Since the 1950s Colombia has never been closer than today to a closure of its historical chapter on guerrilla warfare. It is not a lie when people say that Colombia has hosted the oldest insurgency in the Western hemisphere, and that our internal conflict is one of the most enduring in the world. But it could all be finished soon. The Havana agreements seem to be on the right track to bring an end to the protracted struggle of guerrillas. Peace at last? Every single Colombian would ask: “Well, yes and no.”
Whereas the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and possibly the National Liberation Front (ELN) in the medium term, might end as armed and violent insurgencies, the country still has a long way to go in order to achieve something like a peaceful and stable atmosphere in a post-conflict scenario. The possibility for trends to reverse and for violence to reemerge are not low. How may this happen?
The history of rural Colombia is one of marginalization, isolation and state absence. In a vast and rugged geography, full of dense jungles and picky mountain chains, the construction of state institutions is still the biggest debt of the Colombian central state. Even when politicians and thinkers pretend to portray it in that way, the emergence of insurgencies is not only a consequence of the ‘communist ghost’ wandering through Latin America, and the success of the Cuban revolutionaries. It is also an expression of a highly centralized state, an excessive concentration of wealth, the lack of economic infrastructure in remote regions, and the absence of state institutions. Havana is not addressing these issues, and it shouldn’t do so.
The Havana accords are the mechanism by which FARC will agree to lay down its weapons and to join the democratic institutions to continue their struggle. It is not a discussion on how to alleviate the country’s main grievances. That debate goes far beyond a negotiation between President Santos and FARC. When this is understood, it becomes clear that by signing an agreement between both parties, the structural problems, which have generated violence in Colombia for decades, will not yet be resolved. The real solution to these dilemmas will actually be constructed in the period immediately starting after the acceptance of the accords, and the key to deter future violence depends on this construction. Why is this so?
It is likely that most of FARC’s insurgents will demobilize with their leaders, but it is almost certain that not everyone will follow. The risk of emerging ‘post-insurgencies’ is a real probability, and this could happen in different ways. There might be those who believe an agreement is not the way to continue their struggle so they could continue fighting as insurgents. It’s more likely, however, that many of them who are in war as way to make profit, will find out the way to continue their criminal activities. They could either create new structures or join the already existing criminal groups which are still strong in several areas of the country.
If militants leaving an armed organization feel like actions in the post-conflict scenario are a failure, they are likely to retake arms. If the conditions in remote regions that have been plagued with coca, violence, armed actors, illicit economies, and human rights violations, persist, then Colombia will fail to advance into a real scenario of a real relative peace and stability.
Let’s face this the appropriate way. The so-called post-conflict will in reality be a complex enterprise comprising different agendas. Altogether they will determine success in this new stage of Colombian history. To begin with, a real construction of state institutions is necessary. The Colombian state needs to offer all of its services to communities in regions that have never seen anything like organized institutions. Similarly, real economic and physical infrastructures have to be built in order to break criminal economy cycles in the long term. Communities need to integrate positively to the rest of the nation, seeing the state, and not the illegal armed actor, as the legitimate authority. In the other hand, communities themselves must be the protagonists in the construction of their own development. Generalized standards and models formulated in Bogotá to be replicated throughout vulnerable regions are doomed to fail. Only communities will know the shortest route to integration with the rest of society.
If we want to define “peace” in terms of a guerrilla abandoning its weapons, then we are very close to achieving this. But a more realistic position would suggest that we still need to take the long way in constructing a somewhat peaceful nation. We already know which municipalities are more vulnerable, and which require a more urgent intervention. A rapid reconstruction of these zones, very much like a ‘Plan Marshall’ would be a first step towards building the real peace that every Colombian is waiting for.
About the author: Oscar Palma is Professor of International Relations and Di- rector of the Observatory on Illicit Drugs and Weapons at the Bogotá-based Universidad del Rosario. Dr. Palma earned his PhD in International Relations from the London School of Economics (LSE). He holds an MA in International Security Studies from the University of Leicester as a Chevening Scholar of the British Government. He is a member of RedBrit, the Colombian network of Alumni from English Universities.
