The new peace agreement which the Colombian government and the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) announced last week is final, the Colombian government said Tuesday, according to dpa. The only thing still to be discussed was how the agreement, which was unveiled Saturday, will be ratified, said the government's head negotiator, Humberto de la Calle. The Colombian government and FARC negotiated for over four years in Havana to end the conflict that had lasted half a century. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC leader Rodrigo Londono signed the agreement in Cartagena on September 26. However, its implementation was left in state of uncertainty when Colombian voters rejected the agreement in a referendum on October 2. De la Calle noted that the new deal included "over 80 per cent" of the modifications proposed by the parties that opposed the first agreement. "There is really no room for new negotiations," De la Calle said. Colombia's High Commissioner for Peace, Sergio Jaramillo, commended FARC on their attitude towards the renegotiations. "They accepted a number of things that are not easy for a guerrilla to accept," Jaramillo said. After the referendum defeat, Santos spoke with opponents of the first peace agreement, led by former president Alvaro Uribe (2002-10) and his conservative party Democratic Centre (CD). Critics of the initial deal fielded approximately 500 modification proposals regarding 57 topics that were then put to FARC. The Colombian government and FARC said last week that modifications were accepted for 56 topics - all except one that would ban rebels from engaging in politics or holding an elected office once the agreement is implemented. Experts regard a second referendum as unlikely and believe instead that the new deal will be put to a vote in Congress, where the ruling centre-right coalition National Unity has a majority.
