Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Colombians Reject Peace Deal; Preparing for Hurricane Matthew; 1995 Tax Records Raise Questions on Trump's Finances; Fierce Battle for Besieged City of Aleppo; PM Theresa May's Brexit Announcement; Militants Attack Indian Army Camp in Kashmir Region. Aired 12-1a ET

Aired October 03, 2016 - 00:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[000010] NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR: A final step to peace is voted down. Colombia rejects a deal that would have ended a conflict between FARC rebels and the government that's gone on for 50 years.

Bracing for Hurricane Matthew. People in Haiti and Jamaica stock up on supplies as authorities warn of life-threatening floods and mudslides.

Plus, Britain's prime minister makes a big announcement about Brexit.

It's all ahead here on CNN NEWSROOM. We're live in Atlanta. Thank you for joining us. I'm Natalie Allen.

Our top story, Colombia's peace deal with FARC rebels faces an uncertain future after a narrow majority of voters rejected it Sunday. The pact took years to put together and would have ended decades of conflict.

FARC's leader expressed sadness over the no vote and said the group will continue to pursue its political goals.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIMOLEON "TIMOCHENKO" JIMENEZ, FARC (through translator): The FARC-EP maintains the willingness for peace and they reaffirm their disposition to use only the word as a constructive weapon towards the future. To the Colombian people who dream with peace, they can count on us. Peace will triumph.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALLEN: CNN's Raphael Romo has more on the impact of this outcome.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN SENIOR LATIN AMERICAN AFFAIRS EDITOR (voice over): The final result goes against all polls and expectations. The peace agreement between the government and the revolutionary armed forces of Colombia known as FARC was rejected by Colombian voters by less than one percentage point.

The opposition to the deal led by former president Alvaro Olive was fierce and vocal.

"Why," the former president questioned, "did they choose to simplify a 297-page peace agreement by turning it into just one single question?"

Colombian voters could only say yes or no to the peace agreement in the referendum despite controversy over specifics like a lack of jail terms for rebels.

The vote was also seen as a referendum on this man, Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos, the main proponent of the agreement.

JUAN MANUEL SANTOS, PRESIDENT OF COLOMBIA: The bilateral and definitive cease-fire and end of hostilities are still in effect. I have heard those who said no, and I have heard those who said yes. Everybody -- everybody, without exception, wants peace.

ROMO (on camera): These people behind me come from different parts of Colombia here to Cartagena to say no to the peace agreement. Their main point is that they are not willing to forgive a terrorist group, as they call the FARC, that has killed people, that has raped women.

(voice over): There were multiple protests against the peace agreement leading up to the referendum. Just a few days ago, we ran into a group demonstrating in Cartagena.

Protesters say a piece agreement without real justice will never last. With this result, they say the government has a mandate from the people to renegotiate with the rebels.

ANA MARIA AVELLO, COLOMBIAN VOTER: We are convinced that this peace agreement is not going to bring peace. We're convinced that it's going to bring more war to Colombia because unjustice brings more war. The only thing we want is justice. That's all we're asking for is justice.

ROMO: No one wants a return to fighting, but after four years of negotiations, what happens next for this week-old peace deal is again an open question.

Raphael Romo, CNN -- Cartagena, Colombia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ALLEN: For more now, journalist Simone Bruno joins me from Colombia's capital Bogota. Simone -- thank you so much for joining us. Give us a sense of the reaction there in Colombia to this outcome.

SIMONE BRUNO, JOURNALIST: Yes, well, honestly, nobody saw this coming. Every single poll that were in the news in the past week, in the past weeks, they were talking about at least a two to one margin for the yes against the no. So actually the question was not who was going to win because everybody told that, yes, we're going to win. It was -- actually our match was yes going to win over the no. So (inaudible) actually a huge surprise like hundreds, thousands of people supporting yes were gathering all around the country, and they were ready to be celebrate -- I mean to celebrate the end of this endless conflict -- 52 years of a war with 220,000 people killed during this war.

And then suddenly, their happiness changed into a nightmare. There were people crying. Most of the people couldn't believe what was going on. They were asking, what is going on? What's happening? How is this possible? So basically, they actually slowly came into kind of despair situation.

[00:05:04] On the other side, on the side of the no, of course, people were not expecting to win either. So they sided together after the result especially outside the house, ranch of ex-president Uribe, close to (inaudible) and, of course, they decided to celebrate the results that they were not expecting either.

And after a while, even the yes people started to realize what was going on. And they gathered together again, we met with some of them not too much -- not too long ago. And they were saying that things are going to change because this is a crisis. It's not the end of the process.

ALLEN: And curious where might the country go from here? I mean is it expected that they can go back to the negotiating table after so many years of back and forth with FARC and the government and get more concessions from FARC to appease the people in Colombia that feel like justice hasn't been done?

BRUNO: Yes. This is really hard to say. What comes next is really hard to say. President Santos ordered to the negotiators to go back straightaway tomorrow morning to the -- to Cuba to start negotiating again with FARC leaders.

On the other hand, Uribe seemed to change a little bit his position. He said everybody want peace. We need to renegotiate a part of the agreement. So it seems to open a door to President Juan Manuel Santos.

What will happen tomorrow morning is really, really hard to know. FARC on their side, they seem to be willing to keep on negotiating, and they said that the peace and word is the only weapon they're going to use.

Basically, we just have to wait and see what will happen.

ALLEN: Yes. We get the sense that the country was stunned by this outcome, and we appreciate your joining us. Simone Bruno -- a journalist there. Thank you so much.

Another story -- we are just getting word of coordinated Taliban attack on the Afghan city of Kunduz. A police official tells Warriors News Service the fighters attacked from four directions then entered the city. The fighting is still going on they're told. Kunduz has been a frequent Taliban target. It fell briefly to the militants one year ago and was threatened again in April. So we'll keep you posted on developments in this story.

Hurricane Matthew is starting to drench parts of the Caribbean now. The Category 4 storm is bringing heavy rain and flooding to Jamaica with winds around 230 kilometers per hour. Kingston's International Airport will close on Monday. Matthew expected to head toward Haiti, Cuba, the Bahamas and south Florida as the week goes on.

Let's get the latest now. Our meteorologist Derek Van Dam staying on top of the storm, its impact and its track. Hi there -- Derek.

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes. And Natalie -- take a look at this image behind us provided by the U.S. Navy. This is some of the 700 spouses and children of navy personnel at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba being evacuated from that particular location ahead of Hurricane Matthew.

Here's the latest from the National Hurricane Center. As you said, 230 kilometer per hour sustained winds. That makes it a Category 4 Atlantic hurricane. Where is it headed? That's the big question?

We've talked about Haiti, Jamaica and Cuba. Those are our three hot spots as we speak. We're going to focus in on the areas that we expect landfall -- the extreme southern portions of Haiti.

But what I want you to notice is just how mountainous this terrain actually. So this mountainous terrain is actually going to help squeeze some of that rainfall out before it makes its way into the Port-Au-Prince region. And that is good news because Port-Au-Prince has had a tough past decade, considering the earthquake that took place there back in 2010.

Along the south coast though, the big threat there will be the potential for storm surge. In fact, the southern coastline of Haiti as the storm passes over that area could experience storm surge anywhere between two to three-and-a-half meters. So this is going to be a major concern for that area.

Other concerns going forward for Haiti, Cuba and Jamaica will be the extremely heavy rain. We do anticipate the highest rainfall totals in the mountainous terrain of western Haiti just outside of the Port-Au- Prince area.

The winds will become extremely strong overnight on Monday and into the day on Tuesday for this region as it passes over the extreme eastern sections of Cuba, eventually exiting towards the Bahama Islands and the Turks and Caicos as a strong Category 3 hurricane. You can see the forecast path from the National Hurricane Center has the storm really maintaining strength as it goes forward.

Maybe some slight deterioration in that wind speed but this will still be a formidable storm as it enters much of the Bahama Islands region and then from there, we monitor whether or not it will impact the East Coast of the United States. [00:10:07] So stay tuned. Still a little too early to tell.

On the other side of the world, we have Typhoon Chaba that's making its way through the southern Ryukyu Islands. Okinawa -- well, you're going to be spared from a direct hit but that doesn't mean the storm won't impact you considering that the Kadena Air Force Base is located there.

They will easily have typhoon-force winds. This is just 10 kilometers below super typhoon status -- sustained winds right now 230 kilometers per hour. That is equivalent to what Hurricane Matthew is at the moment, but these storms are separated by 15,000 kilometers.

So we're on the opposite sides of the world here. But the threats going forward for this region will be heavy rainfall as it moves into perhaps Southern Korea and the mainland of Japan. That particular region will have heavy rain and the potential of landslides.

Natalie -- lots to talk about here.

ALLEN: All right. Yes, absolutely. And we've got reporters in both regions so we'll be hearing from them. Thanks -- Derek.

VAN DAM: All right.

ALLEN: We turn to the campaign trail here in the U.S. and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump facing renewed criticism over his finances -- the "New York Times got some of the billionaire's tax records from decades ago. A reporter says they were mailed to her anonymously. The details are raising all kinds of questions.

Our Cristina Aleshi takes a closer look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CRISTINA ALESHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What these documents give us is a big number -- a headline-grabbing number. And it raises all sorts of questions about Donald Trump's business dealings and his finances.

One tax expert that I spoke to said people are going to start raising questions about how aggressive Donald Trump potentially got with his deductions. But for now we're focusing on the $916 million number. Here's some more insight on that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALESHI: Here's what the "New York Times is reporting. Trump declared a loss of $916 million in 1995. And that loss could be used to cancel taxable income for potentially up to 18 years, according to tax experts the paper hired.

Key details are still missing because the "New York Times" doesn't have Trump's complete tax returns. And CNN can't confirm the authenticity of the documents the paper does have.

But the report means, even if Trump made $916 million in the years after 1995, he could potentially have paid little or no taxes on that income. How is that possible? It all comes down to something called "net operating loss", according to "The "Times. When a business has more tax deductible expenses than income, you end up with what the IRS calls a "net operating loss".

Now people might be asking, if Trump can write off such a large loss over so many years, why can't I do this? Most people are familiar with a different type of deduction -- capital losses. Typically these are tied to stocks, bonds and other investments, and there are different rules for those and limits on how you could use them.

With Trump, we're most likely talking about a loss from operating a business, which, according to the IRS, is the most common reason for a net operating loss.

If Trump had much of his wealth tied up in businesses, any losses in those businesses might flow directly to him. So he could use them to reduce his own tax bill in future years. It's important to keep in mind that the tax code allows you to do this.

The Trump campaign responded saying the candidate paid hundreds of millions of dollars in other taxes, including property and real estate taxes. But it didn't directly deny "The Times" reporting on the federal income tax. And Trump himself responded to the report with this tweet. "I know our complex tax laws better than anyone who has ever run for president and am the only one who can fix them. #failing at nytimes."

I spoke to the accountant cited in "The Times" story. He took issue with the story because Trump's income in subsequent years isn't public. So does this tell us that Trump lost all of this money only in 1995? The answer is no. Almost a billion dollars is a lot of money to lose. We don't know exactly what happened and when it happened.

We do know that his businesses were hurting in the early 1990s -- Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, the Plaza Hotel in New York, for example -- operating losses from those businesses could have been listed on his tax returns earlier in the 1990s. And then he could have carried them over to 1995. But we actually don't even know if he used these losses to offset income in later years. The tax law says he could have, but without the returns from those later years, we can't know for sure.

The big question is, do these documents help us understand how much Donald Trump is really worth? Again, the answer is no.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[00:15:01] ALESHI: As for how much Donald Trump is really worth, his campaign puts his net worth at $10 billion, independent analysts at Forbes say it's closer to $3.7 billion and Bloomberg puts it at $3 billion. So still, a lot of questions around that, but it's unlikely that any additional tax information is going to tell us how much he's worth overall.

What it will tell us is how much he's earned for the year, how much he's given away to charity and potentially shed light on how he does business.

ALLEN: Well, former New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani, who is an adviser to the campaign, talked about what this means.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER NEW YORK CITY MAYOR: I mean the reality is, he's a genius. What he did was he took advantage of something that could save his enterprise and he did something we admire in America. He came back. "The Art of the Deal" is all about that. He talks about it. So did Steve Jobs. So did Winston Churchill. Winston Churchill was thrown out of politics twice and came back.

Great men have big failures and then they take those failures and turn them into great results. I'd rather have a genius like Donald Trump running this country than someone like Hillary Clinton and all she seems to do is to produce jobs for the FBI.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALLEN: Giuliani went on to say that attacks about Clinton's marriage are fair game. He defended Trump's unfounded claim that Mrs. Clinton might be cheating on her husband, former President Bill Clinton.

Clinton was in Charlotte on Sunday, one of the many U.S. cities rocked by a police shooting of an African-American man. She spoke to a black congregation saying she'll never have to worry about the safety of her grandchildren the way black grandparents have to worry about theirs.

She lamented the fear that African-American families deal with on a daily basis and criticized those who seek to encourage further division. Instead, she says she aims to bridge those divides.

Other news now -- reality TV star Kim Kardashian West was held at gunpoint inside her hotel room in Paris Sunday night. West's husband rapper Kanye West was playing a show in New York at the time of the incident and abruptly left.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KANYE WEST, MUSICIAN: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Family emergency. I have to stop the show.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALLEN: If you heard him, he said "Family emergency. I have to stop the show." A spokeswoman says Kardashian West was confronted by two armed masked men dressed as police officers. She says the star is badly shaken but physically unharmed.

Syrian rebels in Aleppo are surrounded and the fighting for the bombed out city is getting only worse. It's a dire situation that couldn't be any worse really. We'll have more about that in a moment.

Plus, the U.K. has set a timeline for leaving the European Union. We'll have more on the British Prime Minister's plan. [00:17:57] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ALLEN: Syrian forces and their allies are gaining ground in Aleppo, and the fierce battle for Syria's largest city is intensifying. Troops are pushing their way in, and air strikes are pounding rebel- held areas.

A hospital was hit Sunday and the U.N. says the city's health system is on the verge of total collapse. The rebels are surrounded, and the army is urging them to leave saying their safety will be guaranteed if they do.

Here's Nic Robertson with the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: The Syrian government is absolutely ramping up pressure on that eastern rebel- held area of Aleppo.

According to the U.N., the situation there is dire. They're deeply concerned. 275,000 people, the U.N. says, live in that area. They're short of food, short of fuel which means they can't make bread. Water has been cut off because the water pumping station in the east of Aleppo has been too badly damaged.

Now the U.N. says the hospitals are being hit on multiple occasions. What we're seeing over the weekend, those hospitals continue to be hit.

And in the north of that rebel-controlled eastern part of Aleppo, a hospital, the al-Kindi (ph) Hospital has now been taken control of by the Syrian government. Those forces have a greater strategic advantage now against the rebels. The rebels we're told using up ammunition trying to defend that area. That's ammunition they won't be able to replace because they're surrounded.

That gives the Syrian government more leverage in the fight. The Syrian government now saying that rebel fighters can fight the eastern enclave of Aleppo and they'll be given safe passage out backed by Russia.

Russia, this weekend ramping up its rhetoric against the United States. We heard Saturday Sergei Lavrov, the foreign minister and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had a phone conversation. They discussed ways together, they might normalize the situation in Aleppo. But the background to that is the foreign ministry is Moscow is telling the United States not to interfere on the situation on the ground in Syria saying that that would have dire consequences throughout the region. So the rhetoric there ramping up.

The people in that eastern part of Aleppo under more and more pressure by the day.

Nic Robertson, CNN -- Istanbul, Turkey.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALLEN: Britain's exit from the E.U. could happen in 2019. British Prime Minister Theresa May laid out a timeline for the process on Sunday, first time we've heard this since the Brexit vote in June.

Our London correspondent Max Foster has the details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MAX FOSTER, CNN LONDON CORRESPONDENT: Brexit means Brexit. That's all we've really understand about Theresa May's plan for getting Britain out of the European Union. We weren't even sure how committed she was to the process at all.

Today we had some clarity on that. So Britain will be leaving the European Union and the process to start that so-called Article 50 will be invoked at the end of March which means Britain will leave the European Union by the end of the decade.

THERESA MAY, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: It was right to wait before triggering Article 50. But it is also right that we should not let things drag on too long. Having voted to leave, I know that the public will soon expect to see on the horizon the point at which Britain does formally leave the European Union.

[00:20:09] So let me be absolutely clear. There will be no unnecessary delays in invoking Article 50. We will invoke it when we are ready, and we will be ready soon. We will invoke Article 50 no later than the end of March next year.

FOSTER: When it comes to it, untangling Britain's relationship with the E.U. will be horribly complicated. Not least all of those E.U. laws that currently apply in the U.K. But Theresa May did shed some light on how she sees that happening and effectively, E.U. law applied to the U.K. will be enshrined in U.K. law.

After that, the British parliament will have to decide for itself which bits it wants to get rid of and which bits it wants to keep. That's complicated in itself.

But before that, she's got all the negotiation as well with the European Union. It's going to be very tough indeed. And effectively she says she can't tell us much more at this point because she wants a negotiating position and saying too much now will give that away.

So there will be no running commentary on how she's going to handle these negotiations, but she has at least shed some light on how she plans to go into them.

Max Foster, CNN -- Birmingham.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ALLEN: Renewed fighting breaks out between India and Pakistan in the disputed Kashmir region. Is this only the beginning? We'll have a live report. Plus, what China doesn't allow on television. We look at China's odd

TV censorship, coming up here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:30:05] ALLEN: And welcome back. You are watching CNN NEWSROOM live in Atlanta. I'm Natalie Allen. And here are the top stories that we're following.

A peace deal between FARC rebels and the Colombian government is now up in the air after voters narrowly rejected the agreement on Sunday. A yes vote would have formally ended a 52-year conflict. The president says a cease-fire will stay in place, but they'll now go back to the negotiating table with the rebels.

The battle for the Syrian City of Aleppo is intensifying. More air strikes hit Sunday attacking a hospital. The Syrian military is urging rebels to leave the besieged area and says the Syrian and Russian armies would guarantee their safety if they did so.

The Caribbean is bracing for Hurricane Matthew. An as you can see, it's already had an impact here in Jamaica. Seeing flooding there. That's the capital of Kingston. Matthew will also threaten Haiti, Cuba and the Bahamas in the coming days and may go as far as Florida.

ALLEN: Voters in Hungary have overwhelmingly rejected a European Union plan to resettle refugees. But voter turnout was too low to make Sunday's referendum legally binding. The Hungarian prime minister said the EU cannot force migration policy on the country and vows to make sure it never happens.

There has been another violent incident in the disputed region of Kashmir between India and Pakistan.

Let's go straight now to Mallika Kapur. She's in Hong Kong. She's got the very latest for us.

Mallika, hello.

MALLIKA KAPUR, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Natalie.

Yes, we do have some information from the Indian police about another violent incident that took place late on Sunday night. And they say that militants attacked yet another army camp in the Indian part of Kashmir, and it was a very violent clash, they tell us, which resulted in one soldier from the Indian border security force being killed and another one seriously injured.

So this incident taking place on late Sunday night in the Indian part of Kashmir. Now tensions between India and Pakistan over Kashmir are at a level we haven't seen in about ten years. And the turning point really came about two weeks ago when another Indian army base in the garrison town of Uri was attacked by militants and India puts the blame squarely on Pakistan. Pakistan denies any involvement.

And a few days ago, we saw another violent incident when we see, when we heard from India, that India said it conducted surgical strikes across the border on the Pakistani side of the line of control, which is a de facto border between the two countries. India said it did that because it was targeting terrorist bases.

Pakistan, again, denies that and says there was no incursion into its territory and that there was cross-border shelling which resulted in two Pakistani soldiers being killed. So two very different versions of events there. But what this has done is basically created a huge amount of instability and uncertainty between these two neighboring countries that have been fighting over Kashmir, the disputed territory of Kashmir, for several decades now. Both these countries claim Kashmir in its entirety, but control only parts of it.

The U.N. has stepped in and offered to mediate between the two countries, but it certainly doesn't look like either India or Pakistan are ready to sit at a negotiating table right now.

ALLEN: Right. It's unnerving because the two countries have gone to war over this region before. A few decades ago.

With these increased tensions, Mallika, how is it affecting the people who live there?

KAPUR: Yes, it's really what it comes down to is the common man. People who live along the border. There are several border villages and both the Indian side and the Pakistani side.

One of our colleagues from CNN was taken by the Pakistani military to border villages two days ago over the weekend. And from what she saw and what she reported on was that things seem to be quite normal on the Pakistani side.

Children are going to school. People are still grazing their cattle. Shops are open for business, and that's what the journalists who were taken there were shown.

It appears to be a different picture on the Indian side of the border. And Indian authorities have been evacuating people. Thousands of people. They moved about 10,000 people away from the border area, and they've given them makeshift tents and camps, relief camps and are providing them with food and shelter until things settle down a little bit. So a lot of instability on the Indian side with 10,000 people being evacuated from the border areas.

ALLEN: You have to feel for the people stuck in the middle. It's a beautiful region, but it's certainly has been a difficult one for both countries.

Thank you so much, Mallika Kapur, for us out of Hong Kong.

[00:35:06] In Syria, the images coming out of Aleppo show a city reduced to rubble. But the state-run news agency paints a dramatically different picture.

Becky Anderson has more.

We warn you, some of the images are graphic.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BECKY ANDERSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A city in ruins. This is what we've come to associate with Aleppo. Entire city blocks destroyed. Graphic images of survivors of barrel bombs. The all too familiar images of Syria's second largest city after five years of civil war. But from Syria's tourism ministry, a totally different narrative of the city.

This video appeared on its Facebook page showcasing the green boulevards, swimming pools and century old architecture of western Aleppo. All set to the familiar soundtrack of a popular American TV show.

The regime controlled Western Aleppo is home to about 1.5 million. While life for the more than 250,000 living in the rebel-held east seems a world apart with devastation on almost every corner. It's a divide seen throughout many parts of Syria.

This video was tweeted out by Sana showing another side of the same city which has been at the center of the country's civil war. Mocking the perception of Aleppo as one of the world's most dangerous cities. The disconnect between the horror on the ground and the rhetoric put forward by the Syrian government in supporters like Russia is so glaring that for some, it's becoming absurd.

A sentiment perhaps best captured by U.S. secretary of state John Kerry. Expressing his frustration over the broken cease-fire deal at the U.N. general assembly.

JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: I listened to my colleague from Russia, and I sort of felt a little bit like they're sort of in a parallel universe here.

ANDERSON: But it's not the first time the Syrian government has been accused of misrepresenting life in the war-torn country.

This video from the tourism ministry showing the Mediterranean resort of Tartus, made headlines in August with its sleek productions and techno soundtrack.

One of their latest videos shows a Christian festival in the city of Maaloula, recaptured from rebels just last year. Echoing the constant line that government-held Syria is a safe place for minorities.

Damascus says it's not trying to lure foreign visitors with these glossy productions. Rather, they say they're targeting Syrian tourists.

But for international onlookers, these scenes might seem tasteless from a regime accused of killing hundreds of thousands of its own citizens. But Syria remains a country of contrast, where lives for some citizens seem night and day from the reality for others.

Becky Anderson, CNN, Abu Dhabi. (END VIDEOTAPE)

ALLEN: And we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ALLEN: A peace deal between FARC rebels and the Colombian government is now up in the air after voters narrowly rejected the agreement on Sunday.

CNN Espanol's senior anchor Patricia Janiot is following this story in Bogota, Colombia, and joins me now.

And, Patricia, obviously, the outcome of this took a lot of people by surprise.

PATRICIA JANIOT, SENIOR ANCHOR, CNN EN ESPANOL: It did, Natalie. All the polls here said that the yes vote was going to win, but many people are happy to embrace this result because they say this is going to allow to adjust what was wrong in the agreement that was signed this week in Cartagena, Colombia.

So everybody is agreeing that they don't want anymore war, and they are celebrating that the government and the guerrillas are committed to being in a peace deal, in a ceasefire. And that's going to be like that, hopefully, until they get together again in the negotiating table.

ALLEN: And hearing reports that the people thought that the vote for peace would win out were quite devastated when they realized the outcome didn't go their way.

JANIOT: They did. They were very afraid that the ceasefire, it was going to be broken and the country was going to go again in a military offensive.

The government, the president said to the country that he heard the message, that he's committed to the peace, that he's ordering the troops to keep the ceasefire. And that he's inviting all the political parties to a dialogue, to a national dialogue to define the next path to peace and possible another agreement.

ALLEN: And what was the mood there, Patricia, since you've been there, leading into this referendum?

JANIOT: Well, there was a lot of expectation. There was a lot of anxiety. This was an historic vote. Colombia was trying to put an end to 52 years of war. A conflict, an armed conflict between the biggest guerrilla group and the government.

We've been waiting for this vote for four years. Both parties were negotiating for four years in Cuba. And, finally, they said they -- we are going to sign this agreement. They did sign it last Monday. And now we have to keep waiting and see what the next agreement or deal is going to be.

ALLEN: It kind of reminds us of the Brexit outcome, and how that shocked so many people there in the U.K.

JANIOT: It seems like it.

ALLEN: Yes. All right, Patricia Janiot there for us. Thank you so much.

And that will wrap this hour of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Natalie Allen. I'll be back at the top of the hour with more news from around the world.

Up next here, we've got sports for you. You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)