BOGOTA: Colombia’s left­ist FARC rebels will officially transform into a political party on September 1, a major step in reintegrating the former guerillas into civilian life as part of a historic peace deal.

“We will publicly launch the party on September 1 in the Plaza de Bolivar,” in Bogota, FARC commander Carlos Antonio Lozada said after a news conference.

The Revolutionary Arm­ed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, is the largest and oldest rebel group in the country’s long-running civil war. Although a smaller rebel group, the ELN, has yet to put down its weapons, the transition of the FARC into a political party will put a full stop to a 50-year conflict that left 260,000 people dead.—AFP

Lozada, whose real name is Julian Gallo, said the group had been working on the details of the “great political-cultural act.”

“We made peace to participate in politics,” FARC chief negotiator Ivan Marquez said.

The FARC political party’s policies and name will be decided at a congress at the end of August.

That meeting will take place just days before Pope Francis makes a special four-day visit to Colombia, from September 6-11, to add his weight to the process of reconciliation.

The disarmament last month by the roughly 7,000 members of Colombia’s biggest rebel group under the 2016 peace accord brought a halt to the half-century-old civil war.

The country’s only remaining rebel group, the smaller National Liberation Army, or ELN, is currently following the path set by the FARC to negotiate a peace deal aiming to disarm and demobilize.

ELN negotiators were meeting on Monday with Colombian government officials in the Ecuadorian capital Quito for a third round of talks aimed at reaching a similar peace deal to the FARC’s.

Published in Dawn, July 25th, 2017