On Sunday 13 November, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini described the announcement made on Saturday of a revised peace agreement in Colombia between the Colombian government and the FARC guerrilla movement as “good news”.
Mogherini said that she hoped the Colombian people would be able to support the main elements of this revised agreement which the Colombian Foreign Minister Maria Ángela Holguín presented to her during a telephone conversation.
At the beginning of October, a small majority of Colombians rejected the first peace agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC (see EUROPE 11637). Negotiations resumed in Cuba between the two parties, who extended the ceasefire. The new agreement has been described by Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos as better, even though there are no plans for it to be included in the Colombian Constitution. It now stipulates that the FARC draws up an inventory of their goods, which can be used to compensate the victims. The Special Tribunal for Peace will be set up for a ten-year period to judge the crimes committed during the Civil War. It will not be made up of foreign judges and its decisions will be subject to the jurisdiction of the Colombian judicial system. Those who fully collaborate with the Colombian legal system will not be sent to prison but will be subject to travel restrictions.
The leaders of the FARC will, however, be able to integrate into the political life of the country even if they have received sentences for war crimes, an element of the agreement robustly denounced by those opposing any kind of peace agreement. The Colombian government justifies retaining this vital part of the first agreement on the grounds that the peace agreement quite rightly calls on FARC combatants to defend their interests in the future by way of exclusively democratic means.
Mogherini expressed hope that Santos, who was awarded the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize, will be able to sign the agreement setting up the EU trust fund of €90 million for supporting peace efforts, on Monday 12 December during the Foreign Affairs Council. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)