Negotiators seeking to end the five-decades-old bloody insurgency in Colombia have announced that they had reached a final peace deal in one of the world’s longest-running conflicts.
A majority of Colombians must still approve the landmark deal in a referendum set for October 2.
Under the agreement, FARC rank-and-file soldiers will lay down their heavy weapons, leave jungle camps and slowly reincorporate into Colombian society with the help of government training programs.
As part of the peace plan FARC will be given 10 seats in Colombia’s Congress until 2026.
Negotiations in Cuba broke down several times and at points exposed the hatred festering between the government and rebels. A ceasefire agreement was signed in June.
Inspired by the Cuban revolution, the Marxist guerrilla force FARC, the Spanish acronym for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, had originally sought to redistribute wealth at the point of a gun in the South American country.
But in recent years critics allege the FARC’s estimated 7,000 soldiers had become a narco-terrorist force, reaping millions of dollars from cocaine shipments to the United States.
The war between the group and Colombian government has left an estimated 220,000 dead. About 5 million people have been displaced.