Colombia's Failed Peace Talks Herald a New Outbreak of Violence

  
"Hard times are coming," warned President Andrés Pastrana in his February 20 announcement of his decision to end the Colombian peace process. That was the same day that negotiators were scheduled to discuss the issue of kidnappings, a growing scourge in Colombia. But before the talks could get under way, the country's largest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), hijacked a commercial plane, abducted a senator and exploded a bridge, killing a mother and her child. In response, Pastrana declared that the demilitarized zone under the guerrillas' control had become nothing more than "a safe haven for kidnappers, a narcotics laboratory and a weapons depot."

In the last 30 days, the FARC has committed 117 attacks, among them: four car bombs; five assaults on army bases; seven landmines; 20 murders of civilians, including women and children; and the destruction of 33 electricity pylons, two oil pipelines and three bridges. The attacks highlight not only the consistent violation of international human rights law and mockery of the peace talks, but also the FARC's terrorist nature. As Pastrana put it, "they [the FARC) are responsible for defining themselves. No one now can doubt that, faced with a choice between politics and terrorism, the FARC chose terrorism."

The way some observers see it, the logic of the war defeated the possibility of peace. They world will now view the conflict in Colombia in different terms, they predict. Mariano Aguirre, director of the Center for Peace Research in Madrid, claims that "the United States could include Colombia in its plan to wage a global campaign against terrorism." This idea won't be difficult to sell, he argues, due to several key similarities to the war in Afghanistan: "drugs, the dispersion of armed actors and the country's geopolitical importance."

The US government has already classified both the FARC and Colombia's main paramilitary group as terrorist organizations. Political scientist Ana Isabel Vargas believes that "the nature of the political risk factors present in Colombia and its geographic location facilitate the internationalization of the conflict. In the words of political analyst Andelfo García, this is a country that is at once Andean, Caribbean, Amazonian and Pacific Rim, that has land borders with five countries and maritime borders with nine."

Other analysts believe that the biggest problem facing the country will be how to deal with the guerrillas in the future. After everything Pastrana granted the FARC, they argue, and the minimum concessions he demanded in return, it will be difficult for the next administration to bring the guerrillas to the negotiating table without giving them half the country. According to political scientist Hernando Gómez Buendía, there have been no real negotiations in Colombia, but rather a permanent state of conflict with some give and take over technicalities, such as the demilitarized zone. He argues that "the failure of this ill-conceived and poorly managed process made us leap to the conclusion that a negotiated peace is impossible. The fallacy is obvious but unstoppable, and tragic in its results."

Alfredo Rangel agrees that Pastrana's excessive generosity ended up acting against him, but he points out that it also internationalized the conflict, "leading to more pressure from around the world to intensify the search for peace, something which is irreversible." He predicts that "in the future international participation will increase and take on a more significant role."

Columnist Juan Lozano adds that "Andrés Pastrana played all of the cards he could to keep the process alive. Acting on the best intentions, he staked his prestige, his popularity and his space for political maneuver. He gave every sign of his sincere commitment to peace….It is no longer possible to claim that the state is unwilling to find a political solution to the conflict. This can no longer be in doubt. Andrés Pastrana did the impossible and the unthinkable to continue the negotiations."

An increasingly urgent consideration in the wake of the decision to end the talks is the need for guarantees for the upcoming elections in Colombia. Already, the FARC has kidnapped one presidential candidate, Ingrid Betancourt. In an article in El Tiempo newspaper, reporter Roberto Posada García Peña recalls that in the midst of its own civil war in 1989, El Salvador succeeded in holding elections under the supervision of international observers. He asserts that "the greatest responsibility our government has to the international community is this: allowing the elections to go forth and, if possible, with the strictest oversight and institutionality." An editorial in the same paper stresses that "broad-based and clean elections are the best source of institutional legitimacy. Achieving an adequate level of normality for the campaign is indispensable. The FARC has stepped up its game. With such ample warning, it would be unforgivable if the state were to sit back and fail to react quickly, convincingly and effectively."

What can civil society expect of this dire scenario? The experts all predict that the FARC will intensify its attacks and that the civilian population will bear the brunt of the suffering-for the conflict in Colombia is not so much a civil war as a war against civilians.

"Make no mistake, no one will win in a war," says French political scientist Daniel Pecaut, a leading European expert on Colombia. Nevertheless, after all that has happened, Colombians have expressed a fierce determination to persevere against violence and strengthen their societal institutions. In the coming months, the seeds of civil resistance and organization will play an important role in defining events in Colombia, along with the new international view of the conflict.

"Civil society today is more visible and aware of its ability to apply pressure," says Rafael Mateus, director of the Colombian Center for Entrepreneurial Responsibility. "Now more than ever, civil society organizations have a clearer vision of the conflict and reject any notion that the FARC can produce social, economic or political change."

The only clear lesson is that the model of negotiation based on the principle of demilitarized zones has failed. The civilian population paid the highest price in deaths, casualties and terror, but also developed a new culture of participation. Colombian civil society has acquired a new role as a pressure group, especially when further opportunities for negotiation emerge (most likely under the next administration).

For now, Colombians are confused, tired of violence, in support of peace but being pulled inexorably into war. "In the midst of so much confusion we must clarify our ideas, assign accountability and assume our responsibilities as a society," maintains Ana Teresa Bernal, president of the NGO Redepaz. "Peace can not be delegated; we must build it together, or it will become just another lost illusion."