By Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) fought the South American governments of that country for more than half a century before signing a peace deal last year.
By the time it ended, the conflict had left more than 230,000 dead and millions displaced from their homes.
It was one of the world’s longest-running and vicious guerrilla wars, with countless atrocities committed by the FARC, the Colombian armed forces, and brutal right-wing paramilitary groups and death squads.
The FARC had been formed as the armed wing of the Communist Party in 1964 and many FARC fighters had virtually grown up in the jungle, with little education other than FARC propaganda.
“There is one less war in the world,” President Juan Manuel Santos said upon winning the Nobel Peace Prize last Oct. 7 for his efforts at ending the 52-year-old conflict. “It is much more difficult to achieve peace than to wage war.”
He was indeed correct. On Oct. 3, Colombians had unexpectedly rejected an initial agreement in a national referendum by a narrow margin. It had been signed Sept. 26 by Santos and FARC Commander in Chief Rodrigo Londono, known as Timochenko. Guests were dressed in white at the ceremony in Cartagena, to symbolise peace.
Former president Alvaro Uribe, a hard-line opponent of the deal, had advocated voting against it. But when Santos, who had been Uribe’s defence minister, become president in 2010 he was determined to end the violence.
Following further negotiations, Santos and the FARC on Nov.12 announced a “new final deal,” which Santos, who controlled a majority in Congress, was able to push through without a new referendum.
FARC rebels agreed to give up their arms under UN supervision in 26 “transitory normalization zones” in rural areas scattered around the country. The FARC and the government established a deadline of May 31st for final disarmament.
The FARC will become a political party, and, before long, former guerrillas will be able to run for public office.
In exchange, the government promised billions of dollars in aid and land reform. Santos also committed to protecting the rebels from reprisals by right-wing groups.
But Colombia is not out of the woods yet. Because the end of the FARC insurgency has left a power vacuum, criminal groups are attempting to fill it.
They are occupying the regions left behind by the FARC, all hoping to wrest control of the cocaine trade, illegal gold mines and other criminal enterprises which once financed the rebels.
“They want to control the illegal economies that have fueled Colombia’s war,” Colombia’s human rights ombudsman, Carlos Negret, indicated.
In response, Santos announced in March that 960 new police agents would be assigned to rural areas. Clearly, that’s far from enough.
In order to finance their activities, the FARC had become involved in the narcotics trade, exporting cocaine to the world.
Under the peace agreement, the government and the guerrillas agreed to promote crop substitution programs through voluntary eradication pacts: the farmers would pull out their coca bushes in exchange for subsidies, land titles and technical assistance to grow something else.
Since January, more than 55,000 families throughout the country have signed on.“We cannot allow drug trafficking to coexist with peace and reconciliation,” said Néstor Humberto Martinez, Colombia’s chief prosecutor.
The problem, of course, is that few other crops are as profitable as coca. In fact, cultivation of the plant rose 18 per cent last year from 2015.
In any case, can former FARC fighter be re-integrated into civil society? Bruce Bagley, international relations professor at the University of Miami, notes that many Colombians still don’t trust them and “consider them monsters who have committed atrocities.”
So did Santos deserve the Nobel Peace Prize? It’s way too soon to tell.
No comments:
Post a Comment