This movement that took arms in the heart of the cold war was officially dissolved after a peace agreement with the Colombian government in 2016.
Le Monde with AFP and Reuters
The Marxist guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) was withdrawn Tuesday, November 30 of the Black List of foreign terrorist organizations established by the United States, announced Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a statement.
Today’s Revocation of Farc’s Terrorist Designations is a credit to the 2016 Peace Agreement with the Colombian Governm … https://t.co/meflfvdbqt
He recalled that the Farc, a movement of peasants who took arms in the 1960s, in the middle of the Cold War, had been officially dissolved after a peace agreement with the Colombian Government in 2016 and no longer existed as Unified organization coming out of terrorism. On the other hand, two dissident groups of the FARC, the Segunda Marquetalia and the Farc-Ep, or popular army, have been designated as foreign terrorist organizations, he added.
This withdrawal of the FARC in the Black List does not change the position of the United States on the legal proceedings incurred or envisaged against former FARC officials, particularly suspected of drug trafficking, “said Blinken.
The withdrawal of the “terrorist” designation will allow the United States to work on the application of the Colombian agreement, he said. The agencies of the US government, such as the International Development Agency, will be able to intervene in the regions of Colombia where FARC’s demobilized soldiers are located.
from the guerrilla to politics
The 2016 peace agreement ended more than five decades of an armed conflict that has made more than 260,000 deaths and millions of displaced. Colombia commemorated this agreement on Wednesday, which allowed this movement to turn into a legal political party, Comunes, with a guaranteed representation in Parliament but without real influence in the ballot boxes. The text provided for political and agrarian reforms – the issue of land is a key to the conflict – which in theory should be implemented by 2031.
If this agreement has significantly reduced violence, many armed groups continue to crack down in the country, including the two dissident groups of FARC, who have exploited the void left in the mountains by departure from the old guerrilla. .