Colombia to sign peace deal tomorrow

Colombia will turn the page on a half-century conflict that has stained its modern history with blood when the FARC rebels and the government sign a peace deal tomorrow.

President Juan Manuel Santos and the leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Rodrigo Londono — better known by his nom de guerre, Timoleon “Timochenko” Jimenez — are set to sign the accord at 5pm (2am on Tuesday UAE time) in a ceremony in the colourful colonial city of Cartagena on the Caribbean coast.

It will be preceded by a tribute to the Colombian military and police, presided over by Santos, and a prayer for peace and reconciliation at an 18th century Catholic church in Cartagena’s old town.

Guests at signing

The guests will include UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, US Secretary of State John Kerry and a cortege of Latin American leaders — notably Cuban President Raul Castro, whose country hosted the nearly four-year-long peace talks that produced a final deal on August 24. The 2,500 expected attendees have been invited to wear white.

The ceremony is the second-to-last step in ratifying the peace deal.

Colombians will vote on it in a referendum on October 2. Recent polls show the “Yes” camp in the lead.

The FARC, a Marxist guerrilla group, launched its war on the Colombian government in 1964, in the aftermath of a peasant uprising that was brutally put down by the army.

Over the decades, the conflict has drawn in several leftist rebel groups, rightwing paramilitaries and drug gangs, leaving a legacy of death and destruction: more than 260,000 people killed, 45,000 missing and 6.9 million forced to flee their homes.

“We are turning the page on the war to begin writing a new chapter of peace,” Santos said on Wednesday in an address to the United Nations.