More than a month after Colombian voters rejected a peace deal with the country’s largest guerrilla group, negotiators in Havana signed a new deal.
Negotiators with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the government said they had made more than 100 changes to the original document.
Many of the changes involved tightening up vague language that critics feared might be abused. For example, under the previous accord guerrillas accused of serious crimes who confessed to a truth commission and provided reparations to their victims would serve five to eight years of “effective restriction of freedom” — a term that was left undefined.
Now the terms and details of their confinement and monitoring are spelled out.
The new document was signed by the chief negotiator for the government, Humberto de la Calle, and Ivan Marquez for the FARC, who have headed nine days of intensive meetings in the Cuban capital to reach a new agreement in order to “obtain a stable, lasting peace”.
The latest deal includes changes, detailed explanations and contributions from the most diverse sectors of society, which were reviewed one by one.
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos called an urgent meeting with predecessor Alvaro Uribe, who was the staunchest opponent of the earlier peace deal.
The earlier deal signed last September was hailed internationally and led to Santos being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last month.
The original treaty, which was aimed at bringing an end to Colombia’s decades-old armed conflict was rejected by Colombians in a referendum on October 2 as they criticized it for being too lenient on the guerrillas.
Background:
The FARC has been battling the Colombian state for more than half a century, and has been one of the principal players in a broader conflict that has claimed more than 220,000 lives and forced more than six million to flee their homes.
After losing last month’s plebiscite, Santos and his team began marathon negotiations with opponents of the deal, collecting more than 500 proposed changes. Each one was studied by the negotiators in Havana.
