What drives armed groups in peace processes? A case study of collective demobilization in Colombia between 1982-2016
Name: Paco Mens Student ID: 10672052
Supervisor: Dr. Abbey Steele Second reader: Dr. Ursula Daxecker
Date: June 2018 Program: Master Thesis Political Science, International Relations Track University: University of Amsterdam
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Abstract
Since 1964, Colombia has been experiencing a violent internal conflict with a number of armed groups. Unfortunately, the countless initiatives that have been started over the years in attempts to secure peace have seen limited success. These many failed negotiations together with the duration of the conflict reveal the difficulty of determining the precise conditions necessary for the leadership of an armed group to sign a peace agreement with the government and to collectively demobilize. Previous work on the Colombian Conflict has failed to structurally compare the peace processes of different armed groups in order to determine what the decisive factors are in their decision to lay down their arms. In this thesis, I have examined the role of a number of factors in these peace processes: the goals of an armed group, commitment problems, the security dilemma, conflict intensity, and prospects for reintegration. I argue that a close examination of these factors combined can adequately explain why an armed group decides to collectively demobilize.
Acknowledgements
This thesis would not have been possible without the help and support of a number of people, to whom I want to express my gratitude: Dr. Abbey Steele, who challenged me to improve the academic quality of this work and who provided me with the insights I needed to make this a good thesis. My parents, for supporting me throughout my whole education. They cheered for me when I learned how to count, and they motivated me to get the most out of my education. Jerome Mies, whose wise advice from the other side of the world made me choose this master’s programme in the first place. Wendeline van Seventer, who motivated me week after week to keep up with my schedule. Carolin Vahar-Matiar and Sarah van Veller, whose support throughout the thesis and intelligent comments were indispensable.
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1. Introduction ...... 4 Chapter 2. Literature Review ...... 7 2.1 Civil war literature ...... 7 2.2 Negotiation theory ...... 8 2.3 Mechanisms affecting the peace process ...... 9 Chapter 3. Hypotheses ...... 14 Chapter 4. Research strategy ...... 16 4.1 General Strategy ...... 16 4.2 Operationalization ...... 17 Chapter 5. Background ...... 21 5.1 Origins ...... 21 5.2 Development ...... 22 Chapter 6. Analysis ...... 26 6.1 M-19 ...... 28 6.2 PRT, MAQL, and EPL ...... 34 6.3 AUC ...... 40 6.4 FARC ...... 46 6.5 ELN ...... 54 6.6 Overview ...... 61 6.7 Alternative arguments ...... 67 Chapter 7. Conclusion ...... 70 Chapter 8. Sources ...... 73 Chapter 9. Appendix ...... 81
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Chapter 1. Introduction
At the end of 2016, the government of Colombia and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) finally signed a peace agreement in which the FARC agreed to lay down its weapons and attempt reintegration into Colombian society. Although one armed group, the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), remained active at that stage, the agreement was seen as a huge step towards at last bringing the Colombian conflict that started in 1964 to an end. By the time of the 2016 agreement, the conflict had led to the displacement of about 7 million people and had caused over 220,000 casualties (Miroff 2016).
The Colombian conflict has been characterised by the multiplicity of armed actors and almost continuous attempts by the government to reach peace agreements with these actors. In the course of the conflict, some of these armed groups have negotiated peace deals in which they agreed to collectively demobilize. These collective demobilizations have taken place at various points in time and under different conditions. As such, the Colombian conflict allows for a comparison between the varying instances of collective demobilization.
For the purposes of this research, demobilisation will be defined as the disarmament and dissolution of force structures and the transition of combatants into civilian status (Tanner 1996 in Knight & Özerdem 2004). It is the second step in the Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) framework that has been applied extensively in modern peace-building efforts. As such, it forms the bridge between the associated processes of disarmament and reintegration. Collective demobilization then, refers to the demobilization of an entire armed group (Norman 2017).
The goal of this thesis is to establish which factors have influenced the likelihood of collective demobilization of armed groups in the Colombian civil conflict. In the early 1990s, four armed groups decided to accept the latest conditions offered by the government and demobilize collectively, while other groups refused. Amongst the latter was the FARC, which engaged in countless rounds of negotiation with the Colombian state prior to signing the 2016 peace agreement. Another group, the ELN, has to this day been unable to reach an agreement with the government despite extensive efforts on both sides. This leads one to wonder what accounts for the differences in the decision-making process of these armed groups. In searching for an adequate explanation of these differences, this thesis will address the following research
4 question: what factors have influenced the probability of collective demobilization in the Colombian civil conflict between 1982 and 2016?
Existing research on collective demobilisation, or at least literature using this terminology, is limited. However, the concept is closely related to well-studied concepts such as peace agreements, conflict resolution, negotiation theory, and peace processes, since it is the desired outcome of peace processes with armed groups This thesis will build upon and adapt existing concepts from these strands of literature to shed light on the determinants of collective demobilization. Important concepts include theories about ‘ripeness’ and the ‘Mutually Hurting Stalemate’ as proposed by Zartman (2000), spoiler problems in peace processes as identified by Stedman (1997), the respective roles of greed and grievance (Collier & Hoeffler 2004), and the security dilemma (Sambanis 2002).
These concepts will be used to analyse the different peace processes that have developed between the Colombian government and the armed actors within the conflict. This topic has received much scholarly attention. Notable contributions include Nasi (2009), Chernick (1988, 1999 & 2009), Rampf & Navarro (2014), and Bouvier (2009). Despite the wealth of research on the Colombian peace process, few systematic analyses have been conducted attempting to explain why an armed group chooses to lay down its arms at a specific point in time. Some authors have analysed the peace process of one specific armed group, but to the best of my knowledge there exists only one article that systematically compares the varying factors that have caused armed groups to accept a peace agreement (Nasi 2009).
Nasi analysed the peace processes in Colombia between 1982 and 2002, while taking the different governments as his units of analysis. The present research will build on Nasi’s work, while taking the armed groups as units of analysis instead. By taking the perspective of the armed groups, I am hoping to gain a better understanding of their decisions within a peace process. Lustenberger (2012) also applies the perspective of the armed group in his analysis of the conditions under which armed groups are willing to start negotiations. I will extend his analysis to find out which factors cause armed groups to successfully conclude those negotiations through the process of collective demobilization.
This will also allow me to compare the collective demobilization process of a pro-state militia, the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC), to the processes of the leftist guerrilla organizations to see whether substantial differences exist in the demobilization processes of
5 these armed actors. Furthermore, I can extend the analysis until 2016, the year in which the most important armed group within the Colombian conflict decided to collectively demobilize.
Understanding what determines collective demobilization, or phrased alternatively, what causes armed groups to accept a peace agreement, is of significant importance. Not only could it accelerate the current negotiations between the Colombian government and the ELN, it could also provide valuable information for peace processes elsewhere. While being aware of the uniqueness of the conflict in Colombia, this thesis will attempt to reach conclusions that may provide useful insights for other peace processes as well.
Five sets of factors existing in peace processes in Colombia will be analysed: the goals of an armed group, commitment problems, the security dilemma, conflict intensity, and prospects for reintegration. I expect that these five factors together accurately explain the decision- making process of an armed group in a peace process. Because of the theoretical underpinnings of these factors and their logical connection the likelihood of collective demobilization, I argue that these five factors represent a close approximation of the relevant mechanisms that have influenced the different peace processes.
In this thesis, I will start with an overview of the literature associated with this topic, to provide a clear insight into the relevant theory. Second, I will elaborate on the hypotheses that I aim to test. Third, I will provide some notes on the research strategy that I will use for my analysis, and explain why I have made certain choices. Fourth, I will present the necessary background information on the Colombian conflict and its different armed groups to provide context for the analysis. Fifth, I will commence with the main part of my thesis, the analysis. In this section I will systematically test the hypotheses outlined in the literature review by providing evidence in favour of and against them. Finally, I will finish with a conclusion in which I will also outline the limitations of this thesis and the possibilities for further research.
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Chapter 2. Literature Review
In the following section I will present the existing literature on civil wars, negotiations, and peacebuilding. I will give an overview of the mechanisms that are expected to influence a peace process with an armed group in a civil conflict. With this overview, I will place my own research in the context of the existing literature on this topic.
2.1 Civil war literature As the incidence of interstate wars declined and as civil wars became increasingly common, the academic interest into civil wars1 rose (Kissane 2015). In the past two decades the literature on civil wars has witnessed an explosion of research into its causes and consequences. Such conflicts have a profound impact on any nation that experiences it, which makes it a crucial endeavour to gain a better understanding of this phenomenon (Blattman & Miguel 2010).
A civil war, as defined by Gersovitz and Kriger (2013), is “a politically organized, large-scale, sustained, physically violent conflict that occurs within a country principally among large/numerically important groups of its inhabitants or citizens over the monopoly of physical force within the country” (p. 160). They further add that a civil war is usually characterised by an incumbent government who faces an insurgency that tries to take over the state or to induce political reforms. This insurgency then forms an armed group, and their challenge to state power initiates the outbreak of a civil war (Gersovitz & Kriger 2013).
Causes of civil war
The mechanisms that cause the onset of civil war are also important in understanding its development and termination. Without knowing why an armed group has decided to mobilize in the first place, it is difficult to understand why they might decide to demobilize. As such, literature on the causes of civil war and its termination are closely connected. Similarly, an ongoing conflict can be understood as the repeated decision of armed groups to continue fighting, and understanding why they make this decision is key in understanding why they decide to stop fighting at a specific point in time (Cederman & Vogt 2017).
A recent study on civil war identified three explanatory logics that have been used most prominently in existing literature on the causes of civil war. These logics can be summarised
1 The Colombian conflict has at times surpassed the arbitrary threshold of 1,000 casualties in one year to be counted as a civil war. In this thesis, the terms civil war and civil conflict will be used interchangeably. 7 as greed, grievance, and opportunities (Cederman & Vogt 2017). The explanatory logic focusing on greed argues that civil wars start because it allows individuals to maximise their utility, mainly in a materialist sense. It stands in contrast to the grievance-based hypothesis which puts more emphasis on political and socioeconomic injustice as the main causes for conflict. A third set of explanations minimises the importance of motives, and instead argues that opportunities for actors to engage in violent mobilization best explain the outbreak of civil conflict. These explanatory patterns are far from mutually exclusive. In practice, the vast majority of conflicts contain a mix of these three sets of explanations and many more (Cederman & Vogt 2017).
Collier and Hoeffler (2004), who demonstrate a greed-based logic, found that the duration of conflicts increases together with commodity prices in countries that are economically dependent on exports. This supports the theory that conflicts should be viewed as a lucrative business for rebel organizations and that conflicts can be fuelled by opportunities for rebels to secure financial resources. Similarly, Fearon (2004) highlights the influence of illegally traded goods such as coca on the duration of conflicts. Such business opportunities allow armed groups to sustain themselves financially and to expand their operations.
Some authors challenge the greed-grievance dichotomy in the analysis of civil war (Vinci 2006; Arnson & Zartman 2005). Vinci (2006) notes that “there has been a call to take into account a more holistic approach, including addressing more traditional features of conflict analysis such as the role of politics and strategic necessity” (p. 25). In his view, wars are not just about greed and grievance, but also about power and survival. He uses a group-level analysis and applies the perspective of the armed group. With this perspective, he assumes that it is “by understanding how groups are motivated that we can understand how they will act and thereby describe and explain their relations” (Vinci 2006, p. 28). He maintains that armed groups are, next to greed and grievance, motivated by the pursuit of power and the maintenance of security.
2.2 Negotiation theory Armed groups may have multiple motivations to engage in and continue a conflict. Similarly, there are multiple factors that affect their decision to engage in a peace process and collectively demobilize. For collective demobilization to occur, a set of conditions must exist that all parties in the negotiation process are willing to accept. There must exist a bargaining range, or a Zone Of Possible Agreement (ZOPA). The ZOPA exists of all possible agreements that would generate more benefit for both sides than the alternatives they have (Spangler 2003).
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Furthermore, the actors involved in the negotiation process must believe that it is possible to obtain a better outcome than the status quo through negotiation (Zartman & Faure 2005). Zartman and Faure assume here that parties entering into a negotiation process are genuinely committed to reach a peace agreement and are not just using negotiations as a military strategy. Sometimes, however, “the decision to negotiate can be a way for the rebel group or the government to win time or legitimacy, without any intention to peacefully settle the conflict” (Walch 2016, p. 76). Thus, peace negotiations only indicate a legitimate willingness to reach peace when the parties can show a credible commitment to the peace process (Zartman & Faure 2005). Such signs of commitment can include continuation with negotiations despite attempts to spoil the process, or costly concessions (Lustenberger 2012).
Ripeness
A conflict between two parties is considered ‘ripe’ for resolution, when both parties perceive the current situation as undesirable. More specifically, they need to be unable to unilaterally escalate the conflict at an acceptable cost. If this is the case, the two parties find themselves in a mutually hurting stalemate (MHS). Usually, the MHS is induced by an impending, past, or recently avoided catastrophe (Zartman 2000). The stalemate can be visualized as either a plateau, where there exists a situation in which both parties are constantly incurring more costs than benefits, or a precipice, when the situation predictably and suddenly deteriorates (Zartman 2000).
Another necessary condition for a conflict to be ripe for resolution is the mutual recognition by both parties that the situation can be improved through negotiation. “Parties do not have to be able to identify a specific solution, only a sense that a negotiated solution is possible for the searching and that the other part shares that sense and willingness too” (Zartman 2000, p. 228). Thus, for a conflict to be ripe for resolution the parties need to perceive the current situation as a MHS and they need to perceive negotiation as a way out of the current situation.
2.3 Mechanisms affecting the peace process Ripeness is a useful concept to explain the timing of negotiations, but it is not a factor in itself. Rather, it is a state that the conflict is in, and it needs to be complemented by factors that explain how the ripeness comes about. Lustenberger (2012) aims to find out what factors induce armed groups to start negotiations. His theory suggests that the decision of an armed group to enter into negotiations can be explained by push and pull factors. Push factors are those factors that
9 make a continuation of the conflict costlier (MHS), whereas pull factors make the prospect of negotiations more appealing (way out).
The literature identifies many factors that affect the peace process. As it is beyond the scope of this research to examine every possible factor, those that are most important for peace agreement negotiations with armed groups in the context of civil conflict have been selected. These factors are all expected to influence both the costs of continuation of the conflict and the prospects of negotiations. The relevant concepts in the literature that are connected to these factors are spoilers, ideology, commitment problems, the security dilemma, and leadership. In the following section these concepts will be explained and discussed.
Spoilers
As put forward by Stedman, a significant barrier for peace in the context of internal conflict is the presence of spoilers. Spoilers are defined by Stedman as “leaders and parties who believe the emerging peace threatens their power, world view, and interests and who use violence to undermine attempts to achieve it” (Stedman 1997, p. 178). The existence of spoilers is the result of an almost inescapable characteristic of conflict: not everyone wants peace, not everyone wants it in the same way, and not everyone wants it at the same time. Those who are not happy with the peace at hand have an incentive to prevent it from being reached. Sometimes, those that are negotiating the peace are the spoilers of their own peace agreement (Stedman 1997).
Stedman’s typology of spoilers identifies three types: total, limited, and greedy. These types determine the behaviour of a spoiler and determine which spoiler management technique should be applied. A total spoiler can only be satisfied by achieving total power. Such spoilers cannot be incorporated into a peace process and should therefore be dealt with militarily. A limited spoiler is similar to the total spoiler in the sense that their demands are not subject to change, but different in the sense that it does not seek total power. For the Colombian peace process the most relevant category is the third: the greedy spoiler. This type of spoiler deals with the peace process in an opportunistic way. Its demands depend on the capabilities they have and the opportunities that are present within the context of peace negotiations.
Following Greenhill & Major (2007), this thesis will use a slightly altered version of the typology proposed by Stedman. They argue that structural factors remain more important than individual preferences of spoilers. “That is, the type of spoiler does not determine the kinds of outcomes that are possible; instead, the kinds of outcomes that are possible determine the type
10 of spoiler that may emerge at any given time” (Greenhill & Major, p. 8). According to this idea, all potential spoilers are essentially of the greedy type, even though they may attempt to come across as one of the other types as a negotiation strategy. Then, the most important factor determining spoiling is the opportunity structure.
Actors are presented with a number of available options that induce them to change their goals, without affecting their preferences. An actor that has the power to unilaterally affect the peace process in their favour will likely do so, whereas a less powerful actor will continue to pursue peace. As such, the concept of a spoiler remains crucial for the analysis of a peace process, but the opportunity structure is what eventually determines actions, through the influence it has on the goals of actors.
Ideology
In the typology described above, armed group behaviour is expected to directly follow from the existing opportunity structure. However, different levels exist within the greedy spoiler type, and these levels are related to the ideological commitments of an armed group. “ideology is best understood, we suggest, as a set of more or less systematic ideas that identify a constituency, the challenges the group confronts, the objectives to pursue on behalf of that group, and a (perhaps vague) program of action” (Sanín & Wood 2014, p. 214).
Sanín & Wood (2014) argue that ideology does not just have instrumental value. Sometimes, armed groups “act on normative commitments in ways not reducible to instrumental reasoning, and some groups constrain their strategic choices for ideological reasons, often normative concerns prescribed by their ideology” (p. 213). Consequently, those armed groups that have strong ideological commitments are more closely associated with the limited spoiler type. The behaviour of these armed groups does not directly follow from the existing opportunity structure, but is also influenced by their ideological convictions.
Commitment problems
Related to spoilers and equally troublesome for any peace process are commitment problems. Turning in your weapons and disintegrating command structures will drastically affect the bargaining power of an armed group and will therefore limit the incentive for the state to keep its promises. Therefore, achieving peace can be difficult even in an environment where all actors are in favour of collective demobilization (Humphreys & Weinstein 2007).
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The demobilizing armed group can also renege on its commitments after concessions have been made by the government. Alternatively, an armed group may simply not be able to keep its promises. If, for example, an armed group decides to demobilize in exchange for political reforms, it is possible that individual combatants refuse to demobilize together with their leaders. Then, the government has made concessions without achieving the desired result (Sambanis 2002).
Such commitment problems can be overcome by an external actor who is able to guarantee the implementation of a peace agreement (Walter 1997). Walter (1997) found that armed actors in a civil war almost always fight until the end unless an outside power steps in to guarantee the peace agreement. However, examples do exist where commitment problems were overcome, in which the government managed to sign peace agreements with multiple armed groups at multiple moments without an external actor being present to guarantee the implementation of the agreements (Nilsson 2008; Nasi 2009).
A potential explanation for this finding is related to the concept of partial peace. Nilsson (2008) finds that the exclusion of one rebel group from a peace agreement does not affect its durability. The presence of armed actors excluded from a peace agreement does not have to aggravate commitment problems. It can alleviate commitment problems because it provides the state with an extra incentive to come across as a trustworthy negotiating partner. The security dilemma may become more severe, but armed groups have usually already calculated these risks into their decision to sign the peace agreement (Nilsson 2008).
Security dilemma
Closely linked to commitment problems is the security dilemma. This dilemma finds its origins in realist international relations theory. It is usually applied to explain the emergence of conflict (Norman 2017). “Regime collapse results in domestic anarchy comparable to the international system, and groups in “stateless” societies will build military capacity in response to uncertainty about others’ intentions, signaling aggression and a spiraling into armed conflict” (Norman 2017, p. 6).
In this thesis, the concept of the security dilemma will be used to analyse why armed groups refuse to collectively demobilize. Collectively demobilizing in an institutionally weak environment is a risky endeavour for an armed group. “Even if all parties favor the dissolution of their military factions, in an institutionally weak environment, mutual mistrust may result in
12 an unwillingness to take the first step toward demobilization” (Humphreys & Weinstein 2007, p. 535).
In a civil conflict, the state has difficulty to guarantee the security of the people, and people might feel safer under the protection of an armed group, or as a member of an armed group. If that group then decides to demobilize, they lose this protection and again become dependent on the state to guarantee their security. If an armed group is uncertain about the capability or the willingness of the state to provide their security after demobilization, they may refrain from demobilizing (Norman 2017).
Leadership
Leadership has the potential to affect both commitment problems and the security dilemma, as well as the prospects for reintegration. Lieberfeld (2016) proposes a slight variation of the ripeness theory as articulated by Zartman, arguing that leadership behaviour can often not be explained while employing the rationality assumption that Zartman utilizes. Instead, leaders are irrationally constrained by ideology, previous statements, and electoral considerations. A newly installed leader, especially from the government side, can be a more effective negotiator because of his or her ability to dissociate themselves from the strategies of previous administrations, and to apply a holistic perspective (Lieberfeld 2016).
“Once official negotiations begin, the government’s own political prospects become dependent on a successful outcome, which raises the government side’s commitment to negotiation” (Lieberfeld, p. 19). With this addition, Lieberfeld adds internal power dynamics of the negotiating parties into the concept of ripeness. For an agreement to be feasible, the parties must not only find themselves in a MHS with negotiation as a ‘way out’, they must also believe that a resolution of the conflict is in their own political interest. This holds for the government actors as well as for non-state actors.
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Chapter 3. Hypotheses It is beyond doubt that determining which factors regulate the likelihood of collective demobilization of an armed group is an incredibly difficult task. In the context of any civil war there are many factors that influence the decision-making process of the negotiating parties and the Colombian conflict is no different. However, gaining a better understanding of the factors that influence the probability of collective demobilization is a crucial component of research on peacebuilding. For this reason, following Nasi (2009), I will argue for a number of factors and causal mechanisms to be especially relevant in the decision-making process of armed groups. “Perhaps none of these factors individually explains a peace process’s success or failure, but understanding their relative impacts may help us to better assess what factors are likely to advance or hinder movements toward peace in the future” (Nasi 2009, p. 40).
H1: As the goals of an armed group become more limited, an armed group is more likely to collectively demobilize.
The demands of an armed group in a negotiation process are likely to be closely associated with their goals. All other things being equal, the government is more likely to accept a set of modest demands compared to more ambitious ones. The concept of the ZOPA accurately illustrates this relationship. The government wants to minimise its concessions. If the goals of the armed group become more limited, they will accept smaller concessions from the government, resulting in an expansion of the ZOPA. Thus, a peace agreement is more likely reached when the goals of an armed group are limited.
H2: As commitment problems are effectively mitigated, an armed group is more likely to collectively demobilize.
Commitment problems are especially significant in the context of a civil war. In the context of Colombia perhaps even more due to the limited interference of outside actors in the peace process. If the government can somehow credibly commit to the concessions from the peace agreement, an armed group is more likely to sign it. Likewise, the government will be more likely to sign a peace agreement if the ability of an armed group to break its promises is limited.
H3: As the security dilemma becomes increasingly limited, an armed group is more likely to collectively demobilize.
The security dilemma is especially relevant in a multi-party civil war context in which partial peace is established. The ongoing conflict and the remaining active armed groups can provide
14 extensive security risks for demobilizing combatants. If these security concerns are effectively minimised, an armed group will be more likely to sign a peace agreement.
H4: As conflict intensity increases, an armed group is more likely to collectively demobilize.
Increasing conflict intensity can contribute to the parties’ perception of a MHS, and thereby has the potential to make a conflict ‘ripe’ for resolution. As outlined before, the conflict is ripe for resolution when both parties perceive a MHS and a ‘way out’ of that stalemate through negotiation. If the conflict is going on at a high intensity, both parties are incurring high costs, and they are more likely to perceive the situation as a MHS. Therefore, high conflict intensity will increase the chances of collective demobilization.
H5: As the prospects for reintegration improve, an armed group is more likely to collectively demobilize. The expected utility for the leadership of an armed group improves when they know that they and perhaps their constituents will be able to build up a new life after collective demobilization. Especially relevant here are the limited prospect for persecution and the attitude of the leadership. If amnesty for war crimes is promised as a part of the peace agreement, the leadership of an armed group will be more likely to sign it. Likewise, if the leadership of an armed group perceives the current leader as having a relative favourable attitude towards the armed group, their expected prospects for reintegration will increase.
Outcomes of peace processes with armed groups are not exclusively connected to the variables that have been proposed in this section. Rather, these variables are those that I think are the most strongly supported by the existing theory and research. Throughout the analysis, I will be aware of alternative causal mechanisms that have not been included in the present theoretical model. I will conclude my analysis with a short discussion of these alternative explanations.
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Chapter 4. Research strategy
4.1 General Strategy The proposed theory will be tested on the peace process between the government of Colombia and various armed groups from 1982 until 2016. The Colombian conflict has been chosen because it allows for a structural comparison between different peace processes within the same country context. This will enable me to distinguish more confidently what factors account for the observed variation. I will start by discussing the background of the conflict, in order to gain a better understanding of the relevant dynamics. Then, I will engage in a structural comparison of the peace processes of different armed groups to determine what factors ultimately lead to their decision to collectively demobilize.
Contrary to other literature on the Colombian peace process (Nasi 2009, Chernick 1999), I will use the armed group as my unit of analysis, rather than the government administrations. The downside of this is that I will have to repeat some of the relevant circumstances in my analyses, but it will allow me to gain a more in-depth understanding of the decision-making process of each armed group. Since my theory is mainly written from the perspective of the armed groups, this will add to the strength of my analysis.
I have chosen for a qualitative case study approach because it will allow me to delve deeper into the motives for every armed group to remain active or to demobilize (Cooper 2014). The Colombian conflict is tremendously complex, and only a focused qualitative study can take into account all the complexities that influenced the course of the conflict. “Case studies provide an opportunity to glean nuance that statistical approaches often overlook” (DeRouen et al. 2010, p. 336).
In this thesis I will apply George and Bennett’s method of structured, focused comparison. With this method, “the researcher writes general questions that reflect the research objective and that these questions are asked of each case under study to guide and standardize data collection, thereby making systematic comparison and cumulation of the findings of the cases possible. The method is ‘focused’ in that it deals only with certain aspects of the historical cases examined. The goal of such a study is to explain an observable variation in the dependent variable” (George & Bennett 2005 in Dukalskis 2015, p. 850).
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Comparing the peace processes of different armed groups within one state allows me to more accurately distinguish which variables caused the collective demobilization to occur. At a specific moment, contextual factors such as the geography and the capabilities and attitude of the state are held constant for every armed group. With these variables held constant, they cannot account for the observed variation in the dependent variable (Dukalskis 2015).
In the formulation of my hypotheses, I have purposely used the term ‘armed group’, without specifying whether this armed group is a pro-state militia or a rebel group fighting against the state. Applying the same model to both of these types of armed groups will allow me to find out to what extent the causal mechanisms associated with collective demobilization are different from one another. A more focused comparison between the decision-making processes of these types of armed groups is beyond the scope of this study, but in this way this study will add to the literature on the differences between rebel groups and pro-state militias.
The last concept worth discussing here is path dependence. I purposely use the word concept here since path dependence can hardly be treated as a factor or a variable. “Most generally, path dependence means that where we go next depends not only on where we are now, but also upon where we have been” (Liebowitz & Margolis 2000 p. 981). In this thesis, path dependence will be considered when analysing the decision-making processes of armed groups and the Colombian government.
4.2 Operationalization Many of the relevant variables in this study cannot be objectively determined, since they are by definition subjective. The security dilemma, for example, depends on the perception of the conflict parties and is therefore difficult to establish empirically ex ante. Similarly, even if a correlation can be objectively determined in the way that the causal mechanism proposes, it is impossible to be certain that the variation in the dependent variable was indeed caused by the proposed variables.
These problems are minimised in two ways. First, the proposed causal mechanism is backed up by a logical argument and by existing theory, as described in the hypothesis section. This increases the likelihood that observed correlation indeed implies a certain degree of causation. Second, data sources will be utilized to test the strength of the causal mechanism. These sources most importantly consist of scholarly articles on the Colombian peace process, and to a lesser extent also consist of available public discourse on the peace process by the Colombian 17 government, members of armed groups, and non-academic observers. This second group of source material will be examined more critically, as these actors may have incentives to mispresent information.
Most important for this study and perhaps easiest to measure is the dependent variable: collective demobilization. It is important to distinguish the concepts of individual, partial, and collective demobilization. The first refers to individual decisions to leave an armed group in order to become a civilian. Even when a large group of individuals decides to demobilize together, it still counts as individual demobilization. Collective demobilization, however, refers to the decision of the highest leadership of an armed group to demobilize. Even when a large number of individuals or a whole regiment does not follow the decision of their leaders to stop fighting, it still counts as collective demobilization in this thesis. It is also possible that only one part of an armed group decides to demobilize. For example, if the leadership of one regiment decides to demobilize against the will of its superiors, then that regiment still has demobilized, but the armed group as a whole has not. In this thesis, this will be described as partial demobilization.
In the Colombian conflict, instances of collective demobilization always came together with a peace agreement and vice versa. Because of this, the distinction between the two concepts within this context is subtle and of limited analytical importance and they will be used interchangeably.
This thesis, according to the definition described before, analyses 6 moments of collective demobilization in the Colombian peace process between 1982 and 20162. In the analysis, individual demobilizations, partial demobilizations, periods without negotiations, ceasefires, and failed negotiations will also be considered to find out which factors account for the observed variation in the dependent variable. Therefore, the dependent variable could also be described as ‘events in the peace process’.
The goals of an armed group will be estimated by looking at discourse of the members of armed groups, the content of peace agreements, and a close inspection of the negotiation process. Both across-time and across-unit variation in the goals of armed groups will be used for the analysis. Two concepts closely related to the goals of the armed group will also be used while testing the first hypothesis.
2 In chronological order: M-19, EPL, MAQL, PRT, AUC, FARC. The peace process of ELN has not resulted in collective demobilization yet but will also be analysed. 18
Firstly, the ideological strength of an armed group. A distinction is often made between greed- and grievance-based armed groups, where the latter represents those groups strongly motivated by ideology (Cederman & Vogt 2017), and who are likely to bring more ambitious demands to the negotiating table (Chinchilla 2010). Secondly, the capabilities and opportunities of an armed group will be considered. Rationally acting armed groups will alter their goals depending on the bargaining position that they have in the negotiation process. As such, the capabilities and opportunities serve as indicators for the goals of an armed group.
Both commitment problems and the security dilemma will be estimated by looking at existing analyses from scholars on the Colombian conflict. For both variables, the capacity of the state to guarantee the security of combatants after demobilization will be considered. For commitment problems, the content of promised concessions in peace negotiations, incentives to renege on made promises, internal cohesion, and the presence of spoilers will be considered when estimating the extent to which commitment problems affected the peace process. For the security dilemma, the presence or absence of hostile armed groups and their ability to target demobilizing combatants will receive special attention.
Conflict intensity will be estimated by looking at the total damage dealt and felt by a specific armed group. Conflict intensity in itself does not affect the chances of collective demobilization. It only does so when it contributes to the perception of a MHS and thereby ripens the conflict. Therefore, the analysis section will discuss whether conflict intensity caused the perception of a MHS among the warring parties.
For the armed groups, the total number of casualties suffered over a certain period will be analysed. For the government, I will investigate the number of casualties that the armed group has caused over a certain period. This distinction is necessary because the casualties inflicted by other actors in the conflict have a limited impact on the government’s perception of a MHS. Civilian casualties, however, are important in this respect. Violence against civilians can be applied as a strategy aimed at pressuring the government into concessions (Hultman 2007). For the armed group, by contrast, it does not matter who inflicts the casualties on them for their perception of a MHS. If a rebel group is being targeted by a pro-state militia, for example, they may be equally induced to reach a peace agreement. The number of casualties will be estimated by using the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) (Allansson et al. 2017).
Since the data from the UCDP only starts in 1989, and to decrease measurement error in estimating the true conflict intensity, two other datasets will also be analysed; the dataset on
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Selective Assasinations (1981-2012) and on Massacres (1980-2012). The fact that these datasets highlight a different aspect of violence perpetrated by the armed groups will allow me to get a better idea of their total repertoire of violence (Sanin & Wood 2017). Both these datasets are compiled by the Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica (CNMH) and are derived from multiple sources such as news reports and from organizations such as Noche y Niebla (CNMH 2012). More information on how the data has been gathered and what characteristics are needed for an event to be included in the dataset can be found on their website3. Unlike the UCDP dataset, these datasets do not include any information on the number of casualties that an armed group has suffered. However, the data can be used to estimate how much an armed group contributed to the perception of a Hurting Stalemate for the government in a certain period. For a significant portion of the data, it is unknown who was the perpetrator of the violence. Thus, if one armed group is especially good at concealing their violent acts, the data could be biased.
Prospects for reintegration will be estimated by looking at the conditions that are offered to demobilizing combatants by the government. Since the expected prospects for reintegration also influence the peace process, the attitude of current leadership and the amount of individually demobilizing combatants will be used as indicators to estimate changes in this variable over time. A Colombian president with a favourable attitude towards an armed group could increase their expected prospects for reintegration. A more direct measure of this variable is the presence or absence of amnesty and anti-extradition laws. These will also be used as indicators to estimate this variable.
3 http://www.centrodememoriahistorica.gov.co/ 20
Chapter 5. Background
In order to gain a better understanding of the behaviour of armed groups, it is crucial to know the context in which these groups emerged. The Colombian conflict is incredibly complex, and it is closely connected to historical events that took place before the start of the current conflict. In the following section, the root causes of the conflict will be given a closer look, which will facilitate understanding of why the conflict has developed in the way it has.
5.1 Origins The origins of the modern armed conflict in Colombia are commonly traced back to a violent period between 1948 and 1958, known as ‘La Violencia’. La Violencia can roughly be described as a partisan civil war between the two dominant political parties in Colombia; the conservative and the liberal party (Chernick 1999). The conflict ended when these two parties came up with a power sharing agreement, hoping to bring the partisan violence to an end for once and for all. This agreement marked the beginning of the National Front, which stipulated that each of the parties would alternate every four years in delivering the president. By that time, in 1958, La Violencia had caused the death of around 200,000 people (Nasi 2006).
The agreement between the two biggest parties was moderately effective at curbing violence between these two, but it excluded other parties to join the political system. There was no space for a third political force, that represented the interests of the workers, the farmers, or the least favoured social class in general. This limited possibility of political participation is viewed by some as one of the main reasons that so much violent opposition emerged against the government (Garibay 2003; Steele 2017). If those who wanted something different for Colombia than the National Front, they could not make any changes through a democratic process. As a result, they resorted to violence to get what they want.
Other than creating new problems, the agreement also failed to solve some of the underlying problems that served as the root causes for violence in Colombia. One of these root causes is summarised as the agrarian problem (el problema agrario). The Colombian agricultural sector is characterised by a large concentration of rural property; a large portion of the best lands are owned by a small percentage of large landowners, leaving the rest of the Colombian farmers dissatisfied (Posada 1987).
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One of the political streams that was excluded from Colombian politics was communism. With the global rise of communism in the 1950s, the National Front’s worries about communist opposition also began to rise. It was considered by the National Front that certain rural communities served as breeding grounds for communism, and they attacked these communities to prevent the opposition from getting too strong. The agrarian problem, the limited democracy, and these attacks, ultimately led to the creation of Colombia’s first and most famous insurgent organization: the FARC.
Inspired by the Cuban revolution and the global rise of communist movements, the FARC was subsequently joined by the ELN and the EPL. These three armed groups were all leftist guerrilla organizations who fought for more equality in Colombia. The guerrillas were distinguished from one another because of ideological differences, military strategies, and geographical positions.
5.2 Development During the first ten years of the existence of these guerrilla groups, their influence and power were limited (Messaoudi Rodriguez 2011). However, the state did not manage to completely eliminate the insurgencies. The power of these armed groups continued to increase during the 1970s, which was also the moment when the Movimiento 19 de Abril (M-19) came into existence.
As a response to the rising power of the guerrilla organizations and the state’s lacking ability of the state to fight them, opponents of the guerrillas formed paramilitary organizations. Some of these pro-state militias emerged as private armies owned by drug-lords and large landowners to defend them against the guerrillas, whereas others were created by civilians themselves to curb the increasing power of leftist organization. The paramilitaries arguably represent the most brutal force in the Colombian conflict (CNMH 2013).
Closely connected to the rise of the paramilitaries but also to the conflict in general was the Colombian drug trade. In 1975, 70% of the world’s marijuana supply was produced in Colombia. With the income generated from this business, drug cartels were able to become very powerful. This tendency only accelerated when Colombia became increasingly involved with the production of cocaine, a much more lucrative business. Colombian narcotraficantes bribed many government officials, thereby decreasing the legitimacy and capacity of the state.
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They also benefit from instability in the country, providing them with an incentive to fund both guerrilla and paramilitary organizations (Pardo 2000).
The drug trade not only aggravated the conflict because of the violence between drug cartels, but it also became an important source of funding for some of the armed groups. Especially when the government managed to defeat the largest drug cartels in the 1990s, the gap they left behind was filled by the armed groups. Paramilitary as well as guerrilla organizations became increasingly involved with the drug trade (Pardo 2000). Income from the drug trade allows insurgency groups to perpetually finance their operations, thereby making them significantly harder to defeat by the government. As such, “there will be no peace without dealing with the drug plantations” (Pardo 2000, p. 71).
The peace process with these armed groups formally started under the Betancur administration in 1982. Ultimately, this peace process resulted in a ceasefire agreement with the FARC and the M-19, and the creation of a political party by the FARC: the Unión Patriótica (UP). The ceasefire collapsed soon after, and many members of the UP were assassinated by the paramilitaries (Theidon 2007). Supporters of the UP were also forced to displace on a large scale, causing public support for the UP to decrease rapidly (Steele 2011).
During Barco’s (1986-1990) and Gaviria’s (1990-1994) administration the peace process achieved its first big successes, with the collective demobilization of the M-19, EPL, and several other armed groups. As a part of this process, Colombia also obtained a reformed constitution, which finally marked the end of the National Front. The conflict was far from over, however, since the two largest guerrilla organizations (ELN and FARC) and the paramilitaries remained active (Chernick 1999).
These developments were to some extent influenced by the end of the Cold War and the existing momentum against communism in the international arena. In 1989, all communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe were overthrown, and other civil conflicts such as those in Nicaragua (1990) and El Salvador (1991) were also lost by the communists (Hironaka 2009). The result of this was that many of the leftist organizations in Colombia felt that they would also be on the losing side. Instead of remaining their faith in a complete military victory, they would rather choose a political solution to the conflict (Rampf & Navarro 2014).
In the years after, Ernesto Samper (1994-1998) and Andres Pastrana (1998-2002) served as the presidents of Colombia. While Samper’s ability to negotiate peace agreements was limited because of alleged links with drug cartels, he did manage to establish a demobilization process
23 for combatants. “Law 418 of 1997 provided amnesty to members of politically motivated groups who turned themselves in, as long as they were not guilty of crimes against humanity” (Steele 2017, p. 103). As a result of this law, many combatants decided to demobilize individually. When Pastrana came to power, he promised to change the strategy from individual to collective demobilization. He began talks with the FARC and gave them a demilitarized zone as a sign of good will. The FARC used this zone to consolidate and expand its capacity (Steele 2017).
The peace process achieved another breakthrough under the Uribe administration (2002-2010). Uribe was elected with the promise to start a ruthless military campaign against the country’s guerrilla organizations and did so with success: “After more than a decade of sustained military pressure facilitated by more than $10 billion in US assistance through Plan Colombia4, however, both groups have been rooted out of their traditional strongholds and persuaded to negotiate settlements with the government” (Angelo 2017, p. 135).
While pursuing a military strategy with respect to the guerrilla organizations, Uribe negotiated with the paramilitaries. The paramilitaries at this point were loosely organized as the AUC5. Uribe, who has been accused of collaborating with the paramilitaries, negotiated a peace deal with them, causing them to collectively demobilize between 2003 and 2006 (Valencia Agudelo 2007).
The last chapter of the Colombian peace process starts with the election of Juan Manuel Santos in 2010. In 2012, negotiations with the FARC started, which ultimately led to the signing of a peace agreement in 2016. Currently, in 2018, negotiations with the remaining armed groups (ELN, EPL) persist and remobilized paramilitary groups and some dissidents of the FARC continue to plague the country. Big steps have been made towards total peace, but for now the conflict in Colombia is on-going (Keijzer 2017).
In the two tables below, one can find an overview of the Colombian presidents that served between 1982 and 2016, and the years in which the different armed groups in Colombia have been active.
4 Plan Colombia was an aid programme funded by the US aimed at combating guerrilla organizations and drug cartels. 5 Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia. 24
Table 1
President Tenure Party Julio César Turbay 1978-1982 Liberal Belisario Betancur 1982-1986 Conservative Virgilio Barco 1986-1990 Liberal César Gaviria 1990-1994 Liberal Ernesto Samper 1994-1998 Liberal Andrés Pastrana 1998-2002 Conservative Álvaro Uribe 2002-2010 Colombia First Juan Manuel Santos 2010-2018 National Unity
Table 2
Armed group Years in which active FARC 1964-2016 ELN 1964-present EPL 1967-19916 M-19 1970-1990 AUC 1997-2006 MAQL 1984-1991 PRT 1982-1991
6 The group only partially demobilized in 1991, a faction of the group remains active to this day. 25
Chapter 6. Analysis
In the following section I will analyse the impact of five factors on peace processes with armed groups in Colombia between 1982 and 2016. A summary of my findings can be found in the table below. A brief analysis of the table already reveals that some of the variables are not related to events in the peace process as hypothesised. This will be further investigated in this chapter.
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Table 37
Limited Limited Armed Limited commitment security High Conflict High prospects group Year Result goals problems dilemma Intensity for reintegration M-19 1984 Ceasefire X X
EPL 1984 Ceasefire X
FARC 1984 Ceasefire X X
Peace M-19 1990 agreement X X X Peace MAQL 1991 agreement X X X X Peace agreement EPL 1991 (Partial) X X X X Peace PRT 1991 agreement X X X Failed FARC 1991 Negotiations X X X
Failed ELN 1991 Negotiations X X
Failed FARC 1998 Negotiations X X
Failed ELN 1998 Negotiations X
Peace AUC 2003 Agreement X X X X X Peace FARC 2016 Agreement X X X
Failed ELN 2016 Negotiations X X X
7 All inputs in bold represent instances of collective demobilization. For the events in the peace process where an agreement was eventually signed, I have chosen the year in which the agreement was signed. For the failed negotiations, I have chosen the year in which those negotiations started. 27
6.1 M-19
Background
Origins
The M-19 (Movimiento 19 de Abril) was the first guerrilla organization that mainly operated from urban areas. Its name is derived from the presidential elections of the 19th of April 1970, which were supposedly fraudulent. The movement is part of the so-called second wave of armed groups that emerged in Colombia in the 1970s, and they initially emerged as a splinter faction of the FARC. Their ideology was a mixture of nationalism and revolutionary socialism, and their main aim was to open up democracy in Colombia (Leonard et al. 2013).
Development
M-19 was very successful at generating publicity for their cause. When they managed to steal around five thousand weapons from the main arsenal of the Colombian armed forces, a wave of repression started, which resulted in the imprisonment of many M-19 members. In an attempt to free their members from prison, they decided to capture the embassy of the Dominican Republic in 1980. With this action, they took several important people hostage, including the US ambassador (Leonard et al. 2013).
By the beginning of the 1980s, popular support for the armed groups and their increasing power forced the Colombian government to engage in negotiations with them. Eventually, these negotiations resulted in ceasefire agreements with M-19, EPL, and FARC. These agreements, signed in 1984, proved not to be enduring. Violence between the parties continued, and mutual distrust increased. In 1985, the agreement officially collapsed when the M-19 attacked the Palace of Justice. In this attack, twelve Supreme Court judges were killed, and M-19 suffered many casualties as well. Perhaps emboldened by the successful attack on the Dominican Republic embassy a few years prior, they had overestimated their capabilities and went too far (Messaoudi Rodriguez 2011).
Peace agreement
After the attack, public support for the movement declined rapidly, and repression from the government increased. By the end of Barco administration (1986 – 1990), they agreed to lay
28 down their weapons and convert into a political party. Two years later, “the Colombian Congress approved a referendum to set up a constituent assembly to reform the constitution as to allow for greater political participation by all forces, fulfilling one of the main demands of the guerrillas” (Leonard et al. 2013, p. 573).
This constituent assembly was a major accomplishment for the M-19 and arguably the most important event in Colombian politics of the 20th century (Durán et al. 2008). This assembly allowed the widening of democratic spaces, and the possibility to participate in it induced other armed groups to demobilize as well. As part of the peace agreement, M-19 was also allowed to legally start a political party (Durán et al. 2008).
This political party, the Alianza Democrática M19 (AD-M19), managed to get a significant vote share in the constitutional assembly (27,3%). This share allowed Antonio Navarro Wolff, a leader of the M-19, to participate in the Consitutional Assembly of Colombia as one of three co-presidents. These initial results gave new hope to those who had already given up on transitions from illegal armed groups to legitimate political parties. However, the successes proved not to last. Even though some of the members have successfully pursued a political career, the AD-M19 as a party on its own formally ceased to exist in 2000 (Durán et al. 2008).
Analysis
RQ: Why did M-19 collectively demobilize in 1990?
Goals of the armed group
M-19 can be characterized as an armed actor that is pragmatic and flexible in the way they define their goals and aim to achieve their goals. At first, they started as an urban guerrilla movement. When state repression increased, they partially moved their operations to the countryside. At first, they wanted to materialize their revolution by overthrowing the government. After the capture of the Dominican Republic embassy they proposed a peace deal. “This was an ideological break, because Latin American revolutionaries were born under the influence of phenomena such as the Cuban Revolution, which had the slogan of ‘win or die’, not conciliate or negotiate. Therefore, daring to propose a negotiated solution to the conflict was considered an absolute heresy” (Patiño 2001 in Durán et al. 2008, p. 21).
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This proposed peace deal enjoyed broad popular support, as 77% of the population was in favour (Chernick 1988). The presidential elections at the time were dominated by the dilemmas surrounding peace and guerrilla violence. The president who won, Belisario Betancur, adopted parts of the proposed M-19 agreement, and thereby added a significant political dimension to the M-19’s endeavours. “More than any other actor, the M-19 had influenced the direction of the political debate in the final years of the Turbay Administration and during the first months of the presidency of Belisario Betancur. Its call for a ceasefire and national dialogue became the basic reference point for the other political sectors. During the congressional debate, they were directly consulted” (Chernick 1988, p. 65).
These developments made the M-19 realize that they had significant bargaining power over the Colombian government. During the early stages of the Colombian peace process, the M-19 was considered as the most important actor. “Something occurred which had never before been achieved in Colombia: the constitutionally-mandated head of state of Colombia publicly entered into talks with the leadership of an armed guerrilla movement. That means that we are a belligerent force in this country” (Interview with Alvaro Fayad8 1985 in Chernick 1988, p. 511).
The dominant position of the M-19 also meant that they received a lot of repressive attention from the Armed Forces of Colombia. Ultimately, this caused the gradual decline of the capabilities and the popular support of the M-19, which culminated in the attack on the Palace of Justice. After this attack, many people withdrew their support for the armed group. As a result, their bargaining position had weakened.
Another development within the M-19 also supported the peace process. M-19 had initially emerged as a radical group seeking to install socialism through force. But as time passed, they became increasingly moderate and realized that democracy was the best path to achieve their objectives. They formally established this new strategy at the Seventh Conference in 1979 (Durán et al. 2008). The leader of M-19 in 1980, Jaime Bateman, proposed a negotiated solution to the situation with the siege of the Dominican Republic Embassy: “That was the first attempt at peace in Colombia: Bateman’s proposal for a negotiated solution through dialogue, truce, and amnesty” (Patiño 2001 in Durán et al. 2008, p. 16).
8 Alvaro Fayad was a leader of the M-19. 30
In this period, they did not eschew violence against the state’s armed forces, even though they eventually wanted to achieve their goals through democracy. The increasing numbers of civilian casualties together with the weakening of the military capacity of the armed group led the group to a further reconsideration of their strategy. They decided that peace was the best way to reconnect with the people, and to recover their influence on what they referred to as ‘the democratic project’ (Durán et al. 2008). In conclusion, the decreased capabilities of M-19 together with the moderation of their ideology paved the way towards the collective demobilization of M-19.
Commitment problems
One aspect that contributed to the failure of the ceasefire agreement in 1985 was the limited participation of the military. The proposed agendas lacked proposals to reform the military, and the Colombian armed forces had developed a significant degree of autonomy (Chernick 1988). Without the support of the military, it was hard to create an environment in which the safety of demobilized combatants could be guaranteed.
Internal cohesion was also lacking on the side of the M-19. Up until his death in 1983 the undisputed leader of M-19 was Jaime Bateman. After his death, however, M-19 struggled for a long time to find a worthy successor. The power struggle resulting from that caused fractures within the leadership of the organization. Negotiating with a fractured party is extra difficult, as it increases the probability that the peace process will be spoiled, which may be a factor explaining the failure of the ceasefire agreement (Walch 2014). In 1986, Carlos Pizarro became the new leader of the organization. He managed to “re-establish a common policy and a political project aimed at peace. Pizarro suspected that recovering M-19’s political prominence was directly dependent on a clear drive for peace, and he took that direction resolutely” (Durán et al. 2008, p. 17).
When the final peace agreement was signed, commitment problems still had not been fully solved. On the one hand, the M-19 could not guarantee that all of their combatants would demobilize with them. On the other hand, the Colombian government could not guarantee that they would stick to the commitments they had agreed on in the peace agreement. However, there did exist a number of factors that mitigated the commitment problems experienced by the two parties.
Important for the government was that many other armed groups were still active at the time of the agreement with M-19. As such, they had a clear incentive to prove themselves as a
31 trustworthy negotiating partner. They even hoped to attract other armed groups into signing a peace deal as well, with the promise of participation in the constituent assembly. This promise of a constituent assembly would also have been a costly promise to break politically.
For the M-19 it played a role that their military capabilities had already declined significantly. Because of this, there was already less bargaining power they were giving up by signing the peace agreement. Moreover, the fact that they had already been promoting a democratic solution to the conflict since 1979 provided a clear sign to the Colombian government that they were actually committed to this solution.
Security dilemma
The failure of the ceasefire agreement in 1985 can partially be attributed to the lacking ability of the state to guarantee the security of M-19’s leaders. Prior to the establishment of the ceasefire agreement, one of the most prominent leaders of the M-19 was killed. About a year later, Antonio Navarro Wolf, who was leading the negotiation process with the Colombian government at the time, survived a grenade attack. Shortly after this attempt, the leadership of M-19 declared that the government had broken the ceasefire agreement and retreated into the mountains (Chernick 1988).
By the time the M-19 signed the final peace agreement, the security dilemma was far from fully solved. The failed experience of the FARC’s transition into political life was still freshly engraved in the memories of the demobilizing combatants. Between 1989 and 2005, 17.8% of the demobilised combatants of the M-19 were killed, a total of 160 combatants (Villarraga 2006, p. 80-81). Even though less than the majority of these incidents were politically motivated, it still shows that the security environment can hardly be described as safe for the demobilizing combatants. This shows that despite the existence of such an environment, an armed group may still decide to collectively demobilize.
Conflict intensity
The Mutually Hurting Stalemate only began to emerge after the siege of the Palace of Justice in 1985, and was the result of a number of developments that occurred around the same time. First, the M-19 had suffered significant military losses in this attack and in the subsequent period as a result of state repression. Second, M-19 was perceived by the government as the most dangerous of the armed groups because of their ability to convert their political vision and their actions into a way of pressuring the government (Messaoudi Rodriguez 2011). Third,
32 the government was also fighting an intense war against narco-traffickers around that time. In the 1980s, cocaine production in Colombia had rapidly increased, and the power and influence of drug cartels increased with it. “Consequently, the government now faced two wars at the same time: one against the armed insurgency and another against drug trafficking. The need to resolve at least one of them made the idea of a peace negotiation more attractive to demobilise armed groups, even at the cost of political reforms” (Durán et al. 2008, p. 18).
Exact numbers on the casualties suffered and inflicted by the M-19 are unknown, but from the attack on the Palace of Justice in 1985 we can conclude that M-19 was adding to the perception of high conflict intensity in this period. At the time of demobilization, the weakened position of the M-19 meant that their ability to inflict damage on the government was limited. In turn, this limited ability caused the government to prioritize other groups in their military endeavours. Therefore, the collective demobilization of the M-19 is probably better explained by other factors than conflict intensity.
Prospects for reintegration
In 1982, an unconditional amnesty was accepted by the Colombian Congress (Chernick 1988). The subsequent experience showed that amnesty was by no means sufficient to induce armed groups to lay down their weapons. The limited influence of amnesty laws was also caused by recent experiences in Colombia, indicating another commitment problem: “We were very conscious of the history of betrayed amnesties in Colombia, beginning with the assassination of Liberal guerrillas following the amnesty of 1953" (M-19 interview 1986 in Chernick 1988).
At the time of this unconditional amnesty, a large part of the M-19 leadership was imprisoned. Thus, the M-19 benefited greatly from the amnesty law. Yet, they were far from satisfied with it, and perceived it only as a first step toward broader negotiations. The sentiments of M-19 regarding this amnesty are adequately summarized by the following statement from one of its leaders:
“They tried to convert the amnesty into a trap for us. The guerrilla movement and the democratic movement had stated that the amnesty was the first step towards peace, but that no guerrilla organization was fighting to free some prisoners” (Interview with Alvaro Fayad 1985, p. 481-82 in Chernick 1988).
The first president who was willing to genuinely enter into peace negotiations with M-19 was Belisario Betancur, who was the Colombian president between 1982 and 1986. In comparison
33 to his predecessor he was willing to make more concessions towards the armed groups, as he was hoping to establish peace with them. This positive attitude ultimately resulted in a ceasefire agreement in 1984. The ceasefire proved not to be sustainable, and its failure hurt the relationship between the president and the M-19. The M-19 had lost trust in Betancur, and vice versa (Chernick 1988). After the attack on the Palace of Justice, Betancur referred to the M-19 as a terrorist organization (Leonard et al. 2013).
“In 1986, after the election of Virgilio Barco (1986- 1990), M-19 decided to open new channels for a new peace process” (Benavides 2006, p.14). This eventually led to the signing of a peace agreement between M-19 and the government of Colombia in 1989. However, they had not succeeded yet to organize a Constitutional Assembly, which was one of the components of the peace agreement. The successor of Barco, Cesar Gaviria, did manage to organise such an Assembly. He did so by using the emergency powers he possessed because Colombia had been under a state of siege since 1984 (Benavides 2006).
The agreement included commitments by the government to appoint commissions to reform the justice system. Next to that, it included amnesty, a reintegration programme, a security plan, and opportunities for the M-19 to legally start a political party (Durán et al. 2008).
In conclusion, the broadening of the amnesty laws was significant for the M-19’s peace process, but only as a precondition for negotiations. Changes in leadership appear to have had an impact on the prospects for reintegration. With the instalment of each of the Colombian presidents since Turbay, the peace process got one step further. The mutual distrust that had built up during Betancur’s tenure and the newly found strategy by Gaviria indicate that a new and fresh perspective at the negotiation table can boost the prospects for peace.
6.2 PRT, MAQL, and EPL
Background
After the M-19 signed a peace agreement and negotiated its participation in a Constituent Assembly, several other armed groups decided to join the demobilization process. These armed groups are the Partido Revolucionario de Trabajadores (PRT), the Movimiento Armado Quintín Lamé (MAQL), and the Ejército Popular de Liberación (EPL). They are analysed together because they demobilized at the same time, which means that exogenous factors were
34 similar. Furthermore, the ideology and consideration of EPL and PRT are very similar, while the peace process of the MAQL is too straightforward and trivial for a separate analysis. This will become clear in the following section.
EPL
By far the most important and powerful among these demobilizing armed groups was the EPL. Like the ELN and the FARC, EPL was founded in the 1960s as a violent far-left organization. They were the military wing of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Colombia, which was the second largest communist party in Colombian politics. Its goal was to install socialism in Colombia, and it has its roots in the university movements of the 1960s. At first they mainly operated from rural positions, but the strongly urbanized Colombian society led them to combine both a rural and urban strategy Chernick 1999).
In 1984, the EPL signed a ceasefire agreement. This agreement collapsed a year later when the chief negotiator of the EPL was murdered. They only resumed negotiations with the government in 1990, which eventually resulted in the collective demobilization of most of its fighters. Next to that, the EPL was allowed to participate in the Constituent Assembly of 1991. Not all of EPL’s combatants agreed with the decision by the leadership to sign a peace agreement, and some refused to demobilize. Those who did demobilize founded a new political party named Esperanza, Paz, y Libertad. The members of this newly founded political party were seen by other guerrilla organizations as traitors who had abandoned the armed struggle. Because of this, much of their members were assassinated by the FARC, the ELN, and their own dissidents (Chernick 1999).
MAQL
The Movimiento Armado Quintín Lamé has its roots in a military self-defence group known as Campesino Indígena Quintín Lamé. This group received military training from the Marxist- Leninist Communist Party and was formed after the killing of several indigenous leaders by state forces. The group mainly operated in the Cauca department, and distinguished itself from other armed groups through its multicultural approach and focus on the rights of indigenous people. MAQL fought to defend indigenous communities from hostile takeovers and to expand indigenous lands through conquest.
In 1991, the group collectively demobilized, and participated in the Constituent Assembly. “Their presence in the Assembly contributed to the fact that indigenous issues were
35 prominently addressed, and major concessions and rights were incorporated into the constitution of 1991” (Chernick, p. 199). The government of Colombia granted them a seat in the Constituent Assembly and a promise of government efforts to develop their communities in exchange for the demobilization of 130 combatants (Boudreaux 1991).
PRT
The Partido Revolucionario de Trabajadores was ideologically quite similar to the EPL. They were founded in 1982 and consisted of the majority faction of the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Tendency. (Rampf 2015). Like other organizations on the Colombian far-left, they started out by considering that revolution was inevitable and irreversible. In the 1980s, international developments demonstrated that leftist goals could be achieved through other means than revolution and that if revolution did occur, the outcomes were not as perfect as had been imagined. The PRT’s goals “thus shifted from the destruction of the existing regime and the creation of a dictatorship of the proletariat on the ashes of the former, towards favoring a democratic opening” (Rampf 2015, p. 9).
In 1991, the group signed a peace agreement with the government. At the time of demobilization, they had around 200 fighters (Rampf & Chavarro 2014). In exchange for collective demobilization, PRT gained representation in the Constituent Assembly, would become a legal political party, and received various other benefits. The political party never actually came to be. Instead, some of the former PRT members joined the M-19’s political party, while others became active in social organizations.
Analysis
RQ: Wy did PRT, MAQL, and EPL collectively demobilize in 1991?
Goals of the armed group
“We believed and decided that we could grow through this process of demobilisation within legal democracy, achieving development with social inclusion and political pluralism; that the abandonment of arms would open
36
political spaces to influence, in a civilised or rational way” (PRT 2014 in Rampf 2015, p. 5).
Four factors related to the goals of the EPL and the PRT led them to opt for demobilization in 1991. First, the positive example of the M-19’s decision to initiate negotiations with the Colombian state, which received a lot of popular support. This demonstrated that dialogue was a viable alternative to violence, and further delegitimized armed struggle as a strategy for these already moderate armed groups (Rampf & Navarro 2014). Second, they were aware of the fact that their violent activities had a limited impact on society, due to their small size. Third, ideologically they had already become increasingly moderate, acknowledging that democratic opening was a more realistic alternative than revolution (Rampf & Navarro 2014). Fourth, the promise of participation in the Constituent Assembly provided them with a concrete medium to achieve their goals. It also made the negotiation process much easier: reforms that they initially wanted to realise through negotiations could now be pursued through a democratic process.
The interplay between these factors shows how the capabilities of an armed group together with its ideology strongly influence the goals that an armed group has. In turn, if the goals of an armed group become less ambitious, it is more likely that a successful peace process will follow.
MAQL’s reason for existence was never as ambitious as those of the PRT and EPL. They did not want revolution, they just wanted to protect the rights of indigenous people. When the opportunity came to achieve this goal through political dialogue rather than through violence, political dialogue was the less costly alternative.
Commitment problems
The Constituent Assembly played an important role in minimising the commitment problems for the government during this wave of demobilization. The government wanted to make the Assembly as interesting for the armed groups as possible, as they were hoping that the FARC and the ELN would also take this opportunity. Furthermore, the Assembly could count on a lot of popular support. Therefore, reneging on the promise of organizing it would politically be a very costly move. It was a concrete promise that the government could hardly break.
The Constituent Assembly was an important moment in Colombian politics and some important reforms were made in the process. But one of the primary goals of the armed groups
37 after joining politics was to break the hegemony of the two traditional parties, and they did not achieve this goal (Rampf & Navarro 2014). One could argue that commitment problems in this case were minimised simply because no commitments were made by the state. The armed groups, including M-19, miscalculated their ability to gain power through democratic means.
For MAQL, this was not so much the case, since their political aspirations were not as ambitious. They secured important improvements for the rights of indigenous people, and government investments to develop their communities. With those achievements, the MAQL’s peace process can be considered successful, since they had no desire to become a political actor.
Security dilemma
One of the factors that hindered the ability of the PRT and the EPL to become powerful political actors was the problematic security situation they were facing. According to Human Rights Watch, the FARC alone already assassinated 204 members of the EPL’s political party between 1991 and 1995, and they were also being targeted by their own dissident faction that had refused to demobilize (HRW 1998).
For the PRT, it was not much better. Enrique Flórez, a former high-ranking PRT member, recalls an episode from after the demobilization:
“There were very few who chose to go into politics in such a risky context. For example, in the municipality of San Jacinto, we ran with a list of eight candidates for the local council elections, and they killed seven of them” (Flórez, author interview 2013 in Rampf & Navarro 2014, p. 16).
From these experiences the question arises as to why the EPL and the PRT demobilized when their security apparently could not be guaranteed. An analysis of the peace agreements reveals that both armed groups did take security considerations very seriously. PRT demanded, among other things, an armoured car for the PRT representative in the Assembly, and bulletproof protection gear for the PRT leadership (PRT Peace Agreement 1991). EPL agreed on a whole security plan with the government, indicating that they were indeed aware of the security risks that came with demobilization (EPL Peace Agreement 1991).
However, being aware of a risk does not mean accurately calculating it. PRT and EPL perhaps would not have demobilized if they had known the consequences beforehand. PRT and EPL must have mistakenly thought that the security risks were adequately mitigated by the
38 provisions that were agreed on in the peace agreements. Still, this is mere speculation, and the experience of these armed groups provides an argument against the strength of the security dilemma as a predictor of the likelihood of collective demobilization.
Conflict intensity
EPL # Deaths 30
25
20
15
10
5
0
1998 2011 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
EPL Total By EPL total
Figure 1
While statistics about the casualties suffered by the PRT and MAQL are unknown, we do know that EPL suffered a relatively high number of casualties leading up to its demobilization in 1991. As can be observed in figure 1, EPL lost 27 of its members through combat in 1989 and 23 in 1990. This has likely contributed to the armed groups’ perception of a hurting stalemate.
For the government, all of these armed groups were minor nuisances compared to the other opponents they were facing. While trying to contain the violence from paramilitary organizations, the government was fighting powerful drug cartels and several guerrilla organizations at the same time (Nasi 2009). As such, the government likely did perceive a hurting stalemate at the time these three armed groups demobilized, even though the hurting was caused by them only to a limited extent. Still, signing a peace agreement with these three provided the government with a ‘way out’ of the current situation, by decreasing the number of opponents they were facing.
Prospects for reintegration
The security risks faced by the PRT and the EPL after demobilization severely worsened their reintegration process. But apart from the miscalculated security risks the prospects for
39 reintegration were relatively favorable. Both the MAQL and the PRT agreed on a fund established specifically to aid the combatants in the first period after demobilization, and EPL even agreed on a whole reinsertion plan which detailed extensively how exactly the demobilized combatants would be reinserted into society. All groups also secured amnesty (Boudreaux 1991; PRT Peace Agreement 1991; EPL Peace Agreement 1991).
It was expected that the members of the MAQL could peacefully continue with their lives, and many of the PRT and EPL members would become active as politicians. Also, the fact that they included detailed provisions in the peace agreement on how the reintegration would ensue indicates that this was an important theme in the peace process. From this, we can conclude that the prospects for reintegration were indeed an important factor in explaining the likelihood of collective demobilization.
6.3 AUC
Background
Origins
The period in which the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC) were active represents merely one chapter of paramilitary violence in Colombia. Paramilitaries plagued the country long before the AUC emerged, and it continued after they officially ceased to exist. However, the AUC’s period represents both the most violent paramilitary period and also the only period in which they loosely organised into one big organization (Valencia Agudelo 2007).
“Paramilitary organization and self-defense groups have been used to describe a range of different armed groups active in Colombia during the past 40 years” (Tate 2001, p. 164). Ever since their emergence, they have been closely linked to official government forces. In 1968, Colombian Congress approved a law that allowed the government to “mobilize the population in activities and tasks to restore public order” (Tate 2001, p. 164).
Similarly, the paramilitaries have always had a strong connection to the Colombian drug trade. In the 1980s, several drug lords that had been acquiring coca plantations for cocaine production created their own paramilitary armies to protect themselves and their newly acquired properties
40
(Tate 2001). In their existence, paramilitaries raked in hundreds of millions of profits from the drug trade (Angelo 2017).
Development
In the mid-1990s, paramilitary violence increased rapidly. This increase was partly caused by the creation of national coordinating body, the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC). This organization coordinated the activities of different paramilitary bloques and it was headed by Carlos Castaño (Tate 2001).
Statistics on the amount of combatants that the AUC coordinated vary widely. One study reports that between 1987, 1997, and 2003, the number of paramilitaries grew from 650 to 3,800 to 13,000 (Sánchez & Chacón 2006). In 2002 alone, the paramilitaries were responsible for 115 massacres and the displacement of more than 400 thousand people, according to the Red de Solidaridad Social (Valencia Agudelo 2007).
Peace agreement
In 2002, president Uribe started the official negotiation process with the AUC. He first managed to sign a peace agreement with the group as a whole, and then negotiated separate agreements with the different bloques9 out of which the AUC consisted. In total, 31,671 paramilitaries joined the collective demobilization process, and 18,051 weapons were handed in between 2002 and 2006 (Valencia Agudelo 2007).
The peace process with the paramilitaries sparked much controversy both within Colombia and in the international community. Many believed that the conditions under which the paramilitaries could demobilize did not do justice to the atrocities that they committed (Porch & Rasmussen 2008). Many of the demobilizing combatants had committed crimes against humanity, and some of them were able to reintegrate into civilian life without suffering any punishment (Tate 2009). The controversies increased because of the alleged links between the paramilitaries and president Uribe, and the far-reaching influence that the paramilitaries had on Colombian politics, a scandal which became known as the parapolitics scandal (Porch & Rasmussen 2008).
9 These separate negotiation processes with different bloques are sometimes referred to as collective demobilizations. In this thesis I treat the entire process as one instance of collective demobilization, while the separate negotiation processes are considered partial demobilizations. 41
Analysis
RQ: Wy did the AUC collectively demobilize in 2003?
Goals of the armed group
The goal of paramilitary organizations is essentially to provide a counter-force against the leftist guerrilla organizations. The Colombian state was unable to stop the guerrillas, so Colombians decided to take matters into their own hands. The leadership of the AUC contends that their goals are purely political, because they only fight against the insurgencies (Valencia Agudelo 2007).
While they may claim to be a purely political organization, others view them as criminals who only claim to be political to legitimize their actions (Cubides 2001). “By portraying themselves as motivated primarily by grievance – as victims of guerrilla violence forced to take up arms when abandoned by the state – paramilitaries attempt to counter the perception that they are motivated primarily by greed” (Tate 2009, p. 113). The leader of the AUC, Carlos Castaño, has revealed that about 70 percent of income was provided by drug trafficking (Nasi 2009).
Among scholars there exists a consensus that the paramilitaries are relatively greed-based compared to the guerrilla organizations in the Colombian conflict (Nussio & Ugarriza 2015). “While paramilitaries in the right-wing AUC insist on guarantees about freedom from prosecution, those on the left (FARC-EP, ELN, and smaller groups) want constitutional, institutional, and socio-political reform on the agenda” (Porch & Rasmussen 2008, p. 524). In this sense, the goals of the armed group are relatively limited. For the AUC, their sheer number and position of power did not translate into demands for political reform. Because of this, it was relatively easy to come to an agreement with them.
Commitment problems
Two factors reduced commitment problems at the time when the AUC collectively demobilized. First, the fact that the AUC did not demand any political reforms meant that the government did not have to make promises in this area that they could later break. There were still important promises by the side of the government related to transitional justice and prospects for reintegration, but the absence of political concessions limited commitment problems compared to the peace processes with other armed actors.
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Second, the peace process was facilitated by the fact that the different paramilitary organizations had organized into one big organization. Admittedly, cohesion within the AUC was limited, and the exact details of the demobilization had to be negotiated with each paramilitary bloque separately. Still, the possibility to start the peace process with the AUC as a whole made it easier to ensure their collective demobilization.
One commitment problem that is always present in civil war peace processes is the possibility of remobilization. There are examples of remobilizing former guerrilla members after demobilization, but many more examples of paramilitary organizations that re-emerged after the demobilization process. Currently, there are about 4,000 members who have joined newly founded paramilitary organizations (Angelo 2017). The leadership of a demobilizing armed group cannot credibly guarantee that its members will not decide to take up arms again, but this is a risk that any government in a civil war peace process is forced to accept. Therefore, I argue that commitment problems in the context of AUC’s demobilization process were still relatively limited.
Security dilemma
Like the guerrilla organizations, the AUC also faced severe security risks in case of demobilization. Both the FARC and the ELN were still active, and these guerrillas could take advantage of the vulnerable position of their former enemy. The security dilemma was further aggravated by the fear that the remaining armed groups would fill the power vacuum that the AUC had left behind after laying down their arms. There was a commonly held belief that the Colombian government had insufficient capacity to provide adequate security in areas that were previously under paramilitary control (Porch & Rasmussen 2008).
The security dilemma for the government was trumped by other considerations that will be discussed in the next section, and the security dilemma for AUC was alleviated because of two reasons. One, the paramilitaries themselves were responsible for most of the violence. Some factions within AUC disagreed with the decision to demobilize, but the fact that all of the major components of the AUC had agreed to participate in the peace process diminished the security risks they were facing from within their own ranks. Two, the Colombian government was cracking down hard on the insurgent groups at the time the AUC were demobilizing. This decreased the security threat faced by the AUC from the guerrilla groups (Angelo 2017).
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Conflict intensity
AUC # Deaths 700 600 500 400 300 200 100
0
1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
AUC Total By AUC total
Figure 2
Paramilitaries have been responsible for most of the violence in the analysed period. Especially after the foundation of the AUC, violence surged to unprecedented levels. In 2000, paramilitaries were responsible for 1136 casualties from massacres10. Looking at figure 2, it immediately becomes apparent that the AUC itself suffered relatively few casualties compared to the amount they were causing.
I argue that conflict intensity did play an important role in the peace process with the paramilitaries, but not through the creation of a MHS. For the government, the increased levels of violence and the lack of control they exercised over the AUC threatened the stability of the country.
“While paramilitary organizations claim to share a common enemy with the Colombian government, and to be defending state institutions, in fact they represent one of the most serious threats facing democracy in Colombia today. Paramilitary violence is used to consolidate their control of territory, crush efforts at institutional reform, sabotage peace efforts, protect drug production and trafficking and to ensure impunity from prosecution” (Tate 2001, p. 168).
10 See figure 11 in the appendix. 44
The fact that guerrilla groups demanded the demobilization of the AUC as a precondition for their own peace negotiations added another incentive for the government to start negotiations.
Prospects for reintegration
Prospects for reintegration have been especially important in the peace process of the AUC. Since they did not demand any political reforms, the AUC’s negotiators focused almost exclusively on the conditions under which they could reintegrate into society (Porch & Rasmussen 2008). In general, the perception was that Uribe would be relatively lenient for the paramilitaries, also since he needed the AUC to demobilize for his democratic security plan to become successful (Angelo 2017; Theidon 2007).
Some paramilitaries had already begun to demobilize individually from 1997 onwards, when a legal process was established to govern the reintegration of combatants into society. Uribe improved the prospects for reintegration in 2002, offering amnesty from criminal prosecution. In 2003, the prospects got even better, when a series of social benefits such as economic assistance and health insurance were extended to the demobilizing combatants (Angelo 2017).
These benefits could not be extended to those who had been accused of committing crimes against humanity. For them, a series of inducements were established, collectively known as the Santa Fe de Ralito agreements. The leaders of the AUC were offered reduced sentences in exchange for full confessions and information on criminal networks. In practice, they could get away with partial confessions and half-truths. “This deficiency negatively impacted the quantity of assets that the government seized from the AUC to fund reparations for victims. The AUC’s leaders and their families were able to retain much of their ill-begotten wealth” (Angelo 2017, p. 140).
Participation in the peace process was extra interesting for the leaders of the AUC because it reduced their chances of being extradited to the United States: “The threat of extradition to the United States has led several paramilitary leaders to participate in the peace process in Colombia, and to seek recognition as political criminals, as this protects them from extradition” (Jaramillo, Giha & Torres 2009, p. 10).
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6.4 FARC
Background
Origins
The Fuerzas Revolucionarias Armadas de Colombia (FARC)11 are the oldest and most important guerrilla group in the Colombian civil conflict. They formed in 1964 and were initially closely linked to the Colombian Communist Party, who provided them with financial support and political orientation (Offstein & Aristizábal 2003). The origins of the FARC, like those of ELN and EPL, can be traced back to La Violencia. It has always been a rural-based organization and its reasons for existence are closely related to the agrarian problem and the limited potential for political participation because of the National Front (Chernick 1999).
Development
For the most part of the conflict, the FARC was the largest active armed group. In 2005, the group encompassed more than 18 thousand combatants (Chernick 2009). Every Colombian president since Betancur in 1982 attempted some form of dialogue with the FARC, with varying success. In 1984 the FARC signed a ceasefire agreement with the government and they were given the opportunity to create a political party, the Unión Patriótica (UP). Despite achieving some initial successes with the UP, the party did not manage to provide a viable alternative for the strategy of armed struggle that the FARC was pursuing. In the second half of the 1980s, between 2,000 and 2,500 UP members were assassinated by paramilitary organizations, which ultimately led to the collapse of the ceasefire agreement (Chinchilla 2010).
In 1987, FARC formed the Coordinadora Guerrillera Simón Bolívar (CGSB) together with several other armed groups. The CGSB was an attempt by the guerrilla groups to form a common military and political front (Chernick 1999). Some of these armed groups opted to negotiate a peace agreement independently from the CGSB. “After 1991 the CGSB consisted of the FARC, the ELN, and a dissident faction of the EPL. Some military actions in some regions were coordinated” (Chernick 1999, p. 199). The CGSB collaborated in a round of failed
11 The FARC is sometimes also referred to as the FARC-EP, in which EP stands for Ejército del Pueblo. The name was officially changed to FARC-EP in the Eigth Conference in 1982 (Chernick 2009). 46 peace negotiations in 1990-1991, but apart from that its role was limited because of the existing differences between the armed groups.
In 1998, under the presidency of Pastrana, the FARC again began negotiations with the government, who awarded the FARC with a demilitarized zone in which the negotiations could take place. The talks ultimately failed because the FARC used this zone to expand its capacity, and because the peace process was spoiled by violence from both sides. The US’ plan Colombia had also started around this time. It has been argued that this pushed the FARC towards drug trafficking to match the increased military capacity of the state (Nasi 2009). It is estimated that income from the drug trade represented between 48 and 70 percent of the total income of the FARC in 2002 (Nasi 2009).
Peace agreement
After almost a decade of sustained successful military pressure on the FARC under president Uribe and assisted by the United States, president Juan Manuel Santos came to power in 2010. It was expected that he, a former minister of Defence, would continue to exert military pressure on the FARC insurgency, and he initially did exactly that. However, Santos radically changed his strategy in 2012, when he entered peace negotiations with both FARC and ELN (Delgado 2015).
From 2012 until 2016, FARC negotiated with the Colombian government in order to realize a peace agreement. In 2016, such an agreement was finally signed and only had to be endorsed by the people of Colombia. Unfortunately, a majority of the population rejected the peace deal in a national plebiscite. Eventually a revised version of this peace deal was accepted by Congress and is currently being implemented (Norman 2017).
Analysis
RQ: Wy did the FARC collectively demobilize in 2016?
The structure of the analysis of FARC’s and ELN’s peace processes is slightly different from that of the other armed groups, since they engaged in negotiations at so many different moments. To regain an overview of the factors that have been most important, I will end with some concluding remarks on the peace process as a whole.
Goals of the armed group
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As the name indicates, the FARC started out as revolutionary armed group. Up until 1982, they never recognized the possibility of a negotiated settlement. Two years later they engaged in peace negotiations for the first time. From that moment onwards, they moved further away from the idea of establishing political change through violent revolution (Chernick 2009). Rather, they opted to pursue their still radical goals through political reforms. In an unpublished FARC document from 1989 the following is stated about this:
“The policy of the FARC is to give top priority to the struggle to find political solutions to the national problem, and, specifically, a negotiated solution to the armed conflict…. In the search for a new politics, the FARC will continue to bring up issues of basic change in Colombian life, which must start with the establishment of a Democratic State” (FARC 1989 in Chernick 2009, p. 75).
The new strategy of the FARC was to combine political struggle with armed struggle. When they established their UP in 1985, this was seen as merely an additional path to reach their goals. The peace process of the early 1990s broke down because their goals continued to be relatively ambitious: “Yet even as the M-19 was enjoying electoral and popular support, the FARC and the ELN refused to lay down their arms. Demanding more than political participation, they continued to propose major social, structural, and economic reforms as part of any peace agreement” (Chernick 1999, p. 166).
In this peace process, the unwillingness of FARC and ELN to accept the conditions under which other armed groups had accepted to enter negotiations caused the government to opt for a military solution instead. They attacked the headquarters of the FARC, and the FARC struck back, “demonstrating for the first time just how improved their military capabilities had become. The attack and counterattack also thwarted any possible late participation by these guerrilla movements in the constitutional convention.” (Chernick 1999, p. 181).
The military capabilities of the FARC and the ELN translated into high demands in the negotiation process that re-emerged a year later. These two armed groups were now negotiating together as the CGSB, and they insisted on a broad agenda. The government and the CGSB failed to reach substantive consensus on the negotiated issues, and the peace process was ultimately spoiled when the guerrillas assassinated a former minister (Chernick 1999).
Chinchilla (2010) hypothesises that the assassination of the UP members might have contributed to the failure of subsequent peace processes in another way than through an aggravated perception of the security dilemma. He discusses the possibility that the moderate
48
FARC members joined the UP and were assassinated, while the radical FARC members survived. As a result, FARC itself became increasingly radicalized.
These radicalized ambitions continued to be a problem in the remainder of the peace process. In the negotiations with Pastrana from 1998 to 2002, it became clear that the FARC was only willing to accept a solution that would secure access to power. The following was stated about this by Alfonso Cano, who was the leader of the FARC in 2008: “This negotiation is successful when it ends with a government coalition in which we represent at least 50% of the government12” (Cano 2007 in Chinchilla 2010, p. 12).
During Uribe’s tenure, the negotiations did not even take off, because of the preconditions that the FARC were demanding before negotiations could start. They were demanding a demilitarized zone, which Uribe did not want to give them because of the negative experience with such a zone during the Pastrana administration.
Finally, in the peace process with Santos that started in 2012, the FARC lowered their demands. Having suffered military setbacks brought about by the increased capacity of the state they were not as powerful as they once were. They adjusted their demands accordingly and agreed to negotiate with the Santos administration without first establishing a ceasefire and a demilitarized zone (Gomez-Suarez & Newman 2013).
Commitment problems
In the first peace process both the FARC and the government were plagued by commitment problems, which ultimately led to the collapse of the ceasefire agreement. The Colombian military openly undermined the ceasefire orders from the Betancur administration, and the FARC only viewed the peace process as a way to combine political activity with increasing military capabilities (Chernick 1999).
In the negotiation rounds in the early 1990s it was different. As argued before, the promise of participation in the constituent assembly limited commitment problems at this point in the peace process. FARC and ELN’s refusal to participate in the peace process at the time can be explained by other factors. After this window of opportunity had closed, the broad negotiating agenda on which the CGSB insisted further aggravated existing commitment problems.
12 Translation by author. 49
The failure of the peace process with Pastrana can also be explained by looking at commitment problems. The demilitarized zone gave FARC the opportunity to expand its capabilities and to increase its involvement with the drug trade. The FARC might have engaged in this peace process as a strategic move, so that they would be left alone by the government while they were undertaking illicit activities (Ghosn 2010; Keijzer 2017).
In the peace process with Santos, FARC agreed to engage in negotiations without the usual preconditions of a bilateral ceasefire and a demilitarized zone. This greatly reduced commitment problems and the potential for spoilers to hurt the peace process. In the final peace process, violence from both sides continued. The fact that both parties went on with the negotiations despite this continuation shows how committed they were to reach a peace agreement (Milne 2014).
Commitment problems were further mitigated by the presence of the international community. At the beginning of the peace process, both parties appointed a number of guarantor countries who would stay involved in the peace process. Furthermore, the Red Cross became involved as a mediator and the UN started a verification mission in Colombia, to make sure that the implementation phase will proceed as agreed upon (Semana 2016). High Commissioner of Peace Sergio Jaramillo has stated that especially the current involvement of the UN Security Council will make it difficult for both parties to renege on their promises (Semana 2016).
Security dilemma
The security dilemma has been extremely important in the peace process with the FARC. The experience with the dirty war against UP members left the FARC extremely aware of the security risks that would accompany any form of collective demobilization. The unwillingness of the FARC to accept such security risks again has likely influenced the government’s inability to reach a peace agreement while the paramilitaries were still active. “During failed peace negotiations with FARC from 1998 to 2002, the group’s leadership made clear to the government that the organisation would only demobilise once the AUC had been disbanded” (Angelo 2017, p. 139).
Further aggravating the security dilemma for the FARC was the lack of internal cohesion within the Colombian government. The 1990 attack on the headquarters of the FARC was orchestrated by the military without the permission of the civilian authorities (Richani 2005). The attack happened while the government was negotiating with the FARC, and was a result of the relative autonomy that the Colombian military enjoyed.
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By contrast, the security dilemma was not as severe for the final FARC peace process. Military commanders insist that the armed forced have always backed the peace process between president Santos and the FARC. Evidence exists that a portion of the military disagrees with some aspects of the negotiations, but the Colombian military has also become less autonomous in recent times (Isacson & Sánchez-Garzoli 2015). Furthermore, the demobilization of the AUC from 2003 until 2006 contributed to the limitation of the security dilemma.
Conflict Intensity
FARC # Deaths 1600 1400 1200 1000 800 600 400 200
0
1995 2007 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
FARC Total By FARC total
Figure 3
As can be seen in the graphs in the appendix, FARC has dealt most damage between 1999 and 2004, in terms of massacres as well as selective assassinations13. They have felt most damage in 1992, 1994, and 2002. The years leading up to the final peace agreement were characterized by a particularly low conflict intensity.
Since conflict intensity only increases the chances of collective demobilization when it creates a perception of a MHS among the warring parties, the ceasefire agreement and the despeje zone (1984 and 1998) could have negatively affected the peace process. It gave the FARC an opportunity to rebuild their military capacities without much disturbance, and thus prevented a stalemate from being maintained.
13 See figure 9 & 11. 51
Initially, the MHS could not be formed because the military did not perceive the situation as a hurting stalemate. General Mora, the leader of the military at that moment, formulates this belief as follows:
"I would like to clarify two important misperceptions about the Colombian conflict. One, claiming that neither the army nor the guerrillas are capable of winning this war. This is not true. Today we possess the capabilities to win the war. The second misperception is that if the peace process ends, a terrible war will ensue that will destroy the country. This is not true, because we are already in that war" (Mora 1992 in Richani, p. 20-21).
In the early 2000s, conflict intensity was at its peak, and FARC was probably perceiving a hurting stalemate at this moment. They were suffering military defeats and many individual FARC members were demobilizing (Rosenau et al. 2014). However, the stalemate was not mutual, as the government was increasing its military capacity and had the belief that they could unilaterally obtain a better negotiating position by staying on the offense. While the FARC did get weakened in this period, it was still impossible to completely eradicate them militarily (Chernick 2009).
Despite the relatively low conflict intensity, the government continued to find themselves in an undesirable situation throughout the 2010s; they were still experiencing an ongoing conflict. Santos realised that this conflict could not be solved on the battleground only, and started negotiations (Stevenson 2017). This shows that a MHS can be perceived even in a highly unequal situation with low conflict intensity.
Prospects for reintegration
Prospects for reintegration for the FARC appear not to be correlated to an increased likelihood of collective demobilization. In fact, it could be argued that the prospects for reintegration were not as good as they had been at other times in the peace process, especially if one does not take security considerations into account.
Apart from the security dilemma issues that have been discussed earlier, the prospects for reintegration for the FARC can roughly be divided into two groups; the prospects related to transitional justice and those related to their influence on Colombian politics.
Extensive political concessions have been offered by the government throughout the peace process. A recurring concession is the possibility to start their own political party, already in
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1985. Another chance to increase influence on the political system was the possibility to join the Constituent Assembly in 1991. During this time, president Gaviria offered the CGSB the control of 60 municipalities, in an attempt to persuade them into joining the peace process. FARC and ELN refused to accept this offer, reportedly because they demanded 96 municipalities instead. In hindsight, this offer has been the most generous one they have ever received from the government (Steele 2017).
The prospects for transitional justice for the FARC have faced have only changed slightly throughout the peace process. Unconditional amnesty has always been demanded by the FARC, and laws to adequately govern the demobilization process have been in place since 1997 (Chernick 2009). Between 2002 and 2010, more than twelve thousand FARC members individually demobilized. This indicates that the prospects for reintegration for all these fighters were perceived as better than the prospects of remaining in the armed group (Rosenau et al. 2014).
In this period, Uribe was the president of Colombia, and his willingness to negotiate with the guerrilla organizations was limited. Thus, the prospects of gaining political influence through negotiations during his tenure were limited, and negotiations were not perceived as a way out of the hurting stalemate that the FARC was in at that moment. Some of the combatants also refused to demobilize because they did not trust Uribe: “The state itself is totally paramilitarized. Uribe? He’s the president of the paracos” (Ex-guerilla member in Theidon 2007, p. 78).
While the FARC was initially unwilling to accept anything else than unconditional amnesty, this changed during the peace process with Santos. Because of the changing international humanitarian law, the transitional justice prospective for demobilizing combatants had changed from amnesty to leniency (Chernick 2009). Especially crimes against humanity could not be left without punishment anymore, and as such it can be argued that the prospects for transitional justice were better for FARC members in earlier times (Stevenson 2017).
Conclusion
If commitment problems are indeed important determinants explaining the probability of collective demobilization, then one would expect the FARC to have demobilized in 1991, when the promise of participation in the Constituent Assembly reduced commitment problems. Similarly, if high conflict intensity increases the chance for peace, then one would expect
53 demobilization of the FARC in the early 2000s and a continuation of the fight in 2010s. However, none of this occurred in the way that the model predicts.
I think that while a limitation of commitment problems was necessary, the decisive factors in the peace process of the FARC were the security dilemma and the goals of the FARC. The security dilemma, fuelled by the experience with the UP, proved to be an insurmountable obstacle for the FARC up until the AUC collectively demobilized. Similarly, the FARC was unable to come to a peace agreement in all other rounds of negotiations before the last one because their goals were too ambitious. In the last round, driven by their decreasing capabilities, the demands of the FARC were less ambitious than they had been before.
6.5 ELN
Background
Origins
The Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) was founded in 1964 as a pro-Cuban guerrilla movement. Its roots were connected to the student movements of the 1960s, and it is probably the most ideologically pure of all the armed groups that have existed in the Colombian conflict (Stevenson 2017 & Nasi 2009). Ideologically, the movement was deeply influenced by Camilo Torres, a priest and the first leader of the ELN. He became a martyr of the group’s armed struggle when he died in combat in 1966, and instilled the conviction of ‘liberation theology’ in the members of the ELN: “the notion that Christianity requires the creation of a fair and equal society” (Stevenson 2017, p. 2). For the ELN, the presence of large multinational enterprises symbolizes all that is wrong with Colombia, and they form the targets of much of their armed actions. They obtain much of their income through the extortion of these companies and through kidnappings (Chernick 1999).
Development
The power of the ELN has varied throughout the conflict, but they were usually the second most important guerrilla group after the FARC (Nussio & Ugarriza 2015). In the 1970s, they reached an all time low of 36 combatants and were on the brink of disintegration. However,
54 after 1978, their power gradually increased. In 1989, the ELN were fighting on 22 different fronts. By 1997, this number had grown to 45 (Aguilera 2006).
From all the large guerrilla organizations, the ELN was the only group that did not sign a ceasefire agreement in the 1980s. They did enter into negotiations together with FARC in 1991, and separately in 1998, but never came close to an agreement. They had planned to start another round of negotiations in 2016, but this round was postponed because of continuing armed actions by the ELN. Finally, the two parties started official negotiations in 2017 and signed a bilateral ceasefire agreement, which is something that has never been done before with the ELN (Manetto & Marcos 2017). The peace process is currently ongoing.
Analysis
RQ: Why has ELN never collectively demobilized?
ELN is a special case since it is the only armed group being analysed in this thesis that never actually collectively demobilized. Its peace process has at times been similar to that of the FARC. They negotiated together as the CGSB, and the external conditions for ELN were similar as those for the FARC throughout the 2000s. To avoid repetition, only those aspects of ELN’s peace process that were different than the FARC’s will be discussed.
Goals of the armed group
ELN is an illustrative example of how the effect of capabilities on the goals of an armed group is moderated by its ideological convictions. The strong ideological character of the ELN has created their ambitious set of goals and demands in the negotiation process, and has made it more difficult to achieve their collective demobilization. Despite large fluctuations in their capabilities, their goals have remained largely constant and have only recently begun to become more limited (Rodríguez Pizarro 2009).
The extremist ideology compared to the other armed groups already became apparent in the first round of negotiations with the Betancur administration in the mid-1980s. The ELN refused to sign a ceasefire agreement because they viewed it as a trick to lay down their arms without having obtained anything in exchange. Their views on the process of democratic opening which some of the armed groups were negotiating around 1990 were similar (Chinchilla 2010).
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Their strategy did change in this period, since some of their members did favour a more political solution at this stage of the conflict already (Rodríguez Pizarro 2009). In 1991, the Corriente Renovación Socialista (CRS) emerged as a splinter group from the ELN. They separated from the main group and eventually demobilized in 199414, choosing a purely political struggle over a violent political one (Rodríguez Pizarro 2009). The members of the CRS represented the more moderate faction within the larger organization of the ELN. Their separation from the main group might have contributed to the ELN’s ideological extremism (Chinchilla 2010).
The main group did engage in negotiations in the early 1990s, but only to obtain national and international legitimacy, to increase popular support, and to get more recognition from movements and governments in other countries (ELN 1990). The negotiations at this stage were a tactical decision and there was no real willingness to reach a peace agreement (Chinchilla 2010).
In 1998, the government attempted to negotiate with the ELN again, but the ELN did not seem committed to the peace process:
“On 18 October 1998 – just nine days after the government had announced the official start of negotiations – the ELN bombed Colombia’s central oil pipeline. The blast sparked a fire that killed dozens of impoverished villagers, mostly children. Regardless of the ELN’s clear unwillingness to demobilise, the government continued” (Stevenson 2017, p. 2).
ELN had the opportunity to increase their income through involvement with the drug trade, but they chose not to out of ideological considerations (Valencia 2009). Likewise, they had the opportunity to direct all of their resources towards expansion of their military capacity. Again, their ideological convictions prevented them from doing so, because they also wanted to remain active politically.
It was only in 2006 that the goals of the ELN really changed, when they ratified the necessity to find a political solution to the conflict. At this time, they had the opportunity to influence the upcoming elections, in the hope to force Uribe to acknowledge that a military solution to the conflict was not the only possibility (Valencia 2009). According to Valencia (2009), this
14 CRS was an autonomously operating splinter group of the ELN, and their demobilization process can therefore be characterized as collective demobilization. The peace process of the CRS will not be further analysed due to time constraints. 56 decision was also influenced by the fact that the ELN no longer played a significant role in the Colombian conflict.
Even when the military capacities of ELN declined, their goals remained ambitious:
“In numerous attempts at negotiations over the past fifteen years, the ELN’s agenda has included political reforms, mechanisms such as a Constituent Assembly, regional development projects, and humanitarian agreements. These ambitious goals will not be easy to address, especially given the compromised nature of the ELN’s military force” (Valencia 2009, p. 102).
In the current peace process with Santos the ELN have repeatedly shown their commitment to reach a political solution. However, the negotiations have been plagued by violent actions from both sides, and it is unclear whether the ELN is willing to accept the limited negotiating power that they currently possess. The goals of the ELN remain rather ambitious and their capabilities could be strengthened if they decide to fill the vacuum that the FARC has left behind (Stevenson 2017).
Commitment problems
Commitment problems for ELN were not significantly different than for other armed groups, and do not explain their lack of success in negotiations. In the negotiation rounds of the early 1990s and those with the Pastrana administration, commitment problems for the ELN were similar to those of the FARC, with the exception that the ELN did not establish a demilitarized zone during the negotiations with Pastrana.
The current peace process with Santos has been plagued by a continuation of hostilities between ELN and the Colombian government. At various moments, armed actions have postponed or suspended the peace process. ELN wants to show its military capabilities to increase its bargaining power, but has thereby turned itself into a difficult negotiating partner (Stevenson 2017).
The government, on the other side, has limited incentive to portray itself as a trustworthy negotiating partner, since there are no other significant armed groups that they will have to negotiate with in the future. Still, it is unlikely that this will affect their decision-making process. The international community is heavily involved with the current peace process, and reneging on made promises to the ELN will significantly affect the legitimacy of the Colombian government (Demir 2018).
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Security dilemma
The security dilemma for ELN was similar to that of the FARC. The assassination of the UP members may not have affected the perceived security risks of the ELN as much as it did for the FARC, but the close collaboration between the two guerrilla organizations at that time does make a comparable impact likely. ELN knew that a reduction of the security dilemma was a valid precondition to demand in peace negotiations. The ELN’s 2006 decision to opt for a political solution to the conflict may have been informed to some extent by the demobilization process of the AUC (Angelo 2017).
It comes as no surprise that security considerations play an important role in the decision- making process of the ELN. Colombia may be closer to peace than ever, but it still struggles to deal with remobilized paramilitary organizations and dissidents of various armed groups. The security concerns that these realities create for the ELN are reflected in the Dialogues for Peace Agreement that they signed with the government in 2016, in which one of the six points deals with issues of security (ELN Negotiation Agenda 2016). Still, the government should now more than ever be able to provide security for the demobilizing combatants, and the current inability of ELN to reach a peace agreement cannot be attributed to the security dilemma.
Conflict Intensity
ELN # Deaths 450 400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50
0
2000 2004 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2001 2002 2003 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
ELN Total By ELN total
Figure 4
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Conflict intensity between the ELN and the Colombian government reached one of its peaks in 1990, when the ELN selectively assassinated 133 people, even more than the FARC. At this moment, the ELN’s power was rising, and they might not have perceived that situation as hurting stalemate despite the high conflict intensity.
From 1996 until 2005, the ELN suffered many casualties15, for a large part caused by the paramilitaries. The number of casualties they inflicted on other actors was limited. Not measured by the indicators in the figures is the economic damage that the ELN has inflicted throughout its existence. Its focus on multinational oil companies and attacks on oil transportation and infrastructure facilities have caused high financial costs for the Colombian government (Offstein 2003). Apart from deteriorating the Colombian investment climate, these attacks might also have increased the will of the government to sign a peace agreement with the ELN.
On the whole, conflict intensity does not seem to have ‘ripened’ the conflict and impacted the probability of collective demobilization for the ELN.
Prospects for reintegration
If the ELN would have demobilized before they would have been able to secure similar prospects for reintegration as the other armed groups. Therefore, prospects for negotiation cannot account for the observed variation between the actions of the ELN and other armed groups. The only puzzling find is that the ELN approached Uribe to start negotiations already in 2006, despite Uribe’s negative attitude towards guerrilla groups. But this may have been a tactic to force Uribe to acknowledge the possibility of a negotiated solution to the conflict (Rodríguez Pizarro 2009).
Conclusion
The fact that the ELN have not yet signed a final peace agreement limits my ability to draw conclusions on what factors influence their collective demobilization. However, it is still possible to see which factors are insufficient to induce demobilization and which factors have limited impact on the peace process as a whole. For the ELN by far the most important factor seems to be their goals, as influenced by their ideological convictions. Despite their sometimes-
15 See figure 4. 59 limited capabilities, they only started to seriously contemplate a negotiated solution to the conflict in 2006 (Valencia 2009).
Both conflict intensity and prospects for reintegration appear not to be correlated with significant developments in the peace process. For the security dilemma and commitment problems it is too soon to draw a final conclusion. Only recently the peace process with the ELN has reached a state in which achieving collective demobilization should be possible. Commitment problems and the security dilemma are now relatively limited, and the only thing in the way of a peace agreement are the high demands of the ELN.
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6.6 Overview
In the previous section I have analysed the temporal variation in the decision-making process of each of the armed groups separately. With this analysis, I have been able to explain some of the variation in the decisions of the armed groups. Now, I will turn to an across-unit comparison of the armed groups, which will allow me to increase my understanding of the observed variation between different armed groups, rather than within one armed group. Next to that, I will also provide some concluding remarks on the impact of every variable.
Goals of the armed group
The previous analysis has shown that ambitious armed groups are indeed less likely to reach a peace agreement. Furthermore, I have observed that the capabilities and opportunities of an armed group significantly influence the goals of an armed group. Lastly, I can conclude that the relationship between capabilities and opportunities on the one hand and the goals of an armed group on the other is indeed moderated by the ideological strength of an armed group. In the following section I will elaborate on why I think this is the case.
First, there seems to be a strong correlation between the strength of an armed group and its lifespan. The strongest guerrilla groups, the FARC and ELN, also stayed active the longest. An ideologically similar but militarily weaker group such as the EPL demobilized much earlier than the FARC and ELN, albeit only partially. M-19 was perhaps as influential and powerful as them at the start of the 1980s, but they only demobilized at then end of the decade after they had been significantly weakened (Narváez 2012). The big counterexample here is the peace process of the AUC, which arguably demobilized at the height of their power. This could be due to the fact that different causal mechanisms hold for pro-state militias than for opposition groups, but is more likely explained by the lack of ideological motivation in the ranks of the AUC.
Members of the AUC were usually motivated by private gains and opportunities to loot, rather than a higher ideological purpose (Hough 2011). Because of this lack of ideology, their power did not translate into ambitious demands that forced the government to make costly political concessions. The demands were of course influenced by the capabilities of the paramilitaries, but not as strongly as they would have been for an ideological organization.
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Ideology can also help to explain the different paths that the FARC and ELN have followed. FARC’s turn towards the drug trade attracted recruits who were less ideologically motivated. By contrast, the ELN refused to become deeply involved with the drug trade, and retained a stronger ideological commitment as a result (Nasi 2009). This could help to explain why FARC has reached a peace agreement now, even though ELN has always been the weaker one of the two.
Commitment problems
Commitment problems have played a crucial role in the Colombian peace process with different armed groups. They were considered an important factor in explaining the breakdown of the several ceasefires that were signed around 1985. All of the involved actors violated the ceasefire agreements, because they had limited incentive to commit to it. The limited cooperation from the military further aggravated commitment problems in this period (Chernick 1988).
Guarantees from third parties are often proposed as a solution to commitment problems in civil wars (Fearon 2004). Before 1998, external intervention by the international community was very limited. Beginning in the Pastrana administration, several countries, the UN, and some NGOs became involved in different phases of the peace process. But they never guaranteed the implementation of peace agreements (Ramírez Ocampo 2004). The lack of such third-party intervention might have contributed to the duration and the intractability of the conflict. In the final peace process with the FARC, the international community started to play a more active role, which made it harder for the involved parties to renege on their promises (Semana 2016).
However, the Colombian peace process has shown that peace agreements are also possible without such third-party guarantors. Somehow, they managed to overcome the commitment problems on their own. One way of doing that was by organizing the Constituent Assembly in 1991, which gave armed groups who participated the opportunity to pursue democratic reforms. In general, commitment problems in Colombia from the perspective of the armed groups were mitigated by the concept of partial peace. In all of the peace negotiations, the government had a clear incentive to uphold their promises in order to retain a good reputation for future negotiations with other armed groups. Armed groups on the other hand, could not credibly guarantee that some of their members would not return to arms, as the recent experience of the remobilization of the paramilitaries has shown (Steele 2016). However, collective demobilization with the risk of partial remobilization is still preferable over no
62 demobilization at all. Therefore, the possibility of remobilization is a reality that the Colombian government simply had to accept.
Security dilemma
Security considerations have received much attention in every peace process with an armed group. Yet, numerous examples exist of peace agreements being signed while the security dilemma turned out not to be sufficiently mitigated.
An example of collective demobilization while the security dilemma was very much present is that of the EPL. After they partially demobilized many of their former members were killed by other armed groups because they were seen as traitors (Human Rights Watch 1998). One could argue that EPL only partially demobilized because of these security concerns, but that does not explain why the highest leadership of the EPL did decide to sign the peace agreement. One explanation for this decision is that they simply miscalculated the state’s ability to protect their members after demobilization, or the ability and resolve of hostile armed groups to target their members. It is likely that EPL would not have decided to demobilize if they had known what the consequences would be.
An example where the security dilemma did play an important role is the peace process in 1991 with FARC and ELN. The assassination of UP members made these armed groups very sceptical of the state’s ability to guarantee their security after demobilization (Chernick 1999). Because of this, the dissolution of the AUC was often demanded as a precondition for negotiations (Angelo 2017).
Conflict intensity
Figure 5 and 6 below show the development of the number of deaths that the most important armed groups caused and suffered between 1989 and 201616. Figure 5 aims to depict the contribution that each of these armed groups has had on the perception of conflict intensity for the government. The total number of deaths they have caused in this graph means the total of civilian and government deaths. Likewise, figure 6 aims to depict the perception of damage felt for each of the armed groups. In the appendix, figures 8 to 12 provide additional information on conflict intensity.
16 The other armed groups are not included because there is not enough data on them to observe a trend. The data is obtained from the UCDP. 63
Total # Deaths caused 700 600 500 400 300 200 100
0
1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
By ELN total By FARC total By EPL total By AUC total
Figure 5
Total # Deaths suffered 1600 1400 1200 1000 800 600 400 200
0
1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
ELN Total FARC Total EPL Total AUC Total
Figure 6
In two instances, conflict intensity appears to be correlated to events in the peace process. First, the partial demobilization of the EPL in 1990 coincides with an unusual high number of deaths suffered by the EPL17. Second, the demobilization of the AUC coincides with a period of many casualties inflicted and suffered by this paramilitary organization. It is not unlikely that in these cases the high conflict intensity as perceived by both the government and the involved armed groups influenced their decision to reach a peace agreement.
In other cases, however, the correlation between conflict intensity and developments in the peace process is not as clear. For example, the final peace agreement with the FARC in 2016
17 See figure 1. 64 does not appear to be connected to high conflict intensity in any way. In the mid-1980s, several ceasefires were agreed on, while this period was not one with a high conflict intensity. Perhaps, the very absence of conflict intensity contributed to the eventual collapse of all of these ceasefires, since neither the armed groups nor the government perceived a MHS.
In the early 2000s, conflict intensity was at its peak. Most of this violence can be traced back to the AUC. This organization did demobilize in this period, but the FARC, EPL, and ELN did not. This observation challenges the causal connection between conflict intensity and collective demobilization. For any of these organizations and for the government, conflict intensity peaked at this moment, so it can be expected that they perceived a MHS. I argue that the absence of peace agreements with these armed groups can only be explained by looking at other relevant factors, such as the security dilemma, the limited prospects for reintegration because of Uribe, and the lack of a MHS because of the military momentum in favour of the government.
Conflict intensity, therefore seems to be neither a sufficient nor a necessary condition for collective demobilization to occur. This is due to the conditional relationship between conflict intensity and the ripeness of a conflict. The above analysis shows that high conflict intensity only leads to the perception of a MHS under certain conditions. Moreover, a MHS can also be perceived when conflict intensity is relatively low. Any conflict, however low its intensity, is in principle mutually hurting. For it to be perceived that way however, depends on a multitude of other factors.
Prospects for reintegration
Comparing different peace processes, it becomes clear that prospects for reintegration are more important for combatants who demobilize individually. For them, a good prospect for reintegration can be a sufficient condition to demobilize. For collective demobilization, good integration prospects are often merely a necessary precondition. Discourse from demobilizing armed groups reveals that they value a good prospect for reintegration, among other things because they value a reduction of the security dilemma.
The set of conditions summarised as prospects for reintegration seemed to be especially important in the peace process with the AUC. For them, the security dilemma was not as big of a concern as it was for the guerrilla groups, and the demands they had in the negotiation process were to a large extent limited to those concerning their reintegration prospects. This
65 could indicate that prospects for reintegration are relatively more important for pro-state militias than for opposition groups.
Over the course of the Colombian conflict, the prospect for reintegration has remained largely unchanged. Except those changes related to the security dilemma, the conditions offered by the government were relatively constant (Nasi 2009; Angelo 2017). Amnesty was offered already in 1982, and the conditions under which amnesty was promised fluctuated only slightly. For example, unconditional amnesty is not part of the recent peace deal with the FARC, while it was offered in the early 1990s (Stevenson 2017). Conditions such as the provision of a monthly sum of money for demobilized combatants and the provision of vocational training have not been cited by the leadership of armed groups as important factors in their decision to collectively demobilize.
Relatively high prospects for reintegration were present in all instances of successful peace processes within the analysed period, except for that of the FARC. From 1982 until 2016, several presidents had a negative attitude towards the armed groups, and were unwilling to give concessions. During these presidencies, armed groups would have been unable to secure good conditions for reintegration into Colombian society. In other words, the lack of perceived ripeness from the government side negatively influenced the expected prospects for reintegration for the active armed groups.
In this sense, prospect for reintegration does help to explain variation across time within the peace process of one armed group. However, it does not explain variation across different armed groups. With the exception of the demobilization process of the AUC, armed groups were not offered significantly different prospects for reintegration at a specific point in time. Still, their decision to demobilize or not greatly varied, which means that this variation is caused by other variables than prospects for reintegration.
Conclusion
From the previous analysis I conclude that two out of the five analysed factors were decisive in the Colombian peace process between 1982 and 2016. These factors are commitment problems, and the goals of an armed group. Individually they are insufficient but necessary to induce the collective demobilization of an armed group. However, a limitation of both commitment problems and the goals of an armed group does appear to have been sufficient for achieving collective demobilization in the context of Colombia.
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The other factors under analysis have all significantly impacted the peace process with the armed groups at different points in time, but cannot account for the observed variation in the dependent variable. The table below summarises the values of the two discussed variables for every important event in the peace process.
Table 418
Goals of the armed group Limited Ambitious M-19 CD 1990 FARC FN 1991 EPL CD (Partial) 1991 ELN FN 1991 Limited PRT CD 1991 ELN FN 2016 Commitment MAQL CD 1991 problems AUC CD 2003 FARC CD 2016 EPL Ceasefire 1984 FARC Ceasefire 1984 Severe M-19 Ceasefire 1984 FARC FN 1998 ELN FN 1998
6.7 Alternative arguments Five factors were selected for this analysis, of which two emerged as strongly correlated with events in the peace processes between armed groups and the government in Colombia. There are, however, additional factors which were beyond the scope of this research to include but may have a strong influence on the peace process. These are: the international context, availability of lootable resources, internal characteristics, and state capacity.
The international context seems to have played an important role. Particularly the end of the Cold War and defeat of socialist movements was cited by some of the demobilizing groups in the early 1990s as an important factor in their decision to collectively demobilize (Rampf & Navarro 2014). Similarly, the US’s War on Drugs likely influenced its decision to commence Plan Colombia, which significantly affected the dynamics of the conflict. International context
18 In this table, CD stands for Collective Demobilization, and FN stands for Failed Negotiations. 67 thus seems to be a relevant factor within the Colombian conflict, and explains some of the variation across time in the dependent variable. However, the international context was similar for every armed group at any specific point in time. Yet, different armed groups responded very differently to changes in the international context. Therefore, this factor, while relevant, cannot explain variation across different armed groups.
Another factor that Nasi (2009) uses in his analysis of armed groups in Colombia is the availability of lootable resources. He argues that a high availability of loot hinders the peace process. Lootable resources, especially relating to the drug trade, have severely affected the Colombian Conflict. The fact that Colombian armed groups were able to obtain a steady flow of income without external help has likely contributed to the intractability of the conflict (Norman 2017; Lustenberger 2012). Some variation in the availability of loot has occurred, for example with the aerial fumigation campaigns. However, given that the access to loot is largely the same between these groups that are operating in Colombia, it is unlikely that it has a significant impact on the observed variation between armed groups.
Walch (2014) compares civil war negotiations in the Philippines and Colombia, and argues that internal cohesion within an armed group is crucial for them to stay at the negotiation table and to ultimately sign a peace agreement. This argument seems to be particularly useful in explaining the unsuccessful peace process of the ELN. Both Pizarro (2009) and Valencia (2009) cite the horizontal structure and the limited internal cohesion within the ELN as one of the major factors preventing them from reaching a peace agreement. Internal cohesion is just one example of how internal characteristics influence the behaviour of armed groups. Unfortunately it was beyond the scope of this research to fully investigate this factor due to the limited availability of data, but internal characteristics appear to have significant explanatory potential in the analysis of peace processes with armed groups and should be addressed in further research.
DeRouen et al. (2010) posit that state capacity is the decisive factor explaining the success or failure of peace agreement implementation in the context of a civil war. In Colombia, a generally low state capacity appears to have contributed to the intractability of the conflict (McDougall 2009). Regardless of how it developed over time, important aspects of repressive capacity for the state such as territorial reach and ability to collect taxes have been poor compared to other countries in the region. The limited state capacity was especially problematic in the scarcely populated rural areas of Colombia, which have traditionally been the
68 strongholds of insurgency groups. In these areas, insurgency groups took over some of the government functions, providing them with more popular support and legitimacy (Richani 2013). Between 1982 and 2016, state capacity has gradually increased. While this may serve as an important factor explaining the gradual movement towards peace in Colombia, it is less valuable as a variable explaining specific developments in the peace process with armed groups. In this sense, it serves better as a contextual factor than a predicting variable.
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Chapter 7. Conclusion
In all instances of collective demobilization, the goals of the demobilizing armed group were relatively limited. These limited goals were either induced by changes in their ideological convictions or by decreasing capabilities and opportunities. Therefore, a limitation of the goals of the armed group appears to be a necessary precondition for collective demobilization to occur. Similarly, commitment problems were relatively limited in all instances of collective demobilization.
The security dilemma, conflict intensity, and prospects for reintegration all significantly affected the peace processes of armed groups in Colombia. Particularly the security dilemma was often cited by the leadership of armed groups as an important consideration within their decision-making process. However, some armed groups decided to demobilize in spite of a severe security dilemma. Therefore, this variable is not a good predictor of collective demobilization.
Conflict intensity and prospects for reintegration also fail to account for the observed variation in the dependent variable. Armed groups sometimes demobilized in a situation with low conflict intensity or did not demobilize in a situation with high conflict intensity. Prospects for reintegration were relatively similar for different armed groups at any specific point in time, but the armed groups still acted very differently.
Together, limited commitment problems and limited goals of an armed group appear to have been sufficient for collective demobilization to occur within the Colombian conflict. It must be noted, however, that the subjective character of these variables limits the explanatory power of these findings. In my analysis I have aimed to present the strongest evidence possible for the development of the values of all variables. Still, it should be noted that they cannot be objectively determined, and this is an important limitation of the present study.
Even with the establishment of variables that could be objectively determined there exist some more trivial limitation. While estimating the perceived conflict intensity for the involved parties 3 different datasets related to the number of casualties suffered and inflicted by the armed groups were used. The data was collected by respectable organisations including the UCDP and the CNMH. Still, data gathering in a conflict setting remains challenging, and some measurement errors may persist. Moreover, the perceived conflict intensity encompasses more
70 than just lethal violence. Data on other types of violence such as displacement and abduction have only been included in the analysis to a limited extent.
Another limitation of this study it that it has been conducted from outside of Colombia. Fieldwork in Colombia itself, perhaps consisting of interviews with the leadership of armed groups and important government officials, would have contributed to the analytical value of this thesis. Especially data on the internal workings of the armed groups would have enabled me to more accurately perceive the perspective of the armed groups in the peace process.
Despite these limitations, this thesis provides a valuable contribution to three emerging strands of literature related to peacebuilding in civil wars. First, it compares the peace processes of a pro-state militia (AUC) with those of insurgency groups (the guerrillas). The evidence in this study suggests that prospects for reintegration may be especially important for the demobilization of a pro-state militia. Further research should be done to corroborate this finding.
Second, it presents arguments related to the emerging literature on partial peace. The case of Colombia confirms Nilsson’s (2008) finding that reaching partial peace in a multi-party civil war is possible. The continued existence of rival armed groups after demobilization may exacerbate the security dilemma, but it also provides the state with a clear incentive to maintain their reputation as a trustworthy negotiating partner, thereby reducing commitment problems.
Third, the main finding of this thesis is the apparent importance of the goals of an armed group and commitment problems in a multi-party civil conflict. Moreover, this thesis finds that the security dilemma, conflict intensity, and prospects for reintegration are all relevant for the peace process, but are not necessary for collective demobilization to occur. Further research should test these finding in a cross-country setting, to see if they still hold for other countries that are experiencing civil conflict.
Next to that, it is the first study that provides a complete overview of the peace processes with the most important armed groups in Colombia up until 2016. Previous studies have given a similar overview, but were written before the final peace process with the FARC.
The horrendous consequences of civil war make it a crucial endeavour to analyse what factors influence the probability of collective demobilization. If the negotiation partners of armed groups gain a better understanding of what induces these groups to lay down their weapons, they may be able to speed up the peace process. Within Colombia, an adequate consideration
71 of the ideological convictions of the ELN together with sufficient attention for commitment problems may help to finally bring an end to the civil conflict.
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Chapter 9. Appendix
Selective Assassinations 1981-2012 2500
2000
1500
1000
# Assassinations # 500
0 1981 1984 1987 1990 1993 1996 1999 2002 2005 2008 2011 Year
Paramilitaries ELN FARC EPL Total
Figure 719
Selective Assassinations 1981-2012 250
200
150
100
50
0 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011
ELN FARC EPL
Figure 8
19 Source: CNMH 2013
81
Massacres 1980-2012 1600 1400 1200 1000 800
600 # Casualties # 400 200 0 1980 1983 1986 1989 1992 1995 1998 2001 2004 2007 2010
Paramilitaries FARC ELN EPL Total
Figure 920
Massacres 1980-2012 180 160 140 120 100 80
# Casualties # 60 40 20 0 1980 1983 1986 1989 1992 1995 1998 2001 2004 2007 2010
FARC ELN EPL
Figure 10
20 Source: CNMH 2013 82
Total # casualties 4000 3500 3000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500
0
1995 2007 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
Total Civilians Government Civ+Gov
Figure 1121
21 Source: UCDP. Total number of casualties in the Colombian civil conflict between 1989 and 2016. 83