Colombia government, rebels sign revised peace agreement

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has signed a revised peace agreement with the country's largest rebel movement, making a second attempt within months to end a half century of hostilities.
Santos and Rodrigo Londono, leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, signed the 310-page accord yesterday at Bogota's historic Colon Theater nearly two months after the original deal was surprisingly rejected in a referendum.
After signing with a pen crafted from the shell of an assault rifle bullet, they clasped hands to shouts of "Yes we could!"
Yesterday's hastily organised ceremony was a far more modest and somber event than the one in September, in the colonial city of Cartagena, where the two men signed an accord in front of an audience of foreign leaders and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, all of whom were dressed in white to symbolise peace.

Santos looked and sounded tired after a two-month political roller coaster that saw him rise from the humiliating defeat to win this year's Nobel Peace Prize. This time the deal will be sent directly to Congress without a public referendum.
He tried to inject a dose of optimism about the hobbled accord whose outlook for implementation is shrouded in uncertainty.

"In 150 days only 150 days all of the FARC's weapons will be in the hands of the United Nations," he said during the only part of his speech that drew applause from the audience of a few hundred local politicians and officials.

FARC leader Londono used his address to call for a transitional government to ensure the accord is effectively implemented, a suggestion immediately denounced by the opposition as a veiled attempt to extend Santos' tenure past elections in 2018, when he'll be constitutionally banned from competing.
The rebel leader also congratulated Donald Trump on his victory and called on the president-elect to continue strong US support for Colombia on its path to peace.
"Our only weapons as Colombians should be our words," said Londono, better known by his alias Timochenko, in a 15-minute speech. "We are putting a definitive end to war to confront in a civilised manner our contradictions."

The new accord introduces some 50 changes intended to assuage critics led by still-powerful former President Alvaro Uribe. They range from a prohibition on foreign magistrates judging crimes by the FARC or government to a commitment from the insurgents to forfeit assets, some of them amassed through drug trafficking, to help compensate their victims.
But the FARC wouldn't go along with the opposition's strongest demands jail sentences for rebel leaders who committed atrocities and stricter limits on their future participation in politics.
Members of Uribe's political party are threatening protests against what they consider a "blow to democracy.