Author: Mónica Paola Galvis Aldana (Bogotá, Colombia)
The Havana Peace Agreement signed on november 24th of 2016 between the colombian government and the biggest guerilla group, Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia -Ejército del Pueblo (FARC - EP, in its Spanish acronym) was the third major attempt to reach a negotiated agreement with this group. This process was supposed to put an end to the Colombian protracted conflict, one of the longest in the Western Hemisphere (IPI, 2017, p.1). Nevertheless, up to five years after its implementation many people are wondering if Colombia is really in a postconflict stage or if the conflict is still latent. The first part of this essay discusses the particularities of a protracted social conflict and why Colombia can be classified as one, while the second part analyzes if this peace agreement has been able to change any of these particularities in order to establish if it meant the end of Colombian protracted conflict.
Protracted social conflict: The Colombian Case
Following Edward Azar, the critical factor in protracted social conflict is “the prolonged and often violent struggle by communal groups for such basic needs as security, recognition and acceptance, fair access to political institutions and economic participation” . And it usually “involve resistance by various peoples against domination, exclusion, persecution, or dispossession of lands and resources, by the post-colonial state” (Azar cited in Ramsbotham, 2005, p. 109). Also, this term emphasizes that the sources of those conflicts lay predominantly within and across rather than exclusively between states. Azar refers to protracted social conflicts (PSC) as a mix between: 1) A colonial legacy artificially imposed. 2) Deprivation of human needs. 3) Incompetent, parochial, fragile, and authoritarian governments that fail to satisfy basic human needs and 4) Political-economic relations of economic dependency within the international economic system.
One of the principal roots of the Colombian armed conflict is definitively rural discontent. Indeed, Colombian agrarian conflicts have been associated with a permanent extension of the agrarian frontier, as well as the eviction of settlers (Peña-Huertas, Ruíz, et al, 2017, p.760). Even though, there has been efforts to implement an agrarian reform since 1958[1], corruption and other factors such as limited availability of funds, didn’t make that happen, generating frustration among those who needed aid (Offstein, 2003, p. 103).
Another one is political exclusion. After the independence of Colombia, the country experienced power shifts between Conservative Political and Liberal Political Parties. Especially between 1930 and 1947, the Conservative showed a belligerent opposition to the Liberal Party which ended up in the assesination of the liberal leader: Jorge Eliecer Gaitán, causing the uprising known as ‘El Bogotazo’ and starting the ‘violence’ period. This situation led to a lot of instabilities in the political landscape, including the promotion of guerrillas by the liberal party and the decision of the political conservative class to strike a coup led by General Rojas Pinilla. Nevertheless, many opposed the regime and pushed for his retirement. Summarizing, the leader of both prominent Political Parties signed the National Front, an agreement signed in 1954 which alternated the power between the elites every four years in order to reduce violence during four periods (16 years). This “ensured that neither liberals nor conservatives would be excluded from power, while cutting the way to possible political parties” (Torregrosa & Torregrosa, p. 101, 2013).
Consequently, the first point of the peace agreement (Towards a New Colombian Countryside) included a comprehensive rural reform that “lays the foundation for the structural transformation of the countryside, creates conditions for well-being of the rural population thereby contributing to the building of a stable and long-lasting peace”. Altogether with the second point of the accord (Political Participation: a democratic opportunity to build peace) which aimed for “an expansion of democracy to allow new forces to emerge on the political scene in order to enrich debate and deliberation, thereby strengthening pluralism” (Final Agreement, 2016)[2]. In other words, the two main pillar points of the peace agreement addressed rural discontent and political exclusion in Colombia. Those meant to visibilize and recognize thousands of civilians who have been living unworthily due to the conflict.
¿What happened after the signing of the Havana Peace Agreement?
The implementation of the Accord is the main tool for peacebuilding in Colombia because it addressed the principle roots of the conflict. Nonetheless, the comprehensive rural reform has only been implemented completely at 4%. While the second point regarding political participation is completed at 12%. Which is really low compared to the point 6 “implementation, verification and public endorsement” with the highest level of implementation at 54% (Kroc Institute, 2020). The last one entails an international verification component, as well as a multi partner trust fund of the United Nations for peacebuilding which leads to the idea that the international community is really committed to the cause, while the national government is not willing to fulfill the peace accord.
Also the rate of murders against social leaders has risen at unprecedented rates. According to the Institute for Development and Peace Studies (Instituto de Estudios para el Desarrollo y la Paz - Indepaz), 872 social leaders and human rights defenders were killed between 2016 and 2019. The motivations of these killings are related to the work done by social leaders overall to promote the implementation of the peace agreement, which includes crops substitutions programs and the defense of the natural resources (Insight Crime, 2020). So far in 2021, 115 signatories of the agreement and 36 former FARC -EP combatants have been killed (Indepaz, 2021). In addition, the conditions generated by the pandemic during 2020 and 2021 have only exacerbated the civilian’s notion that the system structure and it’s inequalities hasn’t changed at all.
Conclusion
As it has been exposed in the document, the main causes of the colombian armed conflict were addressed in the peace accords, generating a hope in the termination of the colombian protracted social conflict. However, after five years of implementation it is clear that it is not fully achieving its objectives of transforming the social context of the country. Mostly due to the lackness of voluntariness of the government. Therefore, it is possible to say that Colombia can be still classified as protracted social conflict and as long as there is: political exclusion, stigmatization of social leaders/ human rights defenders and land grabbing or dispossession, the country’s landscape won’t significantly change.
[1] In the government of Lleras Camargo coordinated through the Community Action program.
[2] There were four more: 3. Agreement on the Bilateral and Definitive Ceasefire and Cessation of Hostilities and Laying down of Arms, 4. Solution to the Illicit Drugs Problem, 5. Victims, 6. Implementation and verification mechanisms.
References
del Pilar Peña-Huertas, R., Ruiz, L. E., Parada, M. M., Zuleta, S., & Álvarez, R. (2017). Legal dispossession and civil war in Colombia. Journal of Agrarian Change, 17(4), 759-769. https://doi.org/10.1111/joac.12233
Final Agreement. (2016). Final Agreement to End the Armed Conflict to build a Stable and Lasting Peace. http://especiales.presidencia.gov.co/Documents/20170620-dejacion-armas/acuerdos/acuerdo-final-ingles.pdf
Indepaz. (2021). Líderes sociales, defensores de DDHH y firmantes del acuerdo asesinados en 2021. Observatorio de DDHH, Conflictividades y Paz. http://www.indepaz.org.co/lideres-sociales-y-defensores-de-derechos-humanos-asesinados-en-2021/
International Peace Institute (IPI). (2017). Made in Havana: How Colombia and the FARC decided to end the War. https://www.ipinst.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/IPI-Rpt-Made-in-Havana.pdf
Insight Crime. (2020). Overview of Violence against Social Leaders in Colombia. https://insightcrime.org/news/analysis/overview-violence-social-leaders-colombia/
Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. (December 2019 - Novembre 2020). The Colombian Final Agreement in the Era of COVID-19: Instituional and Citizen ownership is Key to Implementation. https://curate.nd.edu/downloads/9k41zc80x9j
Offstein, N. (2003). “An Historical Review and Analysis of Colombian Guerrilla Movements: FARC, ELN and EPL” in Desarrollo y Sociedad. https://revistas.uniandes.edu.co/doi/pdf/10.13043/dys.52.4
Torregrosa, R & Torregrosa, N. (2013). Violence and Colombian Politics. Verba Iuris, pp. 97-109.
Ramsbotham, O. (2005). “The Analysis of Protracted Social Conflict: a tribute to Edward Azar” in Review of International Studies, p.109-126.
