New Colombian president vows pact ‘corrections’
BOGOTA, Colombia — Colombia’s youngest elected president was sworn in to office Tuesday, promising to “make corrections” to a peace deal with leftist rebels that has divided the country and to crack down on lingering armed groups still roaming the countryside.
Ivan Duque, the 42-year-old protege of a powerful right-wing former president, now faces the task of implementing the historic accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia that ended a half-century of bloody conflict, but which remains on shaky ground. He will also have to deal with burgeoning coca and cocaine production that has strained relations with key ally Washington and negotiate a peace with a holdout guerrilla army.
“The moment has come for all of us to unite to fight against illegal groups,” Duque said in his inauguration speech to more than a dozen heads of state, promising to get tough on crime, drug trafficking groups and other armed and rebel groups.
The new president said he believed in “the demobilization, disarmament and reinsertion of the guerrilla base” into society under the accord with the FARC. But he added that “we will make corrections to ensure that the victims receive truth, proportional justice, reparations and not a repetition” after a conflict that left at least 260,000 dead, some 60,000 missing and millions displaced.
In another nod to conservatives who have demanded tougher terms with rebel groups, Duque said he will push for a constitutional reform that makes it impossible for the government to grant amnesty to individuals who have been involved in drug trafficking and kidnappings.