Uncertainty in Colombia as peace deal rejected

By Richard McColl

BOGOTA, Colombia (AA) – Colombia awoke Monday to political uncertainty after voters rejected a referendum by President Juan Manuel Santos on a peace agreement with the FARC.

The government’s lead negotiator, Humberto de la Calle, offered his resignation but said he would continue to work “ceaselessly” for peace in whatever scenario necessary. “The mistakes we have made are my responsibility,” he said in a statement and left his role in any future negotiations at the discretion of Santos.

After the results were announced Sunday, the commander-in-chief of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Rodrigo Londono Echeverri, alias Timochenko, declared in a brief statement from Cuba that his guerrilla group would keep its commitment to peace though he did not present a clear strategy.

“With today’s result we know that our challenge as a political movement is even bigger,” he said, pledging to preserve the truce between the two sides.

Santos delivered a similar message an hour-and-a-half after the vote. “I will not give up and will continue to strive for peace until the last minute of my mandate,” he said, also expressing commitment to the bilateral cease-fire.

Santos ordered his negotiating team to travel to Havana -- where the dialogues began in October 2011 -- to meet with their FARC counterparts and decide how to continue, while in Bogota he convened a meeting of all political parties to discuss the future.

The Democratic Center party, led by former president and now Sen. Alvaro Uribe, was the political force behind the “No” campaign that won the referendum with 50.2 percent of the vote. It campaigned on a platform of no impunity for the guerrillas and for a renegotiation of the deal’s terms, claiming too many concessions had been granted.

“Today we must insist that our reasons are heard,” it said in a news release Monday. “We ask this in the name of all those citizens who voted ‘No’, of the international community and our countrymen who voted ‘Yes’ and all of those who abstained as well as the government and their negotiating team.”

The party declined to attend the meeting in Cuba in spite of Uribe’s declarations Sunday that it “wants to contribute to a new national deal. It is fundamental that in the name of peace, risks to our values are not created such as to liberty, institutional justice, pluralism, confidence in private business accompanied with universal education and social politics.”

In Washington, the State Department said the U.S. would continue to support Santos and Colombia “as it continues to seek democratic peace and prosperity for all Colombians.

“The United States commends the government and people of Colombia for the democratic process held yesterday and recognizes that difficult decisions are going to have to be taken in the days ahead,” spokesman John Kirby said in a statement. ​