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Santos and 'Timochenko' meet again three years after signing the peace process in Colombia: what was said?

2019-12-05T23:02:50.158Z


In 2016, Juan Manuel Santos, then president of Colombia, and Rodrigo Londoño, leader of today's demobilized FARC guerrillas, signed a peace agreement to end more than 50 years of conf ...


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(CNN Spanish) - It was an image that toured the world in September 2016 and sealed the new chapter of a country that had more than half a century of war: the then president of Colombia Juan Manuel Santos and the leader of the demobilized guerrilla of the FARC Rodrigo Londoño, who is still widely known for his alias 'Timochenko', signing the historic peace agreement to end the armed conflict. Together. Shaking hands Smiling. And then, two months later, in November, repeating the scene with a modified agreement, after the defeat of the plebiscite.

Three years from that moment, while the country lives intense days of demonstrations against the government of Iván Duque, Santos and Londoño met again to talk with the journalist Carmen Aristegui, of CNN Spanish. Side by side they talked about the convulsion that Colombia is going through, the agreement for which they bet and drug trafficking as a financing strategy for the FARC being a guerrilla group. What did they say? Here the highlights of the interview, whose second part will be broadcast this Thursday, December 5 at 11:00 pm Eastern Time.

Santos: “50 years of war are too many”

Santos, who finished his second term on August 7, 2018, explained how the beginnings of the armed conflict in Colombia were in a town called Marquetalia, where the peasant self-defense groups that would later become the Revolutionary Forces of Colombia, FARC, initially emerge. "That was in 1964, in the middle of the world in a Cold War and the Cold War in a way it was also brought to Colombia," Santos said. And then he assured that "50 years of war are too many years and that is why we had to find the solution to that armed conflict, we were losing our ability to feel compassion." He added that a society that "loses its ability" to feel compassion "is left without a future, so we strive to find that negotiated solution."

Londoño said that the agreement signed the "minimum bases for a political solution to the internal conflict Colombia was experiencing." But from there, said the now leader of the FARC party, it was also necessary to start with “the also minimal transformations that the Colombian State needs to initiate the eradication of the causes that generated the conflict throughout all these years”. That is why he stressed the importance of fully complying with what was agreed.

In fact, compliance and implementation of the Havana peace accords is one of the reasons why protesters in Colombia have taken to the streets to protest against the government of Iván Duque. Something Santos relates to people feeling "freer" than before. By explaining that part of the agreement sought to face problems that affected the entire population, such as the development of the countryside, drug trafficking and the modernization of democracy. “The issue of political reform, of modernizing our democracy, of strengthening it. Today's protests, which we are seeing in Colombia in a way, have to do with the fact that people today feel much freer than they felt before, ”said the former president.

In this sense, Santos said that "people realized that all the lies they were saying about the peace process were not true and that the process was going with difficulties, but was going in the right direction." He added that "a very important part of the reasons for the protests" is because "the government has not shown sufficient willingness to implement the peace agreements."

For his part, Londoño said that more than 95% "of the ex-guerrillas, of which we militated in the FARC before the signing of the agreement is maintained." He stressed that a part of these ex-combatants is in the main cities of the country "trying to survive and linking in productive activities", because "unfortunately the projects that we dream of large size still do not start."

'Timochenko': “It is one thing to be a revolutionary and another thing to be a drug dealer”

Given the question about drug trafficking as a way of financing, Londoño wanted to explain that it was a phenomenon that appeared in the 80s, after the formation of the FARC as a guerrilla. "We saw it as a financial possibility to collect finances based on the political project, as we did with other illegal or legal activities that took place in the regions to collect finances based on carrying out the project," he said. And then he added that drug trafficking never "permeated" them as an organization: "If we had been absorbed by drug trafficking today we would not have needed that agreement, we would have disappeared without the need for any agreement because it is one thing to be revolutionary and another thing is to be drug trafficker." .

He also clarified that during the demobilization and disarmament process, his organization does not speak of "arms delivery" but of "abandonment" because they were not defeated: "We were not facing a military defeat." Then he added "we rejoin civil life, legal life, compliance with laws and the Constitution."

Do not miss the second part of the interview with Juan Manuel Santos and Rodrigo Londoño in Aristegui this Thursday, December 5 at 11:00 pm Eastern Time.

Juan Manuel Santos Peace process Colombia FARCP Peace process in Colombia Rodrigo Londoño Timochenko

Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2019-12-05

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