Colombians turn their back on peace deal: Santos and FARC allies in rejection

Monday, October 3rd 2016 - 08:52 UTC

Full article 13 comments

Colombian voters appeared to have shocked their government, world leaders and pollsters by blasting away its hopes for a historic peace deal with the Marxist FARC rebels on Sunday, near-complete referendum results showed. Reversing the trend of earlier opinion polls, voters appeared to have narrowly defied the government's pleas to ratify its plan to put 52 years of bloody conflict behind them within months. Read full article

Comments

Disclaimer & comment rules

ChrisR
I wonder if the government will have another poll until they get the 'right' result.

Splinter groups holding hostages reminiscent of the cowards of the IRA.

Difficult to kill all the terrorists given the forests and who want to napalm trees nowadays?

Can't all the brothers and sisters of SA send their 'armies' to help? Uruguay can send 50 or even more.
Oct 03rd, 2016 - 10:39 am - Link - Report abuse 0
-+
Skip
A missed opportunity to finally finish what 52 years of fighting never accomplished.

However with only 38% turn out it is hardly a resounding defeat.

A pity that more sensible Colombians didn't bother to vote.
Oct 03rd, 2016 - 12:34 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
-+
Briton
Colombians turn their back ,
but why, had these people a personal reason why they voted against it,

and why such a low turn out when this was a very good chance of peace.
Oct 03rd, 2016 - 12:48 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
-+
Pugol-H
This is what can happen when you give people a straight choice, ask Cameron.

And similarly, no “plan B” either, one lesson is clear from recent history, when holding a referendum always be prepared for both outcomes.
Oct 03rd, 2016 - 01:14 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
-+
Briton
He who is not prepared, will inevitably lose,
so they say..
Oct 03rd, 2016 - 07:10 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
-+
Enrique Massot
#1 Chris
You haven't grasped a thing about the peace process in Colombia but casually drop a collection of disjointed, ignorant and violence-filled statements.
In spite of people like you, the will to gain peace in Colombia remains strong, and all is not lost.
You should be ashamed of yourself.
Oct 04th, 2016 - 02:19 am - Link - Report abuse 0
-+
ChrisR
@ 6 The Frightened One

FARC & Co. are just like the murdering Tupamaros of Uruguay but better armed.

Both are / were seditious murdering bastards fighting against a democratically elected government and in a civilized society the penalty for that is execution.

They failed in the original elections, the people rejected them then like FARC & Co. have been rejected now.

The people have spoken: IT'S CALLED DEMOCARACY.

When are you going to overcome your fears of being executed and return to The Dark Country?
Oct 04th, 2016 - 10:57 am - Link - Report abuse 0
-+
DemonTree
@7 ChrisR
“and in a civilized society the penalty for that is execution.”

I guess Belarus is the only civilised country left in Europe then?
Oct 04th, 2016 - 06:47 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
-+
ChrisR
@ 8 DemonTree

Crime and Disorder Act 1998
Sect. 36 Abolition of death penalty for treason and piracy.

(1) In section I of the M1Treason Act (Ireland) 1537 (practising any harm etc. to, or slandering, the King, Queen or heirs apparent punishable as high treason), for the words “have and suffer such pains of death and” there shall be substituted the words “ be liable to imprisonment for life and to such ”.

'Trust me Tony' has a lot to answer for, perhaps he was concerned he would end up on the scaffold: he would have been right as well.

So you support sedition: the killing of police, the killing of politicians, the killing of ordinary citizens in the murderous overthrow of a democratically elected government resulting in that government asking the military to deal with the persons responsible?

Then asking the military to take charge of the country until things were stable?

Do you even know which country I am writing about?
Oct 05th, 2016 - 01:32 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
-+
DemonTree
@9 ChrisR
Good for Blair, getting rid of last vestiges of the death penalty.

How many 'civilised' countries can you name that haven't abolished it?

To answer your questions; I do not support sedition, the killing of police etc; asking the military to deal with the situation may be a reasonable response depending on the circumstances; and asking the military to take charge of the country is very risky, as anyone in Latin America should know.

And I would assume you are talking about Uruguay, but please enlighten me.
Oct 07th, 2016 - 06:33 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
-+
ChrisR
@ 10 DemonTree

Have a cuddly toy, you won the quiz!

But seriously, my friends here who had their parents jailed 'on suspicion' were frightened to death that they would be killed by the military even though they had nothing to do with the Tupas and in fact had opposed them in print.

It must have been a terrible time when the uneducated, unintelligible band of Tupas terrorized the country (mainly MVD in reality) simply because they could not get themselves elected.

Now of course we have the remnants of the Tupas in the form of 'No Money Pepe', one of the leaders, his wife La Tronca (the trunk of a tree) and a few others in power under the Broad Fraud or Amplio Frente (Broad Front) which is nothing but many disparate 'political parties' under the overarching constitution of The Broad Fraud.

Ministerial positions are spread around according to sector strength (mainly, though there are exceptions under the constitution) so we end up with corrupt deadheads in many important jobs.

When the Tupas started there were less than 700 nationwide but their cell structure made it difficult to determine the names of all the members. There was a solution, and the government had it in the early days (they captured Mujica and La Trona) but did not press them to reveal the names.

If I had been in charge the whole disaster would never have happened, it would have stopped there. But the 'brothers and sisters' nonsense always gets in the way in SA.

Now the problems are glaringly exposed and it is very likely, despite the 1.4M stinking poor on the public tit who as turkeys won't vote for Christmas, that the Broad Fruad are on their last government. Fingers crossed.
Oct 08th, 2016 - 11:48 am - Link - Report abuse 0
-+
DemonTree
@11 ChrisR
“But seriously, my friends here who had their parents jailed 'on suspicion' were frightened to death that they would be killed by the military even though they had nothing to do with the Tupas and in fact had opposed them in print.”

This is exactly the kind of the thing that makes me oppose the death penalty and torture of suspects.

The military arrested them, but they didn't know for sure who was guilty or not. They could have tortured your friends' parents for information, and it would have gone on a long time too as they didn't have any. Or they could have just shot them, it's the quickest way to solve problems as you like to tell us.

How do you think the government should have persuaded Mujica and Topolansky to reveal the names? Torture? Threaten their friends and family?

As for the current government, if things are as bad as you say, then people will vote them out. That's how things are supposed to work. Note that despite Mujica's past as a Tupa, and the fact he was imprisoned for 13 years and his party banned, people were still prepared to elect him President when they had the chance. That's how well suppressing political parties and killing people works to change their minds.
Oct 08th, 2016 - 03:39 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
-+
ChrisR
@ 12 DemonTree

Did you not see my analysis on the voting structure of Uruguay some weeks ago which explains how the vote for the FA has been achieved by packing the government with 30% more employees, thus almost meeting the 51% needed?

The Tupas morphed into a 'political party' called Frente Amplio by using the constitution against the people who expected a clear winner - white / red / nationals (I think it was).

They did this by 'merging' small parties, some with just over 20 members (thus meeting the requirement to claim recognition) into the overarching miss-match called The Broad Fraud. Of course it could never be a cohesive entity and we are now seeing many fissures causing La Tronca to come out publically with threats of banishment of parties causing trouble. That of course will never happen, they would all risk losing the mandate.

Now in the third mandate we are seeing the disintegration of public support: they have had enough of FA with their corruption, having brain dead judges who jail the police as often as the perpetrators in robbery gone bad cases.

There is now an email doing the rounds calling for a 'Humanitarian Strike' lasting one day against the actions of these judges and calling for their removal. They were mostly appointed by Mujica though Vasquez has also had a hand in the mess. It will be clear from the support (or not) that it gets as to whether the message will be big enough to make Vasquez think twice. Mujica is such an illiterate and innumerate arsehole that I doubt he will understand the numbers.

With regard to killing people. Yes, that is sometimes necessary for the good of all but there are many ways, short of torture or worse at arriving at the result. Regrettably the Policia, although reasonable people on the whole, can never be considered mentally equipped for the finesse needed to achieve such results.

Mujica, now 81, has said that he 'regrets' the murders that he and the other carried out, so that's OK then, isn't it.
Oct 08th, 2016 - 07:20 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
-+

Commenting for this story is now closed.
If you have a Facebook account, become a fan and comment on our Facebook Page!