Peace: Colombia, Northern Ireland and Spain

This Tuesday I took part in a debate on the peace processes in Spain and Northern Ireland and what these conflicts can tell us about the prospects for peace in Colombia.

The talk was for the Instituto de Altos Estudios and the Mayoralty of Bogotá, and I was accompanied on the panel by Jaime Ferri, Doctor in Political Science and a professor at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, and Frédéric Massé, Doctor in Political Science and International Relations and co-director of CIPE at the Universidad Externado de Colombia.

We began our talks from the premise that the specific context and evolution of each individual conflict prohibits a direct comparison between one and the other. The damage caused, the societal scars and the “gasoline” that fuels the conflicts are necessarily particular.

However, there are lessons we can learn, analyses we can draw from both Ireland and Spain which can help us view with a more critical eye the proceedings in Havana.

In the case of Ireland we can see that the society has emerged from the “troubles”, enjoying over a decade of sustained economic growth following the signing of the Good Friday agreement in 1998. We can also point to the fact that violence is significantly down and that, crucially, the involvement of the Catholic community in the political process has moved the debate away from the death count and on to what changes can be delivered by a democratically elected representative. The balaclavaed paramilitaries of yesterday have been replaced by the suited politicians of today.

Of course it´s not that simple. Peace never is. Violence is still present in Northern Ireland, and the communities have failed to integrate, to de-segregate. Over 90 so called peace walls keep one side away from the other. Berlin had just the one wall – this is not a peace based on mutual respect and harmonious inter-relation.

Peace talks are just the beginning of the peace process. It´s been a long and arduous path to peace. There remains a long way to travel.

Politicians themselves cannot create peace. They can sign agreements with terrorists to give up their arms, but peace comes from the communities, the people, from within us all. Peace agreements can create the conditions in which peace is given a chance to prosper, to grow. We would be foolish to expect Colombia to resolve her problems any quicker than Ireland or any other post-war society.

The video of the conference will soon by up on the Instituto de Altos Estudios Europeos. In the meantime, here are three short clips, where I´m answering questions put forward by the audience.

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