Venzuelan President Nicolas Maduro says the government's Denfense Council met Monday to discuss the threats of war from neighboring Colombia. | Read More</s>BOGOTA: Colombia’s Congress unanimously approved a peace deal with FARC guerrillas to end more than a half-century of civil war, lawmakers said.

The House of Representatives voted 130-0 to approve the text adopted a day earlier by the Senate.

President Juan Manuel Santos said the vote provided “landmark backing” for the peace he pushed.

Santos, this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, shepherded the revised deal through Congress after voters shocked the world by rejecting an earlier version in a referendum last month.

The government’s chief peace negotiator with the FARC, Humberto de la Calle, had urged lawmakers to ratify this deal, warning the army’s ceasefire with the leftist guerrillas was “fragile”.

Two FARC fighters and several local activists have been killed since the ceasefire went into force on August 29, triggering fears it could collapse.

The peace deal’s chief opponent, former president Alvaro Uribe, and his allies argued that it grants impunity to rebels guilty of war crimes, giving them seats in Congress rather than sending them to jail.

Rival protests were held in front of Congress on Wednesday by both advocates and opponents of the deal.

Colombia’s messy half-century conflict has drawn in multiple leftist guerrilla groups, right-wing paramilitaries and drug gangs.

It has left 260,000 people dead and 60,000 missing.

The peace deal follows three failed efforts to end the conflict, under presidents Belisario Betancur (1982-1986), Cesar Gaviria (1990-1994) and Andres Pastrana (1998-2002).

While the deal ends conflict with the Marxist FARC — which until now was Latin America’s last major insurgency, it is not peace across the board yet for the South American nation of over 47 million.

Peace still has to be negotiated with the smaller National Liberation Army (ELN); talks on scheduling the dialogue resume January 10. AFP</s>The lower house Wednesday approved the revised deal between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. The vote was 130-0 and came after about 11 hours of debate.

The rebels have 150 days to put down their arms, according to the legislation.

Last week marked the second time this year that Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC leader Rodrigo Londoño have signed a peace deal aimed at ending Latin America's longest war.

This time, the revised peace agreement went to Congress for approval. Santos was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this year for "his resolute efforts" to end the civil war, which is the longest running conflict in the region. Some critics have said the changes to the peace agreement are merely cosmetic, but key players supported the agreement. Todd Howland, Representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Colombia, voiced concerns about what he and his teams were already seeing following the negotiations. "These empty lots left by the FARC are supposedly to be filled by the State, working to transform the illicit economy to licit," he said, referencing land the group had occupied. "This is not happening right now. Instead, other illegal groups are entering into these areas." During the last two months, he said his field teams have encountered FARC soldiers asking what is going to happen to them, saying some members are already being offered work with criminal groups. During the war against communism, the CIA supported governments and groups against leftist rebels. It also participated in coups such as the 1973 coup against Chile's socialist President Salvador. The CIA's effort to overthrow Fidel Castro's Cuban communist regime in 1961 culminated in the Bay of Pigs invasion. The CIA trained Cuban exiles to rid Fidel from power but in failure the agency was exposed and Castro remained. One of the most controversial US involvements was the Iran-Contra Affair, where Nicaraguan rebels were backed by the US and funded by profits made from selling weapons to Iran. The US has funded the Colombian government to the tune of billions of dollars in its fight against FARC and the drug war. The battle between FARC and the country's government has been devastating. It began in 1964, after the success of the Cuban revolution, with rebels wanting to forcibly redistribute wealth. In the more than five decades since it started, the armed group has seized territory, attacked government forces and interfered with political life through high-profile kidnappings. As decades passed, thousands of people were killed. Up to 220,000 died in the insurgency and as many as 5 million people were displaced -- more than one out of every 10 Colombians. Funded by a sophisticated cocaine trafficking network and armed with child soldiers, the rallying cries to protect an agrarian society had begun to sound antiquated and obsolete. "Guerrilla war is no longer seen as a reasonable way to contest power," Cynthia Arnson, director of the Latin America Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, had previously told CNN.</s>BOGOTA, Colombia — Congress formally ratified a revised peace agreement with Colombia's biggest leftist rebel group, capping a torturous four years of negotiations, a stunning referendum rejection, last-minute compromises and two signing ceremonies.

The initial pact was narrowly rejected by voters last month, and President Juan Manuel Santos decided to skip a referendum on the new version and go directly to congress, where the deal's supporters hold a majority. Opponents, led by former President Alvaro Uribe, boycotted the legislative votes, which resulted in unanimous approval by the Senate on Tuesday and by the lower house late Wednesday.

The new 310-page accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia introduced 50 changes to the initial deal in an attempt to assuage opponents as the government seeks to end a 52-year conflict that has killed more than 220,000 people and driven almost 8 million from their homes.

The modifications include a prohibition on foreign magistrates judging alleged crimes by government or FARC troops, and a commitment from the rebels to forfeit assets, some amassed through drug trafficking, to help compensate victims. But the FARC rejected demands for jail sentences for rebel leaders responsible for atrocities and stricter limits on their future participation in politics.

The compromises weren't enough for some of the deal's opponents.

"There needs to be a balance between peace and justice, but in this agreement there's complete impunity," Uribe, now a senator, said during the Senate debate. Other senators accused him of standing in the way of a peace deal that he pursued with the FARC as president in 2002-10.

Santos said ratification will set in motion the start of a six-month process in which the FARC's 8,000-plus guerrillas will concentrate in some 20 rural areas and turn over their weapons to United Nations monitors. "Tomorrow a new era begins," he said Wednesday.

But the rebels insist their troops won't start demobilizing until lawmakers pass an amnesty law freeing some 2,000 rebels in jail.

"D-Day starts after the first actions are implemented," the rebel leader Pastor Alape, part of the FARC's 10-member secretariat, said last week after the new accord was signed. "The president unfortunately has been demonstrating an attitude that creates confusion in the country."

The debate over amnesty highlights one of the peace deal's early challenges: the need for congress to pass legislation implementing the accord and setting up special peace tribunals.

Santos was initially counting on swift approval of the needed changes that in some cases require constitutional amendments. But the referendum loss has left the status of his fast-track authority in doubt, awaiting a ruling by the constitutional court. Experts say a solid pro-peace coalition could crumble if implementation drags on and butts against the political maneuvering for the 2018 presidential election.

Beyond the legal hurdles, there is also concern FARC fighters will wind up joining criminal gangs rampant across Colombia or the much-smaller rebel National Liberation Army, which for months has been playing cat and mouse with the government over opening a peace process of its own. On Wednesday, both sides said they would delay until January any decision about when to start talks.

Combating security threats will test the state's ability to make its presence felt in traditionally neglected rural areas at a time of financial stress triggered by low oil prices.

There is also a risk that peace could trigger more bloodshed, as it did following a previous peace process with the FARC in the 1980s. At that time, thousands of former guerrillas, labor activists and communist militants were killed by right-wing militias, sometimes in collaboration with state agents.

Worries about new bloodshed, although less prevalent than in the darker days of Colombia's half-century conflict, has become more urgent with more than a dozen human rights defenders and land activists in areas dominated by the FARC being killed by unknown assailants since the initial signing ceremony in September. So far this year, 70 have been killed, according to Bogota-based We Are Defenders, more than in all of 2015 and 2014.</s>BOGOTA, Colombia--Congress formally ratified a revised peace agreement with Colombia's biggest leftist rebel group, capping a torturous four years of negotiations, a stunning referendum rejection, last-minute compromises and two signing ceremonies.

The initial pact was narrowly rejected by voters last month, and President Juan Manuel Santos decided to skip a referendum on the new version and go directly to congress, where the deal's supporters hold a majority. Opponents, led by former President Alvaro Uribe, boycotted the legislative votes, which resulted in unanimous approval by the Senate on Tuesday and by the lower house late Wednesday.

The new 310-page accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia introduced 50 changes to the initial deal in an attempt to assuage opponents as the government seeks to end a 52-year conflict that has killed more than 220,000 people and driven almost 8 million from their homes.

The modifications include a prohibition on foreign magistrates judging alleged crimes by government or FARC troops, and a commitment from the rebels to forfeit assets, some amassed through drug trafficking, to help compensate victims. But the FARC rejected demands for jail sentences for rebel leaders responsible for atrocities and stricter limits on their future participation in politics.

The compromises weren't enough for some of the deal's opponents.

"There needs to be a balance between peace and justice, but in this agreement there's complete impunity," Uribe, now a senator, said during the Senate debate. Other senators accused him of standing in the way of a peace deal that he pursued with the FARC as president in 2002-10.

Santos said ratification will set in motion the start of a six-month process in which the FARC's 8,000-plus guerrillas will concentrate in some 20 rural areas and turn over their weapons to United Nations monitors. "Tomorrow a new era begins," he said Wednesday.

But the rebels insist their troops won't start demobilizing until lawmakers pass an amnesty law freeing some 2,000 rebels in jail.

"D-Day starts after the first actions are implemented," the rebel leader Pastor Alape, part of the FARC's 10-member secretariat, said last week after the new accord was signed. "The president unfortunately has been demonstrating an attitude that creates confusion in the country."

The debate over amnesty highlights one of the peace deal's early challenges: the need for congress to pass legislation implementing the accord and setting up special peace tribunals.

Santos was initially counting on swift approval of the needed changes that in some cases require constitutional amendments. But the referendum loss has left the status of his fast-track authority in doubt, awaiting a ruling by the constitutional court. Experts say a solid pro-peace coalition could crumble if implementation drags on and butts against the political maneuvering for the 2018 presidential election.</s>The agreement was approved in the lower house by 130-0, a day after the Senate ratified it 75-0. Lawmakers from Uribe's Democratic Center party left the floors of both houses in protest just before voting began.

The ratification - and signing last week - begins a six-month countdown for the 7,000-strong FARC, which started as a rebellion fighting rural poverty, to abandon weapons and form a political party.

President Juan Manuel Santos and rebel leader Rodrigo Londono signed the revised accord last week in a sober ceremony after the first deal was rejected in a national plebiscite.

Santos, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in October for his peace efforts, wants to get the dealimplemented as quickly as possible to maintain a fragile ceasefire.

Uribe's supporters argued the deal offered too many concessions to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and did not serve as a deterrent for other groups involved in crime.

"Let's not forget what we are doing today, we're trying to end more than 50 years of war," government negotiator Sergio Jaramillo said.

The new agreement to end Latin America's longest insurgency was put together in just over a month after the original pact - which allowed the rebels to hold public office and skip jail - was narrowly and unexpectedly defeated in an Oct. 2 referendum.

While the government says the accord includes most of the proposals put forward by those who rejected it, the new document did not alter those two key provisions. That angered many among Colombia's largely conservative population, who are also furious that Santos decided to ratify the deal in Congress instead of holding another plebiscite.

The government and FARC worked together in Cuba for four years to negotiate an end to the region's longest-running conflict that has killed more than 220,000 and displaced millions in the Andean nation.

An end to the war with FARC is unlikely to end violence in Colombia as the lucrative cocaine business has given rise to criminal gangs and traffickers.</s>After five decades of war, more than four years of negotiations and two signing ceremonies, Colombia’s congress late Wednesday formally ratified a peace agreement allowing leftist rebels to enter politics.

The 310-page revised accord was approved unanimously by the lower house, which voted a day after the Senate approved the same text 75-0 following a protest walkout by the opposition led by former President Alvaro Uribe.

The accord introduces some 50 changes intended to assuage critics who led a campaign that saw Colombians narrowly reject the original accord in a referendum last month. President Juan Manuel Santos has said there won’t be a second referendum.

Revisions range from a prohibition on foreign magistrates judging alleged crimes by government troops or by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia to a commitment from the rebels to forfeit assets, some 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 behind atrocities and stricter limits on their future participation in politics.

“There needs to be a balance between peace and justice, but in this agreement there’s complete impunity,” Uribe, now a senator, said during Tuesday’s heated debate. Other senators accused him of standing in the way of a peace deal that he pursued with the FARC as president in 2002-10.

Santos says ratification will set in motion the start of a six-month process in which the FARC’s 8,000-plus guerrillas will concentrate in some 20 rural areas and turn over their weapons to United Nations monitors.

“Tomorrow a new era begins,” Santos said Wednesday, celebrating the Senate’s endorsement before the vote in the lower house.

But the rebels insist that their troops won’t start demobilizing until lawmakers pass an amnesty law freeing some 2,000 rebels in jail.

“D-Day starts after the first actions are implemented,” the rebel leader “Pastor Alape,” a member of the FARC’s 10-member secretariat, told foreign journalists last week after the new accord was signed. “The president unfortunately has been demonstrating an attitude that creates confusion in the country.”

The debate over amnesty highlights one of the peace deal’s early challenges: the need for congress to pass legislation implementing the accord and setting up special peace tribunals.

Santos was initially counting on swift approval of the needed changes that in some cases require constitutional amendments. But the referendum loss has left the status of his fast-track authority in doubt, awaiting a ruling by the constitutional court. Experts say a solid pro-peace coalition could crumble if implementation drags on and butts against the political manoeuvring for the 2018 presidential election.

Beyond the legal hurdles, there is also concern FARC fighters will wind up joining criminal gangs rampant throughout the country or the much-smaller rebel National Liberation Army, which for months has been playing cat and mouse with the government over opening a peace process of its own. On Wednesday, both sides said they would delay until January any decision about when to start talks.

Combating security threats will test the state’s ability to make its presence felt in traditionally neglected rural areas at a time of financial stress triggered by low oil prices.

There is also a risk that peace could trigger more bloodshed, as it did following a previous peace process with the FARC in the 1980s. At that time, thousands of former guerrillas, labour activists and communist militants were killed by right-wing militias, sometimes in collaboration with state agents.

Worries about new bloodshed, although less prevalent than in the darker days of Colombia’s half-century conflict, has become more urgent with more than a dozen human rights defenders and land activists in areas dominated by the FARC being killed by unknown assailants since the initial signing ceremony in September. So far this year, 70 have been killed, according to Bogota-based We Are Defenders, more than in all of 2015 and 2014.</s>The agreement was approved by 75 to zero after lawmakers from Uribe's Democratic Center party left the floor of the Senate in protest just before voting began.

The accord moves on Wednesday to the lower house, where it is expected to be ratified easily.

President Juan Manuel Santos and rebel leader Rodrigo Londono signed the revised accord last week in a sober ceremony after the first deal was rejected by millions at a plebiscite.

Santos, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last month for his peace efforts, wants to get the deal in place as quickly as possible to maintain a fragile ceasefire.

In a 12-hour session, Uribe's supporters argued that the deal offered too many concessions to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and did not serve as a warning for other groups involved in crime.

"Those who are against and those in favor were listened to in equal measure and with respect," Interior Minister Juan Fernando Cristo said after the vote, adding he hoped for a continuing "useful and fruitful dialogue that will allow the accords to be improved."

The new agreement to end Latin America's longest insurgency was put together in just over a month after the original pact - which allowed the rebels to hold public office and skip jail - was narrowly and unexpectedly defeated in an Oct. 2 referendum.

The new document did not alter the provisions, angering many among Colombia's largely conservative population. Opponents are also furious Santos decided to ratify the deal in Congress instead of holding another plebiscite.

The government and FARC worked together in Cuba for four years to negotiate an end to the region's longest-running conflict that has killed more than 220,000 and displaced millions in the Andean nation.

The signing and ratification in Congress begin a six-month countdown for the 7,000-strong FARC, which started in 1964 as a rebellion fighting rural poverty, to abandon weapons and form a political party.

An end to the war with the FARC is unlikely to end violence in Colombia as the lucrative cocaine business has given rise to criminal gangs and traffickers.</s>Both the senate and the lower house backed the accord in votes this week, giving necessary legislative approval to the deal to end 52 years of war in which more than 220,000 people have been killed and millions displaced.

But rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) said they would not begin demobilizing until parts of the accord, including an amnesty law for most fighters, are approved by lawmakers. The government hopes the court will allow those laws to move ahead more quickly than normal by cutting the number of required debates.

"We expect a decision in the coming days and based on that decision of the Constitutional Court we can proceed to the implementation of the accords," Interior Minister Juan Fernando Cristo told journalists.

The coalition of President Juan Manuel Santos, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in October, has a majority in congress and the laws are likely to pass easily. The right-wing opposition, led by former president and now senator Alvaro Uribe, demand that FARC leaders get traditional jail time and refused to vote on the deal.

The agreement to end Latin America's longest insurgency was put together in just over a month after the original pact was narrowly defeated in a referendum on Oct. 2.

The amnesty law, which would protect rebels not involved in war crimes or human rights violations from prosecution, would be the first to go to lawmakers, Cristo said. Some 7,000 fighters are set to lay down their weapons under the deal.

Other laws would include rural reform, victims compensation, removal of land mines and a United Nations-monitored ceasefire all agreed to in the peace deal. The FARC, which started as a rebellion fighting rural poverty, would be allowed to form a political party.

Though Colombians want an end to bloodshed, many in the largely conservative country of 49 million are wary of forgiving the FARC for decades of bombings, kidnappings and displacements.
The Congress of Colombia unanimously approves a peace deal between the Government and rebel group FARC to end the Colombian conflict.