Above Photo: Colombians show the word “peace” on the palms of their hands. | AFP
A national forum on the end of the conflict will bring together victims, Afro-Colombians, women, and many more to brainstorm ideas for lasting peace.
As Colombia edges closer to peace between the government and FARC guerrilla movement, diverse sectors of the country’s society will have a chance to formally have their voices heard on the matter of peace and collectively pitch in to the final leg of the end-of-war process that’s been more than three years in the making.
Starting on Monday, the United Nations will bring together various social groups and local organizations to contribute proposals for peace and ending the conflict while talks between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC, continue in Havana, Cuba.
The national forum, focused on the end of the armed conflict and implementation and verification of the peace deal, comes after both sides of the negotiations called on the U.N. to gather ideas from about 700 people to parallel key outstanding issues in the ongoing peace process.
Cerca de 700 personas debatirán el fin del conflicto en Colombia durante foro de la ONU https://t.co/81d4dUvvRt pic.twitter.com/xv2gHxyQ4u
— Sara Cuadrado (@SaraCuadrad0) February 3, 2016
“Close to 700 people will debate the end of the conflict in Colombia during the U.N. forum”
“Through the participation of different voices we seek to collect a number of proposals,” the U.N. explained, as reported by the Mexican government new agency Notimex. “The idea is to have more insight to face the final phase of the peace process with the goal of making it stable and lasting.”
Participating groups will include victims of the conflict, Indigenous people; Afro-Colombians; women; labor unions; campesinos; those in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community; and former members of the Colombian military, among others.
The participants in the three-day forum will comes from across the country in an attempt to represent Colombia’s diversity.
The goal of the U.N. forum, scheduled to run from Monday to Wednesday, is to collect as many proposals as possible with respect to ending the conflict in order to make negotiators as well-equipped as possible to tackle the final phase of the peace process and work toward lasting peace in Colombia.
The forum comes as talks between the government and the FARC in Havana focus the issues of ending the conflict, including a bilateral ceasefire, and implementation of the peace deal, including international verification and monitoring.
Both outstanding issues in the peace negotiations are considered complex, which is why the forum will seek as many diverse opinions as possible.
The two sides of the conflict have already reached partial agreements regarding the issues of land reform, political participation, victims’ rights, and illegal drugs and are working toward signing a final peace deal by March 23.
The peace agreement will bring an end to more than 50 years of internal armed conflict that has claimed at least 220,000 lives and victimized more than 6 million Colombians.
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