Colombia on the verge of peace agreement after 50 years of war
"Nobody has hate[d] the FARC more then I have. The thing is that you make peace with your enemies. You don't make peace with your friends. And that's why I was very glad to stretch my hand to my enemy, the leader of my enemy and say listen... this is a great agreement for Colombia, for the world, for the region, for you and for me."- Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos
It's hardly warm-and-fuzzy. But after 50 years of brutal civil conflict, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos' pragmatic pitch for peace with The FARC is being welcomed by many Colombians.
Last week, President Santos extended his hand to Timoleon Jimenez, the leader of Colombia's biggest rebel group. The two men then announced that they had come to an agreement on the final element of a peace plan. This last piece had been especially contentious because it lays out the plan to bring the perpetrators to justice.
- Nicolas Lloreda is the Colombian Ambassador to Canada. He was in our Toronto studio.
- Ivan Duque Marquez is a Colombian Senator and a member of the opposition Centro Democratico party. He was in Bogota.
The agreement on how to bring the perpetrators of Colombia's violence to justice has been a long time coming.
Pilar Riano-Alcala is a professor at the University of British Columbia. She was one of the researchers for Colombia's Historical Memory Commission, which produced a report about the conflict that was used to inform the peace negotiations.
This segment was produced by The Current's Howard Goldenthal and Leif Zapf-Gilje.