Youths set up tent city to demand peace deal

Dozens of activists have raised a multicolored, makeshift tent city in Bogota’s main square to demand the government and rebels save a deal meant to end a half century of conflict — part of a belated outburst of activism across the country by Colombians stunned at last week’s unexpected defeat of the peace accord in a referendum.

The mostly youthful demonstrators at what’s called the “Peace Camp” reject any political affiliation. Organizers say their only goal is to make sure the peace deal signed last month by the government and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia isn’t scuttled.

The first two tents were raised the night of Oct. 5 after as many as 25,000 people poured into the streets of downtown Bogota to back the rejected accord. Within less than a week, the impromptu encampment has grown to 70 tents surrounded by bunting in the color of the Colombian flag and adorned with white balloons and flowers symbolizing peace.

Hundreds of other Colombians joined the group in Bogota’s Plaza Bolivar on Wednesday to sew a giant quilt with the names of 1,900 victims of the conflict. Each of the names — Manuel Getial, Rogelio Ramos, Mariluz Uribe — was written in giant block letters stenciled in ash on individual pieces of white cloth the length of a coffin.

“This is the act of mourning that hurts the most,” said conceptual artist Doris Salcedo, who has been overseeing an army of volunteers working on her “Adding Absences” project. “It’s not the mourning of a union leader, a presidential candidate or a journalist. It’s the grief of an entire country that has been buried in war.”

The peace agreement was negotiated over more than four years in Cuba, a process so admired that President Juan Manuel Santos was awarded this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. Backers were confident — and polls agreed — that Colombians would easily approve it in an Oct. 2 referendum six days after the deal was signed in front of world leaders.

They proved to have been complacent. A narrow majority of voters rejected it, angry that it made too many concessions to a rebel group widely loathed for years of violence.