BOGOTA - Colombians vote in a referendum Sunday on whether to ratify a historic peace accord to end the 52-year war between the state and the communist FARC rebels.
People gather in Bogota on September 26, 2016, to celebrate the historic peace agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC
The accord will effectively end what is seen as the last major armed conflict in the Western Hemisphere. The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions.
The stakes are high -- the Colombian government says it has no Plan B if voters reject the accord -- but polls indicate it will pass by a wide margin.
Colombians are sick of war, even though many resent making concessions to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which some foreign powers had classed as a terrorist group.
"The peace process is over. I do not share the view that we can start negotiating again if the 'No' vote wins," said Humberto de la Calle, the government's chief negotiator in the peace talks, which were conducted in Cuba.
"Voting 'No' and thinking that we can correct whatever we want (in the accord) is an illusion," he told AFP. "This is the best accord possible."
- A victim-centered deal -
Opinion surveys by pollsters Datexco and Ipsos Napoleon Franco, published on Monday, indicated the 'Yes" vote will win by a strong margin of around 20 percent.
Both pollsters predicted a 'No' vote of about 35 percent.
The government and FARC signed the deal on Monday. It calls for the rebels to disarm after the plebiscite and convert into a political group.
A legal adviser to the FARC in the peace talks, Spanish lawyer Enrique Santiago, said the 300-page peace agreement would serve as a "model" for conflict resolution elsewhere in the world.
"For peace processes in the world there will be a sense of 'before and after' the Havana accord," he told AFP.
"It is the first time (such an accord) has centered on the victims."
- Disarmament plan -
If voters approve the accord, FARC fighters must demobilize and disarm over the coming months, monitored by the United Nations.
The accord is seen as virtually ending the conflict, even though the government has so far failed in efforts to start peace talks with a smaller leftist rebel group, the National Liberation Army (ELN).
Ahead of the signing of the accord on September 26, the ELN announced a ceasefire until after the referendum.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, called for the ELN to extend that ceasefire.
"Complete peace. With imagination and effort this is now attainable," he told a news conference in Bogota on Thursday. "And what a country this will be if it can attain it."
The South American nation of 48 million people is one of the world's biggest cocaine producers -- a trade that has fueled the conflict. The peace plan aims to replace coca with other crops.
- Next generation -
The FARC launched its guerrilla war on the Colombian government in 1964, after a peasant uprising that was crushed by the army.
Over the decades, the ideological and territorial conflict drew in several leftist rebel groups, right-wing paramilitaries and drug gangs.
Colombian authorities estimate the conflict has left 260,000 people dead, 45,000 missing and nearly seven million displaced in a country of 47 million.
"The strongest argument for the peace accord was that it will end those losses for the next generation of Colombians," wrote the International Crisis Group, a conflict-resolution NGO, in a report Thursday.
"It could never please everyone, since it was negotiated between two sides with divergent ideologies, narratives and interests. Luckily, they both shared one objective: to end the war."