Colombia and FARC Agree to Extend Disarmament Deadline

The deadline for FARC members to disarm has been extended an additional 20 days, the Colombian government announced Monday.

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“In a joint agreement with the United Nations and the FARC we have agreed that the arms handover will not end tomorrow as had been planned, but instead within 20 days,” President Juan Manuel Santos said Monday night in a televised speech.

In November 2016, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the country's left-wing guerrilla army composed of approximately 7,000 soldiers in 26 transition zones, signed a peace treaty and agreed to surrender its weapons to the United Nations by May 30 to the United Nations after more than five decades of conflict.

“There will be an additional 20 days for disarmament and 60 days for reincorporation. It is nothing to finish well 53 years of confrontation and fratricidal violence, " the president said.

However, at the time rebel leaders predicted logistical issues and the impossibility of the deadline due to the unfinished construction of their camps for demobilized soldiers. The date for residency in the makeshift camps was also extended to August 1, an additional two months, to provide more time to establish the re-entry into civilian life headed by the Commission for Follow-up, Impulse and Verification on the Implementation of the Final Agreement, or CSIVI.

"This change in date does not affect in any way the firm decision and the clear commitment to comply with the Agreement. The International Monitoring and Verification Mechanism will continue to play its role until certifying that the last weapon has been delivered and withdrawn from the national territory," President Santos said.

Chief negotiator Iván Márquez spoke on the 53 anniversary of the group’s foundation in support of the peace treaty. 

"Peace is not a matter of laws, but of political will. Something tells us that this government has the keys to giving Colombia its inalienable right to live in peace and dignity. The consolidation of peace has the tool of the Constitution and must be used to prevent any irresponsible from fulfilling its threat of breaking it. While war is the failure of law, peace exalts life, as Alvaro Leyva says," said Márquez.