Colombia Signs a Peace Agreement with the FARC

In September 2012, the government of Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos announced formal peace negotiations with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC, a guerrilla group founded in 1964. Previous talks with the FARC had collapsed, most visibly under President Andrés Pastrana, whose negotiations began in January 1999 and were ended by the government in February 2002 after the rebels hijacked an airliner and kidnapped a senator. Military offensives under Pastrana's successor, Álvaro Uribe, considerably weakened the rebels. Santos, once regarded by Uribe as his protégé, took a different course, and his government held exploratory meetings with the FARC in Havana from February 2012.

After six months of exploratory meetings in Havana, the two sides signed a framework on August 26, 2012, known as the General Agreement. It limited talks to a six-point agenda: rural development, political participation, the end of the conflict, illicit drugs, victims, and implementation and verification. The parties named Cuba and Norway as guarantors, with Chile and Venezuela as accompanying countries. Talks were formally launched in Oslo on October 18, 2012, before moving to Havana, under the rule that nothing was agreed until everything was agreed.