Pope rallies Colombian leaders for peace
BOGOTA (AFP) — Pope Francis held an open-air mass yesterday in Colombia and met with its Nobel Peace Prizewinning president to cheer the country on its march toward reconciliation after a halfcentury war.
On the first full day of his four-city tour, the Argentine pontiff, 80, met with young people and with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos to discuss his aim of sealing a “complete peace.”
Arriving yesterday at the Vatican mission in Bogota, Francis recited a Hail Mary and a blessing to assembled youths, who responded with a rap and breakdancing.
The South American country of 48 million people is cautiously emerging from decades of war in a contested peace process.
Francis called ahead of his trip for a “stable and lasting peace” in Colombia.
“Continue on the path that you have been brave enough to start, which is called heroism,” he told the young people.
“Don’t let yourselves be beaten, don’t let yourselves be fooled. Do not lose joy. Do not lose hope.”
Francis’s trip follows the disarmament of Colombia’s biggest rebel group, the FARC, and a ceasefire by the last active guerrilla force, the ELN.
The Colombian conflict erupted in 1964 when those two leftist groups took up arms to fight for rural land rights.
Over the decades it drew in various rebel groups, rightwing paramilitaries and state forces.
The violence has left 260,000 people confirmed dead, 60,000 unaccounted for and seven million displaced.
Peace talks are underway with the ELN, but officials warn that remnants of paramilitaries are still fighting in the jungle for control of the drugs trade.
“I hope there will be a change now that the Holy Father has come,” Blanca Nubia Diaz, 69, told AFP in Bogota. Her husband and daughter were killed by paramilitaries.
“I hope that people gain awareness and change, so there will not be so much violence and so many killings in this country.”
Despite the pope’s blessing, the peace process has been fraught with division.
Critics of the accord with the FARC say the rebels got off too lightly, with amnesties and alternative sentences.
The FARC has transformed into a political party.