FARC sets out on path to join political process

Ex-rebels in Colombia convene as new party

BOGOTA, Colombia — After more than five decades of battle in Colombia’s jungles, the nation’s largest rebel movement initiated the launch of its political party Sunday.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia will transform into a political party under a new, still-tobe-announced name as part of a historic peace deal signed last year. The accords guarantee the ex-combatants 10 seats in Congress and the same funding the state provides to the nation’s 13 other political parties, in addition to $500,000 in funding to begin a think tank to develop their political ideology.

“We are taking an extraordinary step in the history of the common people’s struggle in Colombia,” Rodrigo Londono, better-known by his nom de guerre Timochenko, said to an audience of former guerrillas dressed in white T-shirts with the hashtag #Nuevopartido (#Newparty).

The organization has signaled that it will adhere to its Marxist roots and focus on winning votes from peasants, workers and the urban middle class with a social justice platform, but it faces opposition from many who identify the guerrillas with kidnappings and terrorism.

A poll released in August found that fewer than 10 percent of Colombians said they had total confidence in the rebels as a political party, and a large majority said they’d never vote a former guerrilla into Congress.

“They’re not going to be received very warmly in most of Colombia,” said Adam Isacson of the Washington Office on Latin America think tank. “Their human rights record hurt them. Their media image is terrible. Most Colombians quite simply aren’t socialists or communists.”

But, he added, “All is not lost. A message of wanting to redistribute wealth and undo economic injustice could probably do quite well in a lot of poor areas of Colombia.”

The group’s entrance into politics has been met with fierce resistance from leaders like former President Alvaro Uribe, one of the peace agreement’s staunchest critics. After passing a law earlier this year ratifying the group as a political party, the nation’s Supreme Court is now debating the legislation’s constitutionality. Critics say the former rebels shouldn’t be allowed to participate in politics before first going through a special peace tribunal.

“The fact that a war criminal could become the president of Colombia makes no sense,” former Peace Commissioner Camilo Gomez said at a recent court hearing.