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Colombians voted in a referendum on Sunday on whether to ratify a historic peace accord to end a 52-year war between the state and the communist FARC rebels.
The accord will effectively end what is seen as the last major armed conflict in the Western Hemisphere. The war has killed hundreds of thousands of
people and displaced millions.
“Peace is the way for our children and grandchildren to have a better country,” President Juan Manuel Santos said when he turned up to vote on Sunday morning.
“We Colombians must all play a role in this historic change.”
His government says it has no Plan B if voters reject the accord, but polls indicate it will pass by a wide margin.
“Colombia is betting everything on this plebiscite, socially, economically and politically,” said Jorge Restrepo, director of conflict analysis center CERAC.
‘No more war’
Colombians are sick of war, even though many resent making concessions to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which has carried out killings, kidnappings and extortion.
Now citizens are voting on the question: “Do you support the final accord to end the conflict and to build a stable and lasting peace?”
“My parents were born into the conflict in a town where there were lots of kidnappings by the guerrillas… The houses were full of bullet holes,” said one voter, Lina Romero, 25. “I want the ‘Yes’ vote to win so that if I have children one day, they will not have to live in war.”
Polls opened at 1300 GMT across the country and were due to close at 2100 GMT, with a result expected soon thereafter. Around 35 million of Colombia’s 48 million people were eligible to vote.
Resistance
Opinion surveys by pollsters Datexco and Ipsos Napoleon Franco, published on October 26, indicated the ‘Yes” vote would win by a margin of around 20 percent.
Both polls indicated a ‘No’ vote of about 35 percent.
“October 2 is the only opportunity to correct these accords that Santos has rewarded the FARC with,” wrote the leader of the ‘No’ campaign, former president Alvaro Uribe on Twitter.
Disarmament, politics
The deal signed on October 26 by Santos and FARC leader Rodrigo Londono, known as “Timochenko,” calls for the rebels to disarm and convert into a political group.
It is guaranteed to have at least 10 seats guaranteed in Colombia’s Congress.
The accord covers justice and compensation and an end to the cocaine production that has fueled the conflict.
There is an amnesty for some FARC members but not for the worst crimes such as massacres, torture and rape.
The FARC promised in a statement on Saturday that it would provide “material compensation for victims.”
FARC fighters must demobilize and disarm over the coming six months, monitored by the United Nations. The force says it has 5,765 members. The accord virtually ends the conflict, even though the government has so far failed to start peace talks with a smaller leftist rebel group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), which it accuses of holding hostages.
– Reconciliation –
The FARC launched its guerrilla war on the government in 1964, after a peasant uprising that was crushed by the army.
The ideological and territorial conflict drew in several leftist rebel groups, right-wing paramilitaries and drug gangs.
Colombian authorities estimate the conflict has left 260,000 people dead, 45,000 missing and nearly seven million displaced.
The FARC have apologized to their victims and held emotional face-to-face reconciliations over recent days.
One such encounter took place on Friday in La Chinita, northwestern Colombia, where a FARC massacre at a fundraising party in 1994 left 35 dead.
“The best thing there can be is peace,” said Maria Laureana Mosquera Palacios, 64. She was widowed with four children when her husband was among those killed.
“No more massacres. No more wickedness.”