Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
A HISTORIC MIDNIGHT ceasefire last night is set to end a 52-year-old war between the Colombian state and FARC rebels.
Hundreds of thousands of Colombians have died since 1964 as rebel armies and gangs battled in the jungles in what is considered Latin America’s last major civil armed conflict.
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) on Sunday issued the order for its fighters to observe the ceasefire from midnight (6am Irish time).
“I order all our commanders and units and each one of our combatants to definitively cease fire and hostilities against the Colombian state from midnight tonight,” top FARC leader Timoleon Jimenez said in a declaration before the media in Cuba, where peace talks were held.
On the government side, President Juan Manuel Santos on last Thursday ordered the Colombian national armed forces to halt military operations against the FARC.
“We noted with excitement the president’s order to the army. Consequently we are proceeding to give the same order to our troops,” Jimenez said Sunday, surrounded by FARC commanders in white shirts.
Santos wrote on Twitter:
“The end of the conflict has arrived!”
The FARC declared a unilateral ceasefire in July 2015. But Sunday night’s ceasefire is the first in which both sides have committed to a definitive end to the fighting.
“The ceasefire is really one more seal on the end of the conflict. It is the test of fire,” said Carlos Alfonso Velazquez, a security expert at the University of La Sabana.
Demobilisation
Santos and Timochenko are due to sign a final, full peace agreement sometime between 20 and 26 September.
The ceasefire and definitive end of hostilities will be followed by a six-month demobilisation process.
From today, the FARC’s estimated 7,500 fighters will start heading to collection points to give up their weapons under UN supervision.
Guerrillas who refuse to demobilise and disarm “will be pursued with all the strength of the state forces,” Santos told El Espectador newspaper.
Before the demobilisation, the FARC will convene its leaders and troops one last time before transforming into “a legal political movement,” according to a statement published on Saturday.
Peace referendum
On 2 October, Colombians will go to the polls to cast ballots in a referendum that Santos hopes will endorse the peace agreement.
“A victory for the ‘Yes’ vote will be a mandate from citizens for future governments,” Santos was quoting as saying by El Espectador.
The plebiscite will grant the political legitimacy that is needed.
He said the exact question that will be posed to voters in the referendum would be announced “in the coming days”.
“We are on the verge of perhaps the most important political decision of our lives,” Santos said in a speech on Saturday.
Deadly conflict
The territorial and ideological conflict has drawn in various left- and right-wing armed groups and gangs.
It has left some 260,000 dead, 45,000 missing and 6.9 million people uprooted from their homes.
Efforts to launch peace talks with a smaller rebel group, the National Liberation Army, have yet to bear fruit.
But with the country’s biggest rebel group, the FARC, ordering a definitive ceasefire, the conflict appears to be reaching an end.
“To the soldiers, naval personnel and air force pilots, police and state security and intelligence agencies, we wish to express our clear and definite will for reconciliation,” said Jimenez, known by the nom-de-guerre Timochenko, in Havana.
Rivalries and resentment must remain in the past. Today more than ever we regret that so much death and pain has been caused by the war. Today more than ever we wish to embrace them as compatriots and start to work together for a new Colombia.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Mericans gonna merican.
@Sun Rise: he would have given them all aids and cancer
@Tommy Robinson: A truly fatuous comment.
@Minnie Mouse: Are you fat?
In our Google mapped world it’s easy to forget that there are still pockets of humanity who are so far removed from the modern world.
You see overhead shots of them occasionally. It’s fascinating to think about how they process things like helicopters and drones, in communities almost completely closed off from modern machinery and tech. Their first time seeing such things must be so overwhelming and confusing. It makes you think of the famous Arthur C. Clarke quote: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”.
How would you even begin to process such things when you live in a world almost completely cut off from any of the advances in the last few hundred years? How would they even begin to process a huge tech filled metropolis? Fascinating stuff.
@SerotoninWars: Arthur C Clarke. Genius.
@SerotoninWars: That’s probably why this guy was trying to kick things off with the Diet Coke and the coconut
@ecrowley ecrowley: Yes, no question! What a legacy!
@Mick Hyland: It’s pretty funny (despite him being an idiot) that he decided a can of Diet Coke was the thing to bring as an offering. Maybe it was inadvertently a good choice as a symbol of modern living. American no-sugar-sugar-water, chemically sweetened, to help people lose weight in a world of highly processed corporate food. I’d imagine they’d get ill if they drank it. He could have brought them a sugar sub from Subway too while he was at it!
Read this yesterday on the BBC.
Apart from he could have given the 150 residents who are all likely very very closely related I believe these people also kill intruders.
Selfish. Could have killed them.
Typical, entitled America, absolutely no respect for others’ borders.
Any change we could put trump there with the can of coke with nethyyahoo . To their luxury result.
@anne leyden: yawn
Those north sentinelese lads sound a bit far-right nativist to me.
@George Bowling: They need some diversity
Drop her up to join the penguins, that will cure her.
He deserved to be eaten.
@Maire Hicks: And all the natives would sit around afterwards,mmmmm that was the best takeaway ever!
@Maire Hicks: One McTourist coming up!
Primitive.i think not.When the Tsunami hit 2006 it swept through the island but they knew about nature and all survived.Reserchers were amazed.Their has been an actual contact before.it is on you tube.very interesting.i hope he gets prison to deter all others.Just leave them alone.
@morgan duggan:
The tsunami was 2004.
Does he realize that he could have been eaten?
Bloody YouTubers absolutely useless people. Shame the locals did not end him permanently.
More brain cells in the coconut I’d say.
In the furtherance of Christianity !
Shoot him.
He was probably on his way to let them know the new tariffs rates their exports will be subject to in the US. I can see the headlines now,” Trump demands release of the Americian citizen before he sends in the marines”. ..
have your say