On Monday evening, the government of Colombia signed a historic peace deal with the rebel forces that they have been fighting for more than 50 years. Colombians chanted “Si a la paz” and “Si, se pudo,” which mean “Yes to peace” and “Yes we could,” respectively. Almost all Colombian citizens were dressed in white, to commemorate the historic achievement.
“It is a historic day in Colombia,” said John Kerry, the United States’s Secretary of State. “A lot of hard work has been accomplished. There’s a lot of hard work to go.”
Based on the only available counting of casualties, it is estimated that 267,162 people were killed in the Colombian civil war. President Obama, whose administration helped with the peace talks, believes the end of the conflict is one of his administration’s greatest foreign policy achievements.
More than 7,000 fighters from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, will cease fighting and rejoin civilian life within the next few weeks. Secretary Kerry has implied that the United States is open to taking FARC off the list of foreign terrorist organizations.