FARC opens what Colombia hopes is last wartime conference
SAN VICENTE DEL CAGUAN, Colombia: After 52 years of conflict, Colombia’s FARC rebels open what leaders hope will be their last wartime conference Saturday, where they will vote on a historic peace deal with the government.
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a Marxist guerrilla group launched in 1964, will hold its 10th national conference in El Caguan, its Switzerland-sized stronghold, to ratify a peace accord hashed out in nearly four years of talks.
The week-long conference marks the first time they will discuss peace instead of war during such an event. If all goes according to the FARC leadership’s plan, it will end with the group’s relaunch as a political party.
The FARC, which today has an estimated 7,500 fighters, concluded the peace deal with the government on August 24, followed by a bilateral ceasefire.
The Colombian conflict, which has drawn in other leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and criminal gangs, has killed more than 260,000 people, left 45,000 missing and forced nearly seven million to flee their homes.
If the conference approves the peace deal, as expected, FARC leader Timoleon “Timochenko” Jimenez will sign the agreement with center-right President Juan Manuel Santos on September 26 in the Caribbean port of Cartagena.
The 297-page document comprises six separate deals: justice and reparations for victims of the conflict; land reform; the FARC’s relaunch as a political party; disarmament; fighting the drug trafficking that has fueled the fighting; and implementation and monitoring of the accord.
Jimenez flew in for the conference this week from Cuba, where the peace talks were held. — AFP