Colombia Peace Deal: FARC Announces Cease-Fire And Downs Weapons

Members of the 51st Front of the FARC patrol in the remote mountains of Colombia. Credit: Reuters

ITV News‎

One of the world’s longest-running conflicts is set to come to an end as the commander of Colombia’s rebel movement has said its fighters will permanently cease hostilities with the government.

The truce will begin with the first minute of Monday, as a result of their peace deal after 52 years of conflict.

Rodrigo Londono, leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, made the announcement in Havana, where the two sides negotiated for four years to come to an agreement.

“Never again will parents be burying their sons and daughters killed in the war,” said Londono, who also known as Timoshenko. “All rivalries and grudges will remain in the past.”

The conflict has killed an estimated 260,000 people and displaced millions.

Members of the 51st Front of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia stand in line to get food at a camp in Cordillera Oriental, Colombia. Credit: Reuters

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos announced on Friday that his military would cease attacks on the FARC beginning Monday.

Colombia is expected to hold a national referendum 2 October to give voters the chance to approve the deal for ending a half-century of political violence that has claimed more than 220,000 lives and driven more than 5 million people from their homes

After the agreement is signed, FARC guerrillas are supposed to begin handing their weapons over to United Nations-sponsored monitors.

http://www.itv.com/news/2016-08-28/farc-downs-weapons-and-sets-permanent-cease-fire-under-colombia-peace-deal/

For Peace, Colombia Must Return Stolen Land, Respect Rights: Amnesty

FARC Rebels

By Anastasia Moloney | Reuters

BOGOTA – The Colombian government must ensure indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities uprooted by warring factions can return home and have a greater say in how their lands are developed, rights group Amnesty International said.

Over five decades of conflict, more than six million Colombians have been forced off their land by fighting among Marxist rebels, right-wing paramilitaries and government troops, government figures show.

The issue of how to return stolen and abandoned land to its rightful owners is a key talking point at peace talks in Cuba between the government and the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Displaced communities wanting to return also face the problem of exploitation by mining companies, according to a report published by Amnesty on Wednesday.

“Any peace deal will be meaningless unless the rights of Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities to return to their lands and decide how they are used are prioritized above companies’ desire to exploit those lands for their own profit,” said Erika Guevara, Amnesty’s Americas director, in a statement.

At least eight million hectares of land – some 14 percent of Colombian territory – have been abandoned or illegally acquired through fraud, violence or extortion, the report said.

Most of those affected are farming, indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities who earn their living from their land and whose land is rich in resources.

Displaced people who owned their land are eligible to claim it back under a historic land restitution law passed in 2011.

The law, a crucial reform of the government of Juan Manuel Santos, aims to return millions of hectares of stolen land to its rightful owners and to enable displaced people to return home and claim reparations.

The law is a “significant step forward,” but land return is plagued by problems ranging from bureaucracy to intimidation, including death threats against claimants, Amnesty said.

“Nearly four years since the process began … only a relatively small proportion of such lands have been returned to their rightful occupants,” the report said.

Ricardo Sabogal, who heads the government entity charged with overseeing land restitution, said the government has handed back 173,000 hectares of land benefiting about 20,000 Colombians.

“It’s not easy to push ahead with a process of land restitution in the middle of a conflict,” Sabogal told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview.

“That’s why peace is so important, so that families can go back quickly and safely to their lands.”

He said ensuring displaced people return to their lands is also made difficult because of landmines, mostly planted by FARC rebels, littering parts of the countryside.

Since 2000, successive governments have granted licenses to local and international mining and other companies looking to tap into Colombia’s mineral and oil resources, the report said.

The economy is driven by commodity exports, and the country is Latin America’s fourth largest oil producer.

By law, companies planning projects must first consult communities living on or using the land they want to exploit.

Amnesty said it had written to several companies with mining projects on lands where indigenous communities live.

In response mining company AngloGold Ashanti, which operates gold mines in western Choco province, told Amnesty it was committed to the “lawful consent of indigenous communities” for projects on lands traditionally owned or used by ethnic groups “and are likely to have a significant impact on these groups.”

But Amnesty said in general licenses have often been granted to companies which have not consulted communities nor obtained their free and informed consent.

“Unless the authorities can ensure that these rights are effectively respected as a matter of urgency … it risks leaving one of the principal causes of the armed conflict unresolved. This could have serious repercussions for the long-term viability of any eventual peace agreement,” the report said. (Reporting by Anastasia Moloney, editing by Tim Pearce. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit http://www.trust.org)

http://news.yahoo.com/peace-colombia-must-return-stolen-land-respect-rights-053824774.html

Separate peace talks for Colombia’s ELN and FARC rebels

FARC

OCT 21, 2014

Bogota (AFP) – Colombia’s two top rebel groups, the ELN and the FARC, will hold separate peace talks with the government, the ELN said Monday, as the sides aim to end decades of conflict.

The National Liberation Army (ELN), said its negotiations will be held parallel to the ongoing talks between the government and the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

“Our slogan is to have two processes with a single goal,” the ELN said in a statement.

The ELN and the government have been in preliminary talks in recent months, which rebels leader, Nicolas Rodriguez Bautista, nicknamed “Gabino,” said on Sunday had been constructive.

The government has been negotiating with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or the FARC, since November 2012, and has reached agreements on three of the six items on their agenda.

Meanwhile, Colombia said Monday it received a $100 million loan from the German Development Bank to “fund projects for prevention, protection, support and redress for victims” in the post-conflict nation.

The ELN, believed to have some 2,500 fighters, has been active for 48 years, although it has often been overshadowed by the much larger FARC group.

Five decades of fighting between government troops and various guerrilla groups conflict have killed 220,000 people and caused more than five million to flee their homes.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has made peace deals with the rebel groups his top political priority.