The FARC party’s Political Council met in Bogota prior to the second anniversary of the Final Peace Agreement.

The agreement was signed in Havana on 24 November 2016 by the former guerrillas and the Colombian government led by then president, Juan Manuel Santos.

Two years on, things have changed and the hope so many people in Colombia had put on the Final Peace Agreement for the opportunity to reconcile the country and give it a new beginning, is facing a hard test.

Indeed, the new government led by right wing president, Ivan Duque, is not implementing the agreement, and this led to a paralysis in the progress both for reincorporation of former guerrillas to civilian life and in favouring changes and reforms which will benefit all citizens, beginning with a proper comprehensive land reform.

On 25 November FARC women saluted the women of Colombia and the world and vowed to raise their voice against violence affecting women in all areas of life.

Likewise, FARC women exposed the patriarchal mentality widespread in Colombia and which would like to see women closed in the house to look after children and the family. In the FARC, guerrilla women have been living in full equality with their comrades and roles were shared in equal terms. Which is why FARC women have no intention to go back to a role of housewife like the right wing government and part of the church would like.

The meeting of the Political Council of the FARC called once again on the government to implement the agreement while on the other hand invited its members as well as all citizens and communities to organise events and actions to make the world hear the claim for peace.

The issues the Political Council urged its members and the people in general to put forwards are as following:

1. An Integral Rural Reform that guarantees land for the peasants who need it to work and produce well-being, with guarantees of property and public goods.

2. The right of Colombian society to political participation with guarantees and a safe environment for free dissent, opposition and to publicly demonstrate.

3. The right to live as leaders, peasants, children, with full rights, without fear and without stigmatization, and with the right to defend territories free of corruption, paramilitarism, neglect.

4. The duty of the State to guarantee the conditions to all citizens to be part of society exercising political, economic and social legal activities, with real conditions of association, participation, trade, as well as oversight and control on public spending. The frontal fight against drug trafficking and the attention to the consumers from a perspective of rights and public health.

5. The need of a State policy for reparation to victims, acts of forgiveness by all parties, recognition of the truth by all the actors involved in the conflict, search for missing persons. In other words, having the system Integral of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Non-Repetition, implemented in order to devise public policies of peace and reconciliation to establish a real culture of peace.

6. Send out messages of coherence and legal guarantees for those who believe and stand for Peace, with concrete acts such as the freedom of those who remain imprisoned for political acts, as well as those who have been framed with lies and shows like those suffered by comrade Jesus Santrich.

7. Reactivate the dialogue table with the ELN, initiate dialogues with the EPL and finally end with the paramilitary groups beginning with the negotiation within the framework of the existing law, so that Peace is complete.