The pact was sealed in an official meeting in which phrases such as “Peace is not a utopia, it is a fundamental right” could be heard, mentioned by the president of Cuba, Raúl Castro. For his part, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged both parties to close the agreement as soon as possible to take the agreed steps.

A new era is making its way in Colombia. After more than 50 years of conflict, The Government of Colombia and the FARC have signed a bilateral and definitive ceasefire, the prelude to a peace agreement with the oldest guerrilla in Latin America that will almost certainly occur before the end of the summer. From then on, the truce will be implemented, the concentration of the guerrillas and the laying down of their weapons, which will be melted down by the UN to create three monuments.

Santos and Rodrigo Londoño (alias Timochenko), leader of the guerrilla, with the presence of the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, once again sealed with a handshake the content of an agreement that has taken months of negotiation. The FARC will be located in 23 concentration areas. These places will be temporary, they will have access by river and land and their extension will be “reasonable depending on the path.” At the moment it has not been clarified where these concentration areas will be located.

“It is time for us to live without war, it is time for us to be a country at peace,” Santos assured as soon as he began his speech, in which he celebrated the FARC's willingness in the negotiation. “I will defend their right to express themselves and to continue their political struggle through legal channels, even if we never agree,” the president highlighted. For his part, Timochenko stressed that the negotiation has achieved that “neither the FARC nor the State are defeated parties” in a confrontation. “Peace is not a utopia, it is a fundamental right”, assured the president of Cuba, Raúl Castro, who along the same lines with the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, urged both parties to close the agreement as soon as possible to take the agreed steps.

January 26, 2022

Fuente: EL PAIS Newspaper