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Colombia announces end of world's longest conflict

Xinhua, September 22, 2016 Adjust font size:

Colombia announced here Wednesday that the conflict which lasted about 50 years in the Latin America has ended.

Juan Manuel Santos Calderson, the president of Colombia, made the announcement as he was taking the floor at the General Debate of the UN General Assembly, which entered its second day here Wednesday.

"After more than half a century of internal armed conflict, I come back to the United Nations today, on the International day of Peace, to announce, with all the strength of my voice and of my heart: the war in Colombia has ended," the president said.

The announcement also came on the International Day of Peace, which is observed annually on Sept. 21.

On Aug. 24, the negotiators from the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia- Peoples' Army (FARC-EP) declare in Havana, Cuba, that everything was agreed and they adopted the final text of the Agreement for the Termination of the Conflict.

"Five days later, a bilateral and definitive ceasefire and cease of hostilities took place," he said. "Since then, there has not been a single death, a single wound, a single bullet fired, in the conflict with the FARC."

The truce accord will be officially signed in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, on Sept. 26, and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is expected to be there to witness the historic movement.

Beginning from Sept. 26, the former members of the guerrilla will start going to concentration areas where they will surrender their arms to the United Nations in a period of six months, and will begin their process of reintegration into society, the president said.

"The arms will be melted and will become three monuments to peace, one here in New York, one in Cuba, where the peace negotiation took place, and another one in Colombia," he said.

"These monuments will remind us that the bullets are behind us and the construction of a new and better country has begun," he said.

Four years ago, the Colombian government and the FARC set out to resolve one of the world's oldest armed conflicts through dialogue.

The conflict between the Colombian government and the leftist rebel group started in the 1960s as an uprising for land rights. It has left about 260,000 people dead, 45,000 missing and nearly 7 million displaced, according to official figures. Endit