Colombia’s ex-FARC guerrillas sworn into Congress

FORMER leftist guerrillas in Colombia took up seats in a congress dominated by conservatives opposed to a peace accord that ended a 50 year war and provided for the ex-guerrillas’ representation in the legislature.

Under a 2016 accord that ended the conflict, five seats each in the upper and lower chambers have been set aside for members of the FARC, a rebel army turned legal political party, although it only occupied eight of them.

Outgoing president Jose Manuel Santos presided over a ceremony in which all new lawmakers elected in May elections took up their seats. “Here they are, for the first time, five senators and five representatives of Common Alternative Revolutionary Force, born of the demobilization and disarmament of the FARC,” Santos said, alluding to the name of the FARC political party, which has the same acronym in Spanish as the rebel army.

But former FARC rebel commander Ivan Marquez declined to take up his designated seat in the Senate Friday, in part because a fellow former rebel leader, Jesus Santrich, who also has a congressional seat reserved for him, has been arrested and jailed and is wanted by the US on drug trafficking charges. The peace accord, for which Santos won the Nobel peace prize, has deeply divided Colombians, with conservatives saying it goes too easy on the former rebels. The peace accord was reached after four years of negotiations in Cuba. The FARC were Latin America’s last major rebel group. Some 260,000 people were killed, 60,000 disappeared and 6.9 million displaced during the 53-year conflict.