April 16, 2007

The Prospects for Peace in Colombia

by Garry Leech

While some are holding out hope for success in the peace talks currently being conducted between the Uribe administration and the National Liberation Army (ELN), there is virtually no possibility of the current government achieving peace with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). However, there is reason to be cautiously optimistic regarding the possibility that a post-Uribe government and the FARC could reach a negotiated peace.

While President Alvaro Uribe’s popularity has not yet been significantly affected by the current “para-politics” scandal, increasing numbers of politicians allied with him have been linked to the country’s right-wing paramilitary death squads. Even if Uribe manages to remain above the scandal, he is constitutionally barred from running for a third term and so a new president will be elected in 2010. At this point, that election appears to be wide open. The para-politics scandal could be the final death knell for Colombia’s traditional parties, leading to the possibility that voters will look elsewhere for leadership. This could open the door for the presidential candidate of the center-left Polo Democrático to win the presidency and for the party to gain a significant number of seats in Congress. The appeal of the Polo at the national level was evident in last year’s presidential election when the party’s candidate Carlos Gaviria finished second, ahead of the Liberal Party candidate. In other words, we could see Colombia in 2010 follow the path of Brazil, Venezuela and Bolivia as voters become so disenchanted with the traditional political elites that they begin seeking alternatives.

But even if such a scenario were to unfold, three other factors would also have to occur if there is to be any possibility of achieving peace following the 2010 elections:

1. The FARC has always maintained that the dismantling of the paramilitaries is a pre-requisite to negotiating a cease-fire agreement. While President Alvaro Uribe’s peace talks and demobilization of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) has more closely resembled a restructuring than a dismantling, there is an important difference in the new generation of paramilitaries. While the AUC was deeply involved in criminal activities such as drug trafficking, it was also ideologically motivated with the defining factor of its ideology being a fierce anti-communism. There is increasing evidence, however, that many groups belonging to the new generation of paramilitaries are primarily organized crime networks and less ideologically driven. In other words, they more closely resemble the gangs that evolved in Central American countries following the peace processes in that region. This of course does not mean that the dirty war in Colombia is coming to an end, after all, some of the new paramilitary groups are just as ruthless in dealing with those engaged in social justice when they feel their interests are being threatened. However, the ideology of anti-communism does not appear to be as prominent a factor in the violence perpetrated by the new groups as it was with the AUC. Any possibility of a Polo Democrático victory in 2010 is dependent on the new generation of paramilitaries not exterminating the party’s candidates in a replication of the virtual eradication of the leftist Patriotic Union party in the 1980s. While there were several Polo candidates assassinated during last year’s congressional campaigns, the fact that mass executions of the party’s members did not occur is the first positive sign that center-left politicians might be able to engage in the electoral process in Colombia and that the new generation of paramilitaries are not as focused on politics. A Polo Democrático victory would also depend on a resolution of the para-politics scandal that ensures any remaining old school AUC members no longer control the electoral processes in northern Colombia.

2. The Polo Democrático’s presidential candidate in 2010 would most likely have to be more ideologically aligned with Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez than Brazil’s Inácio Lula da Silva. Such a candidate would increase the possibility of achieving peace with the FARC because any negotiated end to the conflict would require the government commit itself to implementing far-reaching social and economic changes that challenge the increasingly unpopular neoliberal model that has been installed over the past twenty years. The Pastrana administration’s failure to consider any such economic restructuring was a key reason that the last peace process stalled on the first negotiating point and ultimately failed. The peaceful election of a center-left government willing to implement many of the social and economic policies that the FARC itself is calling for would eliminate the rebel group’s justification for engaging in armed struggle.

3. A Polo Democrático government that challenges the neoliberal model could only survive if Colombia’s economic elites, the military and the United States accept the legitimacy of that democratically-elected government. A potential deterrent to a post-election coup might be the regional political climate in which center-left regimes have become the norm and a military coup that overthrows a democratically elected center-left government in Colombia would most likely isolate the country. In the past, it was easy for the United States to marginalize leftist governments in Latin America because most of the regimes in the region were closely allied with Washington. That situation has changed dramatically in recent years, making it much more difficult for the United States to isolate leaders like Venezuela’s Chávez and Bolivia’s Evo Morales. Consequently, the current regional political climate makes the survival of a center-left regime in Colombia more feasible than at any time in the country’s history.

While it is clear that achieving such a peace in Colombia would require several delicate pieces of the political jigsaw puzzle to fall perfectly into place, it is not entirely inconceivable. Consequently, while still a long shot, the prospects for peace in Colombia are better than they have been in decades.

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