The Colombian government and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels scrambled to save a peace deal after voters narrowly rejected it in a referendum, throwing the four-year-old peace process into uncertainty. <br/><br/>President Juan Manuel Santos, who has staked his legacy on ending the 52-year-old conflict, called an emergency meeting with leaders of the country's political parties yesterday to try to chart a way forward after the shock referendum defeat on Sunday.<br/><br/>UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who had offered a UN team to oversee the disarmament process, said he urgently sent his Colombia envoy to Havana, Cuba, where the peace talks were held, for new consultations. Still, the outcome left no clear way forward to end a half-century conflict that has claimed more than 260,000 lives.<br/><br/>The peace deal had been hailed as historic from the time it was concluded on August 24 to the moment it was signed last week in the presence of Ban and US Secretary of State John Kerry.<br/><br/>Resentful of the blood shed by the Marxist guerrillas and the lenient punishment the deal meted out for their crimes, voters rejected it by a very thin margin: 50.21 percent for the "No" camp to 49.78 percent for "Yes". Voter turnout was low, at just over 37 percent.