HAVANA: Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and the head of the country’s leftist FARC rebels agreed on Thursday on a ceasefire and rebel disarmament deal that moves the country to the brink of ending a 52-year war that has left more than 220,000 people dead.

At a ceremony in Havana, Santos and FARC commander Rodrigo Londono, better known as Timochenko, listened to the reading of a deal laying out how 7,000 rebel fighters will demobilise and hand over their weapons once a peace accord is implemented. In attendance were UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, a special US envoy and the presidents of Cuba, Chile, Venezuela and other Latin American countries.

A 15-year, US-backed military offensive thinned rebel ranks and forced FARC’s aging leaders to the negotiating table in 2012. In Santos, a US-educated economist and scion of one of Colombia’s richest families, the rebels found a trusted partner who hailed from the conservative elite but wasn’t bound by its prejudices.

Momentum had been building towards a breakthrough after Santos said this week that he hoped to deliver a peace accord in time to mark Colombia’s declaration of independence from Spain on July 20. But the latest agreement went further than expected.

In addition to a framework for the ceasefire, both sides said on Wednesday they agreed on a demobilisation plan that will see guerrillas concentrate in rural areas and hand over weapons that had long been the vaunted symbols of their movement’s origins as a self-defence force of peasant farmers attacked by the oligarchy-controlled state.

Negotiators in January agreed that the United Nations would be responsible for monitoring adherence to the eventual ceasefire and resolving disputes emerging from the demobilisation.

With the latest advance, only a few minor items remain to be worked out for a peace accord. The biggest is how the final deal will be ratified and given legal armour so it won’t unravel should a more conservative government succeed Santos, who leaves office in 2018.

How it started: The 1948 assassination of populist firebrand Jorge Eliecer Gaitan led to a political bloodletting known as “La Violencia” or “The Violence.” Tens of thousands died, and peasant groups joined with communists to arm themselves. A 1964 military attack on their main encampment led to the creation of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

Rebel aims: Though nominally Marxist at its founding, the FARC’s ideology has never been well defined. It has sought to make the conservative oligarchy share power and prioritised land reform in a country where more than 5 million people have been forcibly displaced, mostly by far-right militias in the service of ranchers, businessmen and drug traffickers. The FARC lost popularity as it turned to kidnapping, extortion and taxes on cocaine production and illegal gold mining to fund its insurgency.

US involvement: In 2000, the US began sending billions of dollars for counter-narcotics and -insurgency efforts under Plan Colombia, which helped security forces weaken the FARC and kill several top commanders. The State Department classifies the group as a terrorist organisation and its leaders face US indictments for what the George W. Bush administration called the world’s largest drug-trafficking organisation.

Human toll: More than 220,000 lives have been lost, most of them civilians. In the past two decades, many of the killings were inflicted by the militias, which made peace with the government in 2003. The FARC abducted ranchers, politicians and soldiers who were often held for years in jungle prison camps. Its captives included former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three US military contractors, all of whom were rescued in 2008.

Peace efforts: Mid-1980s peace talks collapsed after death squads killed at least 3,000 allies of the FARC’s political wing. Another effort fell apart in 2002 after the rebels hijacked an airliner to kidnap a senator. The current talks have been going on since 2012 in Havana.

Published in Dawn, June 24th, 2016