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On Sunday, Colombian voters narrowly rejected the government’s peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, in a stunning referendum vote that has thrown the peace process into disarray.

All that was left was for voters to approve it in a nationwide referendum on Sunday. Most observers saw the vote as a mere formality that would officially bring an end to the 52-year war that left 220,000 people dead and displaced millions.

nearly every poll predicted that it would be approved by the people with a comfortable margin.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc, after the initials in Spanish) are Colombia's largest rebel group.

They were founded in 1964 as the armed wing of the Communist Party and follow a Marxist-Leninist ideology.

They are controlled by the Secretariat, a group of less than a dozen top commanders who devise the overarching strategy of the Farc.

After a half century of war, and after four years of grinding negotiations, the Colombian government and leaders of the country's insurgency reached an accord in August to end a conflict in which more than 220,000 people were killed and six million displaced

Polls had the yes vote comfortably ahead by a 2-to-1 ratio.

The Colombian government and left-wing Farc rebels have signed a historic agreement that formally brings an end to 52 years of armed conflict.

The last of the major Cold War conflicts killed 260,000 people and left more than six million internally displaced.

We will achieve any goal, overcome any hurdle and turn our nation into a country we've always dreamed of - a country in peace."

In a world dominated by horrific forever wars, Colombia's agreement with the Farc guerrilla movement stands out as an extraordinary moment for this country, and a rare affirmation of the power of peace talks.

"What we have seen in Colombia is an example that if you work hard at it, with a lot of international support, you can get something worthwhile," he said, while a Colombian choir rehearsed Beethoven's Ode to Joy on the edge of the picturesque harbour.

Every conflict is different, but every peace process throws up similar challenges and controversies.

NECOCLI, Colombia — As the Colombian government nears a deal to end its 50-year conflict with FARC guerrillas, it is intensifying another war in the jungles here along the Caribbean coast, the stronghold of a shadowy drug organization known as Clan Úsuga.

Both the government and the traffickers know that a big share of Colombia’s billion-dollar cocaine trade will be up for grabs if FARC — whose rebellion runs on drug profits — goes out of business. Some of its 7,000 battle-hardened fighters may be looking for new jobs. Clan Úsuga will be hiring.

That $10 billion program, funded by Congress, is considered by many Republicans and Democrats to be one of the most successful U.S. foreign policy achievements of the past generation, forcing FARC to the negotiating table after a half-century of violence that has left more than 220,000 dead.

where President Daniel Ortega, seeking a third consecutive five-year term in November, has just announced that his wife, Rosario Murillo, is his vice-presidential running mate.

Mr. Ortega first ruled Nicaragua for 11 years after the 1979 revolution, until his ouster in the country’s first genuinely democratic election

Having regained the presidency in 2006 through a series of corrupt political maneuvers, Mr. Ortega promptly engaged in more chicanery to ensure he would never have to leave office again

Last month, the mayor of Colombia’s main port city, Buenaventura, was arrested on corruption charges

Corruption is a very big structural problem in Colombia. It permeates all levels of government and society, public and private.

Corruption is closely linked to other illegal and criminal activities, such as drug trafficking and illegal mining, which makes it much more difficult to tackle. Some surveys show that Colombians see corruption as the country’s main problem, even more than violence.

"I will keep seeking peace until the last minute of my term," said Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, after voters rejected his peace deal with the left-wing Farc rebels.

The deal aimed to put an end to more than five decades of conflict, which left an estimated 260,000 people dead and millions internally displaced.

Less than a decade ago, while serving as defence minister, he authorised the controversial bombing of a Farc camp in Ecuador without informing the neighbouring country.

The changes to the agreement with the rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or the FARC, were announced in Havana and addressed a range of topics — such as where rebels would be confined after disarming and how courts might address drug trafficking offenses — that negotiators said had troubled voters.

The agreement also appeared to withdraw a promise of guaranteed seats for rebels in Congress — one key demand of those who said the rebels would be unfairly rewarded with political positions.

If a final accord is signed within six months, as the negotiators have pledged, Colombia would offer an example of hard-won peacemaking at a time when so many other conflicts, which are spawning the largest wave of refugees since World War II, seem intractable.

As of last year, the three-way fight among guerrilla factions, government forces and right-wing paramilitary bands that often acted as proxies for the state, had killed more than 220,000 people and displaced an estimated 5.7 million. At the peak of the conflict, in 2000, kidnappings for ransom surpassed 3,000 a year.

The talks have forced Colombians to take stock of a painful past and face uncomfortable truths. Dozens of victims traveled to Havana to speak about abuses they endured at the hands of guerrilla leaders. Some implicated government forces in brutal acts. When I met some young FARC members in Havana last year during a reporting trip, I came to see them in a new light as they described taking up arms as a desperate choice they were forced to make to survive.

“Colombians will have two options, between those who prefer an end to the war and those who want a war without end,” Mr. Santos said after the results were made public. His main challenger, Óscar Iván Zuluaga, a former treasury minister, received 29 percent of the vote, with more than 99 percent of polling stations counted, officials said. Mr. Santos received slightly more than 25 percent in the field of five candidates.

Mr. Santos, 62, had cast himself as the peace candidate and urged voters to empower him to finish talks he started in 2012 with the rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

Mr. Zuluaga, 55, an ally of the right-wing former president, Álvaro Uribe, has been a harsh critic of the talks and could break them off if he becomes president.Colombia, a country of 47 million people, is one of Washington’s closest allies in Latin America and has received billions of dollars in American aid in recent years to combat drug trafficking and guerrilla groups.

On Jan. 10, 1978, my father was assassinated by hit men of the Somoza regime. His death meant the end of whatever remained of Nicaragua’s political arena. But it also unleashed an enormous wave of protests nationwide, because the country now saw rebellion as the only way left to end the dictatorship.Four decades later, we have gone through a tortuous cycle of revolution and counterrevolution, civil war and foreign aggression, democratic transition and, now, a return to authoritarianism. History is repeating itself as farce under the regime of Daniel Ortega, the former guerrilla leader who was the elected president from 1985 to 1990 and who returned to power in 2007.

Ironically, when the Sandinista revolution’s leaders were voted out of power in 1990 (allowing my mother, Violeta Chamorro, to become Nicaragua’s president for seven years), it was Mr. Ortega himself who contributed to the establishment of an electoral democracy by conceding defeat, thereby setting the country on course to transfer power peacefully among political parties. However, Mr. Ortega and the next president, Arnoldo Alemán, who later was accused of corruption, arrived at a political compact in 1999 that weakened the trend toward pluralistic democracy by setting up bipartisan control of the electoral system. In 2007, that, too, collapsed when Mr. Ortega, now back in office, took sole control.

In 2008, well-documented fraud marred municipal elections. And in 2011, Mr. Ortega, defying term limits law, was “re-elected” in balloting that was denounced as unconstitutional. He has used the time since to consolidate an institutional dictatorship that concentrates absolute power and that derives political support from an alliance with private business interests and from citizens who benefit from government policies that aid the poor.

“The election is a farce, a mega-fraude is taking place and we cannot legitimize it."

In July, he banned 28 deputies of the Independent Liberal Party from running in the elections, including its leading presidential candidate, Eduardo Montealegre

In August, Ortega chose his wife, Rosario Murillo, for the vice-presidential ticket. “They have created a dynastic dictatorship …