Colombia’s 50-year war comes to an end, at last

On September 26th the Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos, and the leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Rodrigo Londoño, known as "Timochenko", signed a peace accord to end more than 50 years of war between the Marxist rebels and the Colombian state. Beginning in 1964 as a peasant revolt, the conflict is believed to have cost more than 220,000 lives and displaced almost 7m people. Under the agreement, signed with a pen made from a bullet, the FARC’s estimated 7,500 fighters will move into disarmament zones monitored by the UN and surrender their weapons within 180 days. FARC leaders and fighters who committed crimes against humanity will face a special tribunal but will not serve time in jail if they confess.

The FARC is to become a political party. Initially, it will have ten seats in Colombia’s 268-member congress.