The US government on Tuesday notified the US Congress of its intention to remove the former rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) from its blacklist of foreign terrorist organizations, a parliamentary source told AFP.
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This decision comes on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the peace accords that ended the war in the country. Previously, US diplomacy spokesman Ned Price had confined himself to reporting a “notification about next steps” taken by Washington on the FARC.
The FARC had been on the American blacklist since 1997, which allows for a series of financial and diplomatic sanctions against certain groups and their members. On November 24, 2016, they signed a peace agreement with the then Colombian President, Juan Manuel Santos, after negotiations in Cuba.
Fragile peace
Considered the most powerful guerrilla in Latin America with 13,000 combatants, the FARC have since disarmed, even if peace remains fragile in a country still subject to violence, and divided. Having become a political party (Comunes), the former rebellion is now a negligible political force.
“The peace process and the signing of the peace agreement five years ago was a real turning point for the long Colombian conflict,” Ned Price recalled, stressing that he had “ended five decades of conflict ”and“ placed Colombia on the path of a just and lasting peace ”. “We have done everything to preserve it, at every stage,” he added. “We remain fully committed to working with our Colombian partners on the implementation of the peace agreement.”
Guterres’ cautious hopes
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, visiting Colombia on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the peace agreement with the FARC, met with former guerrilla fighters on Tuesday, praising their desire for reintegration, while by worrying about the actions of “enemies of peace”.
Accompanied by President Ivan Duque, Antonio Guterres visited the municipality of Dabeiba, “to see firsthand the achievements of peace”. He visited a “reintegration” site in Llano Grande, where former members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) live with their families, who have been trying, since the 2016 agreement, to reintegrate into civilian life with their families. small economic projects.
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On Tuesday, Antonio Guterres was accompanied by several ex-guerrilla leaders, including their former commander, Rodrigo Londoño, who saw as an “encouragement” the presence at their side of President Duque during this visit. “We must redouble our efforts to guarantee the sustainability of (reintegration) projects, with technical and financial support, land and housing,” demanded the UN boss, while the international community is the main support of the process. The 2016 agreement “has a transformative vocation to tackle the root causes of the conflict, its implementation and success in the territories are therefore crucial”, he stressed.
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