Colombia, FARC sign final deal to end five decades of bloodshed

HAVANA Colombia's government and leftist FARC rebels unveiled a final peace deal on Wednesday to end a 50-year-old guerrilla war, one of the world's longest conflicts which took the resource-rich country to the brink of being a failed state.


The two sides said they had reached an agreement to end the conflict and build a stable peace, in a joint statement read out by representatives of Cuba and Norway, who are mediators in the talks.


The historic agreement foresees the demobilization of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), whose cocaine-funded rebels fought the government in a war that killed at least 220,000 people. Tens of thousands disappeared and millions fled their homes because of the violence.


The deal, opposed by two former Colombian presidents, still needs to be voted on in a referendum and signed.


(Additional reporting by Marc Frank in Havana and Julia Symmes-Cobb in Bogota; Editing by Andrew Hay)

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