TWTR Twitter Inc

BOGOTÁ , Colombia—Voters narrowly rejected a peace accord between President Juan Manuel Santos and a Marxist rebel group that would have ended 52 years of conflict, a startling outcome that thrusts this country into uncertainty.

The results mark another instance of voters rejecting counsel from their government and the establishment, after the U.K. vote to leave the European Union in June. The vote in Colombia came barely a month after the government and the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia, or FARC, concluded four years of peace negotiations in Cuba. Polls had earlier shown the "Yes" vote comfortably winning the referendum.

"I am the first to recognize this result," Mr. Santos said in a short televised address on Sunday evening, flanked by his peace negotiators. Of his policy toward the rebels, though, he reiterated, "I won't surrender. I will continue to look for peace until the last minute of my term."

The deep antipathy Colombians hold toward the FARC propelled the "No" vote, with proponents of turning back the accord warning that Mr. Santos was selling out to the guerrillas.

But that wasn't the only factor. Fewer than 38% of voters went to the polls nationwide, but absenteeism was even higher along the Caribbean coast, where driving rain whipped up by Hurricane Matthew kept many prospective voters indoors.

With 99.9% of votes counted in Sunday's plebiscite, "No" votes—totaling more than 6.4 million—outnumbered "Yes" votes by fewer than 54,000.

"This is a devastating blow for the country," said Cynthia Arnson, an expert on peace talks at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington who closely tracks Colombia. "I don't think anybody between the government and the FARC has a plan B. There are just so many unknowns."

The "No" vote won throughout most of central Colombia, including heavily populated Antioquia, an economic engine for Colombia, and other interior states deeply affected by guerrilla violence. Bogotá , with eight million people, voted "Yes" and so did other states in the southwest where conflict once raged. But the size of the vote in those regions wasn't enough to turn back seething anger against FARC and Mr. Santos's accord.

As with the U.K. Brexit vote, half the country was stunned, while the other half celebrated, with drivers honking horns on city streets. Sandra Milena Caballero, a 22-year-old recent university graduate, wept as she watched the results come in.

"I cried, really cried," she said. "It hurt to see the country like this, so divided." She said she drew some hope when the rebels signaled they would still work toward peace. "Still, there was an opportunity to have taken this step toward peace," she said of the plebiscite. "Why not do it?"

Mr. Santos said the vote wouldn't affect a cease-fire that has been in place with FARC, and that on Monday he would convene a meeting with all political forces in Colombia to discuss how to proceed. Although he had said he wouldn't renegotiate should "No" win, Mr. Santos sounded more flexible on Sunday night.

"We will now decide among us all what is the path we should take so that peace, the peace we all want, is possible," he said.

If there was a positive note for Mr. Santos on Sunday night, it came from FARC, which didn't sound as if it were eager to return to the battlefield. The group's top commander, Rodrigo Londoñ o, told Colombian radio that the rebels would continue to seek a peaceful solution.

"To the Colombian people who dream of peace, count on us," he said from Cuba. The guerrillas had been preparing to move 7,000 fighters to specially designated zones to be disarmed under United Nations supervision. It was unclear how they would be deployed now.

Mr. Santos's loss is a victory for his predecessor, former President Á lvaro Uribe, who marshaled his followers by asserting that the accord would permit FARC to install a communist system in this country of 49 million.

Mr. Uribe, whose father was slain by the rebels, said in a late-night televised speech that his movement wants to "be part of a grand national pact. so that they hear our reasons," adding "We know that our compatriots who said yes will receive our message, that they'll hear us and and we'll hear them," he said.

The Santos administration had touted the development and economic-growth potential that peace would bring in a country ravaged by a drug-fueled war, noting that one of the points in the accord amounted to a Marshal Plan for forlorn regions. This year, the Obama administration had pledged $450 million to aid the postconflict process, one of several commitments made by Colombia's allies. Mr. Santos's accord also had the support of Latin America, the EU and the Vatican.

FARC, which spent more than five decades trying to topple the Colombian state, had in the negotiations abandoned many of the demands it had long fought for, such as changing the country's capitalist system, barring foreign ownership of land and implanting radical land overhauls.

But benefits for ex-combatants stipulated in the peace accord—including seats in Congress for guerrilla commanders and leniency in tribunals for those accused of atrocities—prompted many Colombians to reject the deal.

"After all of the damage and violence that the guerrillas have caused, they wanted us to treat them like prizewinners," said 46-year-old maintenance worker Dairo Aguilar, whose family was forced to the capital from their village in southern Colombia by the conflict. He voted against the deal.

Likewise, Patricia Alarcon said she voted "No" because she remembers how her family had to flee their home in Colombia's east, fearing that her six brothers would be forcibly recruited by the rebels.

"Even having too many boys in the family was a risk," the 35-year-old homemaker recalled, holding her toddler son outside a voting center. "What kind of example would we be setting for the future if we just let these people go unpunished?"

But those who had been cautiously optimistic about the accord included Maria Luisa Celis, 71, a former council member of a small town whose fellow lawmakers were killed by an elite FARC commando unit in 2005. She voted "Yes," and so did her state, considered a FARC epicenter.

"We have lived through this war," she had said in explaining what it had been like when the violence was at its apex. "We have suffered so much."

Mr. Santos banked his presidency on ending a conflict that since 1964 left more than 220,000 dead and forced millions of poor farmers off their land. A victory for the "No" campaign would lead to a resurgence in conflict, Mr. Santos had warned, irking many in Colombia who said the warnings amounted to a scare tactic.

FARC leaders have been more ambivalent in public comments. In a recent interview, a guerrilla who used the name Paula Saenz said the rejection of the accord wouldn't mean war, at least not yet.

"It's not like we will begin to blow up bridges," she said, although she shook her head when asked just what the guerrillas might do.

The result of Sunday's vote emboldens Mr. Santos's detractors, led by Mr. Uribe, now a senator.

He had campaigned saying the peace deal could be renegotiated with stricter penalties for rebels accused of war atrocities. Mr. Uribe, whose heavy military offensive against FARC during much of the past decade decimated the guerrilla group, remains highly popular in Colombia.

Indeed, many here believe that Mr. Santos should have finished off what Mr. Uribe began, though military experts, including generals in the army here, were supportive of the negotiations and saw the accords as the best way to end the conflict.

Sen. Daniel Cabrales, a former cattle farmer allied with Mr. Uribe, said the victory for the "No" side means "the negotiation table doesn't get lifted, it gets reoriented."

However, it remains unclear how the government and FARC would redefine terms for future negotiations after both sides had exhausted much of their political capital working on the 297-page agreement.

Juan Pablo Vega, a rancher in northwest Colombia, a region marked by FARC kidnappings, summed up the opposition to the accords, saying he didn't want to see the rebels in politics after having committed so many atrocities.

"If FARC want to give up their guns and apologize, great," he said. "But you're not going to change the rules of the game."

Sara Schaefer Muñ oz

Write to Kejal Vyas at kejal.vyas@wsj.com and Juan Forero at Juan.Forero@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 03, 2016 01:45 ET (05:45 GMT)

Twitter (NYSE:TWTR)
Gráfica de Acción Histórica
De Sep 2024 a Oct 2024

Twitter (NYSE:TWTR)
Gráfica de Acción Histórica
De Oct 2023 a Oct 2024