Peace in Colombia

The Guardian reports:

Colombia’s Farc rebels, who once terrorized the country with kidnaps, killings and attacks on towns, have ended half a century of armed insurgency at low-key ceremony in which the United Nations certified that more than 7,000 guerrillas had turned over their weapons.

“Farewell to arms, farewell to war, welcome to peace,” said the Farc’s top leader Rodrigo Londoño, to a cheering crowd of former combatants at the ceremony in Mesetas, a mountainous area in south-eastern Colombia.

“Today doesn’t end the existence of the Farc; it ends our armed struggle,” said Londoño, best known by his nom de guerre Timochenko. The Farc plan to launch a legal political party in August.

“Today is a special day, the day when weapons are exchanged for words,” said President Juan Manuel Santos, who was awarded the 2016 Nobel Peace prize for his efforts to secure a deal with the Farc to end their part in a 53-year armed conflict that has left an estimated 250,000 dead, tens of thousands of people missing and forced millions from their home.

There are a lot of armed conflicts in the world. It is nice when they end peacefully as has happened in Colombia, and not that long ago also in Sri Lanka.