16 August 2017•Update: 16 August 2017
By Richard McColl
BOGOTA, Colombia
Colombia’s FARC rebel group revealed the new name of their political party Tuesday as they prepare to enter formal politics, leaving their armed past behind.
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which signed a peace agreement with the Colombian government in 2016, will continue to use the same acronym but will change their name to the Revolutionary Alternative Force of Colombia.
“Very soon we will be holding a founding congress for our new political party which will surely be called the Revolutionary Alternative Force of Colombia,” said Ivan Márquez of FARC’s secretariat at a ceremony in Fonseca, Northern Colombia.
“We do not want to break our links with our past. We have been and will continue to be a revolutionary organization. We want to be a voice for the excluded, for those with no voice, for those that live in misery, the voice of honest and good people of Colombia,” said Márquez.
Also attending the symbolic ceremony to mark the removal of the final container of weapons handed over by the guerrilla group to the UN was Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos.
“This was what Colombians never believed would happen,” said Santos. “Eight months after signing the peace agreement, here we are, seeing the end of the disarmament process. This is a record,” he said.
“Today effectively marks the final sigh of this conflict, with this disarmament process, with these last containers. The conflict has really ended, and so begins a new phase in the life of our nation.”
During the ceremony, the head of the UN mission to Colombia, Jean Arnault, confirmed that a total of 8,112 weapons and almost 1.3 million bullets have been incinerated.
From today, the 26 zones of transition across Colombia where the guerrillas have been living since they abandoned their traditional camps are now to be known as zones of reincorporation and training.
