FARC marks weapons handover

BOGOTA, Colombia - Colombia reached a major milestone on its road to peace on Tuesday with the final disarmament of the group known as the FARC.

This last handing over of weapons was supervised by Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, Supreme Commander of the FARC Rodrigo Londono, and head of the United Nations Mission in Colombia Jean Arnault.

In a short, symbol-filled ceremony, UN observers shut and padlocked the last containers storing some of the 7,132 weapons that members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia have turned over the past few weeks at 26 camps across the country. Yellow butterflies were released and an AK-47 converted into an electric guitar rang out plaintive chords in honor of the conflict's victims.

Londono thanked the UN and countries that helped the peace process. "We have not failed Colombia. We have left our weapons today. The State has offered us in exchange to build a political party ... (and) the tragedies experienced in the past cannot be repeated, as our country has learned from its pain," he said.

President Santos paid tribute to the FARC for deciding to end decades-long armed conflicts in the country.

"Without weapons, without violence, we are no longer people fighting themselves. We are no longer a history of pain and death ... we are one nation reaching to the future in the blessed cause of democracy," Santos said.

Santos, who was awarded the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to bring stability to Colombia, reiterated that while he does not identify with the political and economic model espoused by the FARC, he supports their right to free speech and to express their ideas within the democratic process.

The decommissioned weapons will be melted down and crafted into three monuments, which will be installed in Bogota, the Cuban capital Havana, where peace talks had been held for four years, and at the UN headquarters in New York.

Xinhua