Pope heads to Colombia seeking to heal conflict’s wounds
BOGOTA, Colombia — Pope Francis headed to Colombia on Wednesday to try to help heal the wounds of Latin America’s longest-running armed conflict, bolstered by a new cease-fire with a holdout rebel group but fully aware of the fragility of the country’s peace process.
During a deeply symbolic five-day visit starting Wednesday, Francis is expected to press Colombian leaders to address the social and economic disparities that fueled five decades of armed rebellion, while encouraging ordinary Colombians to balance their need for justice with forgiveness.
In a video message on the eve of his departure, Francis urged all Colombians to take a “first step” and reach out to one another for the sake of peace and the future.
“Peace is what Colombia has been looking for and working for for such a long time,” he said. “A stable and lasting peace, so that we can see one another and treat one another as brothers, not as enemies.”
A year after the Colombian government signed the peace accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the nation remains bitterly divided over the terms of the deal even as guerrillas have laid down their arms and begun returning to civilian life. Even the Catholic Church hierarchy, which was instrumental in facilitating the peace talks and is now spearheading the
process of reconciliation, was divided over what many Colombians saw as the overly generous terms offered to rebels behind atrocities.
Former President Alvaro Uribe, a fierce opponent of the peace deal, wrote a letter to the pope Tuesday expressing concern that the deal with the rebels had fueled a rise in drug trafficking and created economic uncertainties with the potential to destroy Colombia’s social fabric.
Meanwhile, the nation’s top drug fugitive, the target of a $5 million manhunt by U.S. authorities, appealed to the Pope to pray that he and his fellow combatants be allowed to lay down their weapons as part of the peace process — a proposal the Colombian government has rejected out of hand.
“I’m convinced that the only way out of the conflict is dialogue,” said Dairo Usuga, appearing publicly for the first time, in a video published on
social media. “The Catholic Church is a moral reference and we believe that with its prayers we can move forward in our goal of abandoning our weapons.”
The plane flying Pope Francis to Colombia left Rome Wednesday morning and had to change its flight path to avoid Category 5 Hurricane Irma. A half-hour into the flight, he told journalists he wanted to “help Colombia in its path of peace.”
He also asked for prayers for Colombia’s neighbor Venezuela, whose problems are likely to demand some of his attention, hoping it finds “a good stability and dialogue with everyone.” The Vatican last year sponsored dialogue between President Nicolas Maduro’s government and the opposition and bishops from the country are slated to meet with Francis in Colombia as pressure builds on the embattled socialist to yield power.