The historic agreement requires approval by the country’s 34 million voters on Sunday, but not all victims of the conflict are behind the push to affirm it
Colombia’s 52-year conflict has left few of its citizens unscathed. In sprawling cities and remote country villages, nearly everyone has experienced killings and kidnaps, bombings and displacement – or knows someone who has.
After the historic peace agreement between the Colombian government and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia was signed and sealed this week, it is now up to those same citizens to approve the deal – and finally put an end to the 52-year war.
In a national plebiscite on Sunday, some 34 million voters will be asked to vote yes or no to the question: “Do you support the final agreement to end the conflict and build a stable and lasting peace?”
To make the vote’s result binding, the winning side would need a majority of ballots cast and support totaling at least 13% of eligible voters.
Most recent polls show 66% of voters will approve the deal, but a third of voters will reject it. And the division between the two groups is perhaps most acute among direct victims of the Farc.
Sigifredo López spent nearly seven years as a Farc hostage after a guerrilla unit kidnapped him and 11 fellow regional legislators in Cali in 2002. He was the only survivor of a confused friendly-fire incident between two Farc units in which all his colleagues were killed.
Despite his experience, López is actively promoting a “yes” vote in the plebiscite – even though he wishes the peace deal had included tougher sentences for those responsible for such crimes as the indiscriminate bombing of a church in the town of Bojayá that killed 119 people in 2002, and the 2003 car bomb in a Bogotá social club called El Nogal where 36 people lost their lives.
“I support ‘yes’ because children being born today deserve to live in a better country. It’s an act of responsibility with the new generations to vote yes to give them a country that has overcome its conflict,” he said.
After the historic peace agreement between the Colombian government and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia was signed and sealed this week, it is now up to those same citizens to approve the deal – and finally put an end to the 52-year war.
In a national plebiscite on Sunday, some 34 million voters will be asked to vote yes or no to the question: “Do you support the final agreement to end the conflict and build a stable and lasting peace?”
To make the vote’s result binding, the winning side would need a majority of ballots cast and support totaling at least 13% of eligible voters.
Most recent polls show 66% of voters will approve the deal, but a third of voters will reject it. And the division between the two groups is perhaps most acute among direct victims of the Farc.
Sigifredo López spent nearly seven years as a Farc hostage after a guerrilla unit kidnapped him and 11 fellow regional legislators in Cali in 2002. He was the only survivor of a confused friendly-fire incident between two Farc units in which all his colleagues were killed.
Despite his experience, López is actively promoting a “yes” vote in the plebiscite – even though he wishes the peace deal had included tougher sentences for those responsible for such crimes as the indiscriminate bombing of a church in the town of Bojayá that killed 119 people in 2002, and the 2003 car bomb in a Bogotá social club called El Nogal where 36 people lost their lives.
“I support ‘yes’ because children being born today deserve to live in a better country. It’s an act of responsibility with the new generations to vote yes to give them a country that has overcome its conflict,” he said.
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