Brussels, 24/09/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 24 September, High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini praised the “decisive” progress towards a comprehensive peace agreement in Colombia between the Colombian authorities and the Marxist FARC guerrillas.
“Peace is closer than ever in Colombia”, Mogherini stated. In her view, “the announcement by President Santos and the head of the FARC negotiating team of an agreement on transitional justice and the six month timeline to a final deal is a decisive step forward”.
The most thorny point in the negotiations concerned the judicial outcome for the FARC fighters. Although they admit to their crimes, the FARC leaders could be subject to sentences of “deprivation of liberty” for a maximum of eight years. A special court, comprising Colombian and foreign judges, will be set up to apply this concept of privation of liberty which will be set out in a special law, says Colombian daily newspaper El Tiempo. Other actors in the deadly conflict (the oldest in Latin America, which has claimed some 220,000 lives) will also be judged - including Colombian military and police officers, politicians and civilians who have financed the guerrillas.
The agreement was announced from Havana (Cuba) on Cuban television on Wednesday 23 September by Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC leader, Timoleon Jimenez, known as Timchenko, in the presence of Cuba's President Raul Castro. The meeting (the first of its kind in 14 years) finished with the two Colombians shaking hands.
The agreement also provides for the clear commitment that a comprehensive peace agreement be found by Wednesday 23 March 2016 at the latest. If this is the case, FARC fighters will have 60 days after this date to lay down their arms definitively.
Congratulating “all Colombian parties involved in the negotiations, as well as Cuba and Norway as facilitators”, Mogherini underlined the importance of ensuring “credible justice for the victims of the conflict” as “an essential element to help heal the wounds of violence and build effective and sustainable peace”.
This agreement oversees other provisional agreements on the fight against drugs trafficking, agrarian reform, and the political participation of the parties to the conflict (see EUROPE 11082 and 10855). (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)