28 June, 2017
Colombia's Marxist FARC rebels have handed over the majority of their weapons to the United Nations, the global organisation said on Monday, part of a peace deal with the government to end more than a half century of war.
"Farewell to war. Farewell to arms, welcome to peace!" said commander Rodrigo Londono, alias Timochenko, in a speech in the central town of Mesetas, the group's historic base.
"It merely replaces the armed struggle with exclusively legal means", rebel leader Londono told the gathering, adding that the FARC's goal in peacetime will remain the same as it was during half a century of warfare, to attain power.
"We are giving the country our ethical and political commitment that we're giving up weapons", Ceron said Monday as crews built the stage where the disarmament ceremony would take place amid pouring rain.
The militant rebel group has been involved in drug trafficking, kidnapping and other illicit activity to fund its insurgency.
Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos said "our peace is real and irreversible".
"From now on, your word will be your only weapon", President Juan Manuel Santos said today at an event with FARC members in the eastern municipality of Mesetas.
The 7,132 weapons will be stored in containers until they are moulded into a monument for peace. Yellow butterflies were released and an AK-47 converted into an electric guitar rang out plaintive chords in honor of the long conflict's victims.
There's also concern the more-ideological National Liberation Army could fill the void left by the FARC's retreat, although that smaller rebel movement has been negotiating a peace of its own for months.
The UN team, which has been tasked with verifying that all weapons were handed over, certified 7,132 individual weapons during the ceremony.
Also present between the two leaders was head of the United Nations mission to Colombia, Jean Arnault, who said the bilateral ceasefire had been consolidated. In addition, it also claims that 77 out of 900 clandestine arms caches operated by FARC rebels have been found and emptied.
Some of them are reachable only by river or foot through dense jungle and mountain terrain.
Many Colombians are concerned that if there is any delay, these weapons could fall into the hand of criminals, paramilitaries or the ELN, Colombia's second-largest left-wing rebel group.
The ELN kidnapped two Dutch journalists on June 19 and freed them five days later.
Although the government promises to provide protection, the FARC is concerned about security.
Three women were killed at a shopping center in Bogota on June 17, in a bombing blamed on a fringe extremist group.
