CARTAGENA, Colombia -- Colombia's government and the country's largest rebel movement on Monday signed a peace accord aimed at ending an era that saw more than 220,000 deaths, 8 million people made homeless and countless human-rights violations.
Underlining the significance of the deal, President Juan Manuel Santos and Rodrigo Londono, the top commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, signed the accord Monday night in the colonial city of Cartagena. Fifteen Latin American presidents as well as U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry were on hand to witness the signing.
The more than 2,500 guests at the ceremony capping South America's oldest armed conflict were asked to wear white as a sign of peace, and Santos and Londono signed the 297-page accord with pens made from recycled shells used in combat.
Many in the audience had tears in their eyes, and shouts rose urging Santos and Londono to "Hug, hug, hug!" In the end, the two men clasped hands and smiled effusively. Then Santos removed from his lapel a pin shaped like a white dove that he's been wearing for years and handed it over to his former adversary, who fastened it on his own shirt.
Addressing the FARC leaders onstage, Santos said, "When you begin your journey back to society, when you begin your conversion into a political movement, I, as head of state of the fatherland we all love, want to welcome you to democracy."
Londono, best known by his alias Timochenko, called Santos "a courageous partner" and hailed the accord as not only a victory for Colombia but also an example to war-ravaged Syria and the Palestinians and Israelis of what can be achieved through dialogue.
He also praised the FARC's fighters as heroes of the downtrodden and then called out for forgiveness of the group's crimes, which range from kidnapping of civilians to its laying of land mines that have claimed thousands of victims.
"I apologize for all the pain that we have caused," he said.
Earlier Monday, Santos and the foreign dignitaries attended a Mass celebrated by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican's secretary of state, at a baroque church named for St. Peter Claver, a 17th-century Jesuit priest revered as the "slave of slaves" for his role aiding thousands of African slaves transported to the New World as chattel.
In a homily, Pope Francis' envoy praised Colombians for overcoming the pain of the bloody conflict to find common ground with the rebels.
"All of us here today are conscious of the fact we're at the end of a negotiation, but also the beginning of a still-open process of change that requires the contribution and respect of all Colombians," the cardinal said.
Across the country Colombians marked the occasion with a host of activities, from peace concerts by popular artists to a street party in the capital, Bogota, where the signing ceremony was to be broadcast live on a giant screen. It was also celebrated by hundreds of guerrillas gathered in a remote region of southern Colombia where last week top commanders ratified the accord in what they said would be their last conference as a guerrilla army.
The signing won't close the deal, however. Colombians will be given the final say on endorsing or rejecting the accord in an Oct. 2 referendum. Opinion polls point to an almost-certain victory for the yes vote, but some analysts warn that a closer-than-expected finish or low voter turnout could bode poorly for the tough task the country faces in implementing the accord.
Among the key challenges will be judging the war crimes of guerrillas as well as state actors. Under terms of the accord, rebels who lay down their weapons and confess their abuses will be spared jail time and be allowed to provide reparations to their victims by carrying out development work in areas hard hit by the conflict.
That has angered some victims and conservative opponents of Santos, a few hundred of whom took to the streets Monday to protest what they consider the government's excessive leniency toward guerrilla leaders responsible for scores of atrocities in a conflict fueled by the country's cocaine trade.
To shouts of "Santos is a coward!" former President Alvaro Uribe, the architect of the decade-long, U.S.-backed military offensive that forced the FARC to the negotiating table, said the peace deal puts Colombia on a path to becoming a leftist dictatorship in the mold of Cuba or Venezuela -- two countries that, along with Norway, played a vital role sponsoring the four-year-long talks.
"The democratic world would never allow [Osama] bin Laden or those belonging to [the Islamic State] to become president, so why does Colombia have to allow the election of the terrorists who've kidnapped 11,700 children or raped 6,800 women?" he told protesters gathered in a working-class neighborhood on the outskirts of Cartagena.
The stiff domestic opposition contrasts with widespread acclaim abroad for the accord. On Monday, European Union foreign policy coordinator Federica Mogherini said that with the signing of the peace agreement, the EU would suspend the FARC from its list of terrorist organizations.
The FARC was established in 1964 by self-defense groups and communist activists who joined forces to resist a government military onslaught. Reflecting that history, the final accord commits the government to addressing unequal land distribution that has been at the heart of Colombia's conflict.
But as the war dragged on, and insurgencies elsewhere in Latin America were defeated, the FARC slipped deeper and deeper into Colombia's lucrative cocaine trade -- to the point that President George W. Bush's administration in 2006 called it the world's biggest drug cartel.
As part of the peace process, the FARC has sworn off narcotics trafficking and agreed to work with the government to provide alternative development in areas where coca growing has flourished.
Only if the accord passes the referendum will the FARC's roughly 7,000 fighters begin moving to 28 designated zones where, over the next six months, they are to turn over their weapons to U.N.-sponsored observers.
Information for this article was contributed by Vivian Salama, Pedro Mendoza, Libardo Cardona and Cesar Garcia of The Associated Press.
A Section on 09/27/2016