Colombia awaits ceasefire to take shape

Berlin: Spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, who has played a role in brokering a peace deal between the Colombian government and left-guerrilla organisation FARC, has asked the former to understand that the ceasefire would take some time to come into effect. "It is vital for the President of Colombia and the military commanders of Colombia to understand that it would take up to July 20 for the ceasefire to take hold.

"This is because some of the guerrillas are unreachable in the jungle, and it will take a couple of weeks for them to realise that a ceasefire has been declared and that the FARC leadership is now pursuing non-violent and peaceful means," Christoph Glaser, spokesman for the Art of Living Foundation headed by Sri Ravi Shankar, said in a statement here. During his recent three-day visit to Cuba, the Indian spiritual leader had held several rounds of discussions with leaders of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) in an exercise of confidence-building for the peace process in the Latin American nation, which has faced many hurdles in the past three years. During these talks, the leaders of the Colombian guerrilla movement FARC had agreed to follow Gandhian principle of non-violence to attain its political objectives.

Sri Ravi Shankar had then appealed to the FARC leadership to follow a path of non-violence and "pursue goals of social justice for the good of the Colombian people and the future stability of the country," Glaser said in the statement. FARC is a left-wing guerrilla movement involved in the Colombian armed conflict since 1964 and has been designated a terrorist organistaion by the UN and USA. It has been hammering out peace terms with government negotiators since November 2012 to bring an end to five decades of war and conflict, which has killed more than 2,00,000 people and uprooted more than six million people.