CARTAGENA, Colombia — After a half-century of bloody combat and four years of tense peace negotiations, now the hard work begins.
With the signing of a historic peace accord between the government and leftist rebels, Colombians must now show even more determination to implement an ambitious accord that will test their capacity for reconciliation and willingness to address longstanding inequality.
The first test is a referendum this weekend in which voters are being asked to ratify or reject the deal. If it passes, as expected, the still uncertain task of reopening old war wounds begins.
For starters, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia’s estimated 7,000 fighters would have to turn over their weapons gradually to a team of United Nations-sponsored observers within six months.
A much tougher challenge will be providing a minimum of justice and compensation to millions of victims, a process that will require FARC rebels and state actors who want to avoid jail to confess their war crimes committed during a 52-year conflict marred by brutalities.
Longer-term, the two sides have drafted a daunting agenda to hasten the development of Colombia’s long-neglected countryside. It includes addressing unequal land distribution and removing illegal coca crops that starting in the 1980s strengthened the FARC — and some say morally corrupted it — while other leftist insurgencies across Latin America fell by the wayside.
There’s also the security risks posed by another smaller, more ideological rebel group, the National Liberation Army, or ELN, which along with armed criminal gangs could fill the void left by a retreating FARC.
The government and ELN announced peace negotiations of their own in March, but those talks have yet to start over the government’s insistence the group renounce kidnapping. This week the ELN ordered a temporary unilateral ceasefire to allow the referendum on the FARC deal to take place without a problem.
President Juan Manuel Santos and Rodrigo Londono, top commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, formally signed the agreement Monday before a crowd of 2,500 foreign dignitaries and special guests, including U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.
Many in the audience, all dressed in white, had tears in their eyes as Santos removed from his lapel a pin shaped like a white dove that he has been wearing for years and handed it over to his former adversary, who fastened it to his own shirt.
It was one of many symbolic gestures during the 90-minute ceremony overlooking the colonial ramparts of Cartagena that filled Colombians with hope and optimism for the arduous work ahead implementing a 297-page accord that took four years to negotiate.
“As head of state of the fatherland we all love, I want to welcome you to democracy,” Santos said.
Londono, best known by his alias Timochenko, called Santos “a courageous partner” and proclaimed there was no turning back on the FARC’s decision to abandon Colombia’s jungles.
Across the country, Colombians celebrated with a host of activities, from peace concerts to a street party in the capital, Bogota, where the ceremony was broadcast live on a giant screen.
The signing was greeted with cheers followed by calls for Timochenko to be president from about 1,000 FARC rebels in the Yari Plains, a remote area where the group recently concluded its last congress as a guerrilla army by endorsing the deal.
