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Former FARC Rebels to Take Up Arms Again in Colombia

HeadlineAug 30, 2019

In Colombia, a group of former FARC rebels has announced they are taking up arms again, accusing the Colombian government of failing to live up to the 2016 peace accord that ended 50 years of fighting. In a video, former FARC commander Iván Márquez — who helped negotiate the peace deal — said a “new phase of armed struggle” was beginning.

Iván Márquez: “When we signed the agreement of Havana, we did it with the conviction that it was possible to change the lives of the humble and the dispossessed. But the state has not fulfilled even the most important of the obligations — that is, to guarantee the life of its citizens, and particularly to prevent their murder for political reasons.”

Colombian President Iván Duque has vowed to hunt down the rebel commanders who are taking up arms. According to the Institute for Development and Peace Studies, 702 social leaders and human rights defenders and 135 former FARC guerrilla members have been killed in Colombia since 2016.

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