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Halfway to Success SPECIAL REPORT COLOMBIA October 31st 2015 Halfway to success 20151031_SRcolombia.indd 1 19/10/2015 12:07 SPECIAL REPORT COLOMBIA The promise of peace Colombia is close to a historic peace agreement that will transform its prospects. But to realise its full potential, it will need to make big changes, argues Michael Reid LIKE MUCH ELSE in the Colombia of President Juan Manuel Santos, the CONTENTS ceremony on September 23rd started late, by an hour and 37 minutes. But it was worth waiting for. Negotiators from the government and the FARC 3 The road to peace guerrillas unveiled an agreement on the thorniest issue they had had to This time is different resolve: transitional justice, or what sort of penalties the perpetrators of crimes against humanity in Colombia’s long armed conflict should face. 4 The aftermath This breakthrough has opened the way to a swift conclusion of the A nation of victims peace talks in Cuba that began three years ago. Shortly before the cere- 6 The urban-rural divide mony in Havana Mr Santos had his first official meeting with Rodrigo A tale of three countries Londoño, better known to Colombians as “Timochenko”, the FARC’s top commander (this report will use the guerrillas’ noms de guerre). The two 7 The economy and business pledged to sign a final agreement within six months, and the FARC un- Time to branch out dertookto start disarming within 60 days after that. Despite some subse- 9 The future quent bickering, these deadlines lookplausible. Halfway to success Mr Santos (pictured above, left) was visibly uncomfortable when ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Besides those mentioned in the Raúl Castro, Cuba’s president, encouraged him to shake hands with Ti- text, and some who prefer to mochenko in frontofthe cameras. Colombianssee the FARC asnarco-ter- remain anonymous, the author rorists who bomb, kidnap and extort. Mr Santos knows that many of his would like to express particular countrymen will be angered by an agreement that will allow most FARC thanks for their help to Luis Fernando Andrade, Álvaro commanders to escape going to jail. But he also knows that peace repre- Balcázar and Antonio Celia, as sents a huge prize forColombia. And because the FARC will be held to ac- well as to Héctor Abad Facio- count fortheir crimes in the country’s own courts, the agreement will of- lince, Carlos Enrique Cavalier, fer a potential model for other conflict-ridden countries. Fernando Cepeda, Javier Ciurlizza, Juan Fernando Cristo, Colombia’s armed conflict has been remarkably bloody, complicat- Ivan Duque, Carlos Lozano, ed and long-running. According to the National Centre for Historical A list of sources is at Alfonso Gómez Méndez, Maria Memory, a public body set up by Mr Santos in 2011, between 1958 and Economist.com/specialreports Claudia Lacouture, Rodrigo 2012 around 220,000 people died as a result ofthe clash between guerril- Pardo, Jorge Restrepo, Enrique An audio interview with Santos Calderón, Miguel Silva, las, right-wing paramilitary groups and security forces. Of these about the author is at Rodrigo Uprimny and José Dario 80% were civilians. The conflict also facilitated a surge in criminal vio- Economist.com/audiovideo/ Uribe. lence (see chart, next page). And violence, orthe fearofit, dislodged some 1 specialreports The Economist October 31st 2015 1 SPECIAL REPORT COLOMBIA 2 6m Colombians from their homes, mainly in the countryside. tween them; the country’s Pacific coast is one of the wettest Over and above the saving in human life, Mr Santos has places on Earth; to the south-east, almost half the total area is said that peace, together with his infrastructure programme, made up ofthe llanos (remote tropical lowlands) and a corner of could add more than two percentage points a year to his coun- the Amazon rainforest. The state has never been able to control try’s economic growth rate from 2018. In 2014 the economy grew or integrate such difficult territory and its people developed a by 4.6%. In a more cautious assessment last year Francisco Rodrí- deep mistrust ofstrong government. guez, an economist at Bank of America, put the boost to growth Areverence forthe rule oflawwenthand in hand with law- at only 0.3 percentage points. Whatever the precise figure, peace lessness, unequal land ownership and a tradition of political vi- should help Colombia realise its considerable potential in many olence and guerrilla warfare. For a century this pitted Liberal fields. So the stakes in Havana could hardly be higher. against Conservative politicians until they agreed to share pow- The breakthrough in September followed a near-collapse er in 1956. The Cuban revolution and the cold war bred guerrilla in the talksearlierin the year. In April a FARC column broke a uni- movements of the left. The FARC was founded in 1964 by the Co- lateral ceasefire, ambushing an army platoon, killing 11 soldiers lombian Communist Party and the remnants of Liberal peasant and settingofftwo months oftit-for-tat attacks. That, and the lack guerrillas, to be followed a yearlaterby the smallerNational Lib- of progress with the talks, prompted Humberto de la Calle, the eration Army (ELN). government’schiefnegotiator, to warn the FARC in Julythat“one Colombia is exceptional, too, for its avoidance ofpopulism. day they could well find that we are not at the table.” Its elites have favoured responsible economic policies. In the 50 This served to concentrate the FARC leaders’ minds, but the yearsto 1995 the economygrewata steadyaverage ofalmost 5% a attack undermined public confidence in the president and the year, avoiding the Latin American ills ofhyperinflation and debt talks. At the start of the negotiations in October 2012 the presi- default. A new constitution in 1991 dismantled power-sharing, dent had said he hoped for an agreement “within months”. In a deepened democracy and strengthened the courts. national poll published in MayMrSantos’sapproval ratingfell to Although several smaller guerrilla outfits made peace, the 29%, and 69% of respondents expressed doubt that the negotia- FARC and the ELN did not. They had taken to organised crime tions would succeed. such as drug trafficking, kidnaps and extortion in the 1980s, and In some ways Colombians’ pessimism is surprising. Much beleaguered landowners had responded by sponsoring right- ofthe country has already benefited from a steep reduction in vi- wing paramilitary vigilante groups, with the complicity ofsome olence and crime in the past15 years. The FARC’s unilateral cease- army officers. By the late 1990sColombia was on the verge ofbe- fire, resumed in July—and matched by government “de-escala- coming a failed state, with the world’s highest murder rate and tion”—has brought down conflict-related violence to the lowest ten kidnappings a day. The government’s writ extended to only level since 1975, according to CERAC, a think-tankin Bogotá. half the country. The FARC had about 20,000 fighters and the It does not help that the economy has slowed sharply after ELN another 5,000. They attacked villages, engaged in urban ter- a dozen years when incomes rose by 7% annually in dollarterms, rorism, sowed landmines and recruited child soldiers. Their the peso has depreciated steeply and the fall in the oil price has paramilitary foes massacred whole villages thought to sympa- knocked a big hole in government revenues. thise with the guerrillas. The economyplunged into a deep reces- sion, contracting by 4.5% in 1999. Several banks failed and unem- Exceptional violence ployment climbed to over 20%. With almost50m people, Colombia isLatin America’sthird In desperation, Colombians broke with their traditions of most populous country, after Brazil and Mexico. In many ways it self-reliance, anti-militarism and moderate, consensual politics. is exceptional. It claims to be Latin America’s oldest democracy, Andrés Pastrana, who was president from 1998 to 2002, sought with just one four-year military dictatorship in the 20th century. outside help. As part of a project called Plan Colombia, the Un- Geography put strong barriers in the way ofits development: the ited States provided the country with $1.2 billion in 2000 and Andes split into three chains there, with two long valleys be- then around half that amount each year until 2006, mainly in 1 2 The Economist October 31st 2015 SPECIAL REPORT COLOMBIA The road to peace This time is different A peace process that could become an example to the world COLOMBIANS HAVE HAD good reason to be sceptical about the peace talks. The FARC have negotiated with gov- ernments on three previous occasions, and each time the out- come has been a bitter disappointment. In the first attempt, in 1984, the guerrillas declared a ceasefire and launched a legal po- litical party, the Unión Patriótica (UP), but it turned out that they planned to use the truce to build a large army and political base. In the event some 1,500 UP members, many of them innocent idealists, were murdered by paramilitaries. The next set of talks, in 1991-92, got nowhere. Mr Pastrana tried again in 1999-2002, but once again the FARC used a ceasefire to build up their forces. Even before the breakthrough in September, there were two sets of reasons to believe that this time would be different. First, the FARC’s leaders now admit that their 50-year dream of takingpowerbyforce isover. Thatispartlybecause of MrUribe’s military build-up, but also because conditions in the region have ¡ £ chang ¢enezuela’s regime, which has offered them sanctuary and helped them buy arms, is deeply unpopular and its hold on power is uncertain. Mr Castro’s government sees diplomatic benefits in helping to broker peace. The FARC have also noted that across Latin America former guerrillas have won power through elections.
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