had overcome the last significant obstacle to a peace deal by settling on a formula to punish belligerents for human rights abuses committed during decades of bloody, drug-fuelled fighting.
Rebels who confess their crimes to special peace tribunals, compensate victims and promise not to take up arms again will receive a maximum eight years of restrictions on their liberty in conditions still be to determined. War crimes committed by Colombia’s military will also be judged.
Santos flew to Havana, where talks with the rebel group known as the Farc have been going on for three years, to make the announcement. The breakthrough came after Pope Francis, in a visit to Cuba this week, warned the two sides that they didn’t have the right to fail in their best chance at peace in decades.
‘‘I want to recognise and value the step the Farc has taken,’’ said Santos, minutes before a historic handshake with the Farc’s top military commander, known by his alias Timochenko. ‘‘We are on different sides but today we advance in the same direction, in the most noble direction a society can take, which is toward peace.’’
Santos said the Farc vowed to demobilise within 60 days of a definitive agreement, which he said would be signed within six months. Negotiators must come up with a mechanism for rebels to demobilise, hand over their weapons and provide reparations to their victims. Santos has promised he’ll give Colombians the chance to voice their opinion in a referendum and any deal must o clear Congress.
As part of talks in Cuba, both sides had already agreed on plans for land reform, political participation for guerrillas who lay down their weapons, and how to jointly combat drug trafficking. Further cementing expectations of a deal, the Farc declared a unilateral ceasefire in July and has been working with Colombia’s military to remove tens of thousands of rebel-planted landmines.
But amid the slow but steady progress, one issue had seemed almost insurmountable: How to compensate victims and punish Farc commanders for human rights abuses in light of international conventions Colombia has signed and almost unanimous public rejection of the rebels.
The Farc, whose troops have thinned to an estimated 6400 from a peak of 21,000 in 2002, have long insisted they haven’t committed any crimes and aren’t abandoning the battlefield only to end up in jail. They say they would only consent to prison time if leaders of Colombia’s military, which has a litany of war crimes to its name, and the nation’s political elite are locked up as well.
The government has gone to great lengths to insist that its framework for so-called transitional justice doesn’t represent impunity for guerrilla crimes such as the kidnapping of civilians, forced recruitment of child soldiers and heavy involvement in cocaine trafficking, for which the Farc’s top leadership has been indicted in the US.
But even before details have become known, conservative critics lashed out at what they said was excessive lenience on the part of the government, foreshadowing the difficult road ahead to implement any final agreement.