Colombia's FARC reborn as 'revolutionary' party

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Former guerrillas from Colombia's FARC relaunched the grouping on Friday as a political party, changing their logo of rifles for a red rose after disarming to end a half-century civil conflict.

The new party will have a "broad character, a new party for a new Colombia," the group's former military commander Pablo Catatumbo told a press conference.

It will be a movement "committed to guaranteeing social justice, peace, sovereignty and agrarian reform, for the defense of popular interests," he said.

FARC leader Rodrigo Londono on Thursday announced the name of the new party: the Common Alternative Revolutionary Force (Fuerza Alternativa Revolucionaria del Común). Therefore, even with the new name, the party retains the acronym FARC.

Earlier, the guerrilla movement was known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Army (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia - Ejército del Pueblo).

FARC leader Rodrigo Londono said the demobilized rebel group was being transformed into a "new, exclusively political organization" in Colombia. /AFP Photo

Whether the ex-rebels can convince Colombians, many of whom revile them, to back the new party remains to be seen.

Peace and justice

The FARC emerged as a communist movement in 1964 from a peasant uprising for rural land rights.

Over the following decades, the conflict drew in various rebel forces, paramilitary groups and state forces.

Colombia's FARC rebel leader Rodrigo Londono during the installation of the National Congress of the FARC in Bogota, Colombia,‍ Aug. 27, 2017. /Reuters Photo

It left some 260,000 people confirmed dead, 60,000 unaccounted for and seven million displaced in Latin America's longest conflict.

Political challenge

The new party will compete in next year's general elections.

Catatumbo said that the new party plans to formally select its new political representatives by November. Among them are likely to be several former prominent guerrilla commanders, including Catatumbo himself.

FARC commander Pablo Catatumbo /AFP Photo

The FARC will hold 10 automatic seats in Congress through 2026 under the terms of the accord and may campaign for others.

“We are continuing, via an exclusively political path, our historic goal and aspiration for a new order of social justice and true democracy in our country,” said secretariat member Ivan Marquez at a closing event for the group’s six-day conference to inaugurate the new party.

“We want our ideas to be available for a transitional government of reconciliation and peace for the elections in 2018, whose foundation will be a great democratic coalition,” Marquez said.

The government has also opened peace talks with Colombia's last active group, the 1,500-strong National Liberation Army (ELN), in the hope of sealing what Santos calls a "complete peace."

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Source(s): AFP ,Reuters