Colombia embarks on path to peace with historic accord

CARTAGENA, Colombia — After a half-century of bloody combat and four years of tense peace negotiations, now the hard work begins.

With the signing of a historic peace accord between the government and leftist rebels, Colombians must now show even more determination to implement an ambitious accord that will test their capacity for reconciliation and willingness to address longstanding inequality.

The first test is a referendum this weekend in which voters are being asked to ratify or reject the deal. If it passes, as expected, the thornier and still uncertain task of reopening old war wounds begins.

For starters, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia’s estimated 7,000 fighters would have to turn over their weapons gradually to a team of United Nations-sponsored observers within six months.

A much tougher challenge will be providing a minimum of justice and compensation to millions of victims, a process that will require FARC rebels and state actors who want to avoid jail to confess their war crimes committed during a 52-year conflict marred by brutalities on all sides.

Longer-term, the two sides have drafted a daunting agenda to hasten the development of Colombia’s long-neglected countryside. It includes addressing unequal land distribution and removing illegal coca crops that starting in the 1980s strengthened the FARC — and some say morally corrupted it — while other leftist insurgencies across Latin America fell by the wayside.

There’s also the security risks posed by another smaller, more ideological rebel group, the National Liberation Army, or ELN, which along with armed criminal gangs could fill the void left by a retreating FARC.

The government and ELN announced peace negotiations of their own in March, but those talks have yet to start over the government’s insistence the group renounce kidnapping. This week the ELN ordered a temporary unilateral ceasefire to allow the referendum on the FARC deal to take place without a problem, a gesture that some suggest indicates growing flexibility on the part of the group.

People pass by a poster that in Spanish reads “People vote yes for peace” in Cartagena, Colombia, on Tuesday, the day after the government signed a peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.