Peace with the FARC guerrillas must be signed by 22 February to be put to a referendum on 25 October; the day of Colombia’s local and regional elections.
Colombia’s Constitutional Court has ruled that President Santos must present any peace agreement with the Marxist rebels to Congress no later than 24 February, and that the public must be told in advance of this date.
At Christmas next year there will be extra cause for goodwill in Colombia. In 2014 the FARC guerrillas will sign an end to their self-proclaimed war against the state, silencing the guns that have taken over 220,000 lives in 50 years of bloodshed.
Two generations of Colombians, the majority of the nation, have only known conflict. Officially there are 6 million victims; but the truth is, the entire nation has been scarred by decades of brutal and degrading violence. Read more…
Colombia´s government and the rebel guerrilla group the FARC last week signed an historic agreement on land reform as part of the peace processs currently underway in Havana, Cuba. Over the last few days I have looked at the detail of this agreement and analysed the historical context of previous violent and failed attempts at land reform in Colombia. This third article looks at the possible interests at work behind this reform.
So whose interests does this reform serve?
Supporters are correct, this reform would never be able to pass in Colombia’s extremely conservative, oligarchic, co-opted, and paramilitarized democracy.
For some, this negotiation represents an opportunity for a social transformation that is as necessary as it is impossible in Colombia’s political system.
Of course the ultimate goal of the talks in Havana is a demobilization of the guerrilla force, but the FARC did not appear out of thin air, and they are the (some would say misguided/arrogant) product of centuries of marginalization of the peasantry.
So will the Agrarian Reform not only reform land, but the power relationships which keep the Colombian peasantry in a state of displacement and exploitation?
Economic Interests
Firstly, the deal says that land will not be taken from those who have acquired their land “legitimately”. But…
Much of the violently expropriated land has the paperwork to prove its legality; the former AUC paramilitary leader Vicente Castaño´s African Palm Oil cultivations, for example.
And the logic of this reform is contradictory. It assumes the “legal” concentration of land (which even before paramilitarism, and even La Violencia, was soaked in violence) is some how ethical or tolerable.
The government will not go after land owners who have gained their wealth “honestly”, but this surely goes against the philosophy of the President’s landmark Victim’s Law which has a reverse onus of proof (the land owner has to prove that the land was acquired through legal means).
Agrarian Reform for me will also have very little impact when we consider the rise of Free Trade Agreements, which appear to be the new economic threat to the Colombian peasantry. Colombian exports to the US have already decreased, but Colombian imports from the US have increased.
How is the Colombian peasant supposed to compete against heavily subsidized Canadian, American, and European agricultural goods?
How is the Colombian peasant supposed to protect their land from Canadian, American, and British mining corporations?
The answer is that he is “encouraged” to become a part of agribusiness.
The Agrarian Reform promotes a more “productive” countryside and food security” but it says nothing of food sovereignty which the Colombian peasant movement has been struggling for.
For whom is the countryside supposed to be more “productive”? Who will gain – rural Colombians, the majority of whom live in poverty, or European, American, and Canadian consumers of coffee, roses, bananas, and palm oil?
One of Colombia´s leading political publications La Silla Vacia argues:
“Agribusiness will win because – if one day these accords are implemented – there will finally be a real land market in Colombia, something vital for global competitiveness”.
A reform for the few not the many, but why?
So if the reform instead of being transformative is in fact for the benefit of the business class why was this?
I believe it is a question of democracy, representation and power.
First – the only people who get heard are those at the table.
The FARC leadership is represented by Ivan Marquez, Pablo Catatumbo, and Andres Paris, among others, while the government has brought together the Bogota elite, with former Vice-President, Supreme Court Magistrate, and architect of the 1991 constitution Humberto De La Calle; Sergio Jaramillo, who was Santos’ right-hand man as Defence Minister and is seen as one of the chief planners behind Uribe’s “Democratic Security” counter-terrorism strategy; Oscar Naranjo and Jorge Mora, representing the Police and the Army, respectively; and of course, Luis Carlos Villegas, President of the National Association of Entrepreneurs, who’s daughter had once been kidnapped by the FARC.
So, who is not at the table?
Afro-Colombians, indigenous people, displaced people, people representing victims´ groups, the peasantry, working people, women, refugees, youth/former forced combatants, and most importantly people representing the communities which still live under the occupation of the FARC guerrillas. In short anyone that either doesn’t represent the Colombian political and economic establishment, the State institutions of violence, or armed rebels.
Santos and the FARC really don’t have any broad support.
Meanwhile the true holders of power when it comes to the land issue is the landed elite represented by the association of cattle-ranchers, FEDEGAN, and their President Jose Felix LaFaurie, and, of course Alvaro Uribe. But Uribe, LaFaurie, and the uribista land-owning class have vehemently opposed the talks, let alone influence the decisions made at the table.
So at the peace table, no one really has any legitimate mandate to say anything on behalf of “Colombians”.
Sure, civil society has been “consulted” within the peace process, having the opportunity to send in proposals to the negotiators online, through forums in the capital, or regional initiatives for peace, but is this anything more than just tokenism?
There is talk of the FARC wanting to create a Popular Assembly to ratify any Peace Agreement, while the government says it is committed to holding a referendum, but even this does not give the Colombian people a proper voice.
The choice will be a false one. Either support an imposed peace or we´re going back to war.
An historic agreement after all?
The Agrarian Reform agreement may indeed be historic. It is a positive sign that this time around the FARC are serious about a negotiated settlement.
The true root causes of the conflict – the relationship between the different classes of Colombia to land, and of that tension to armed violence – however, has only been partially addressed.
The voices of those most affected haven’t really been heard at the table.
The government and an echo chamber of journalists, pundits, politicians, and others are claiming that this will be a sustainable solution to the issue at the root of social and political conflict in Colombia.
Yet it seems that this agreement is far from transformative – it does not subvert how power works in Colombia, but instead reinforces it.
The government, through the negotiations in Havana, represents those Colombians who apparently are the only ones who have ever mattered in its eyes – those with land or guns.
Simon is the owner of the website The Banana Plutocracy
Photo Jorge Silva.
Six months ago, Colombian government officials and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) came together in Oslo, Norway to negotiate an end to Latin America’s longest running conflict. Time then to reflect on what has happened since.
Both sides are negotiating on a five points, agrarian development, political participation, the end of the armed conflict, drug trafficking and the rights of the victims. But despite the parties making the right noises on the search for a sustainable peace, fundamental differences have been present from day one. It has been a frustrating period in which nothing – officially – has been agreed, (although the government has been hinting over the past few weeks that an announcement on agrarian reform is imminent).
The high point of the negotiations came in November, when the FARC announced a two month long, unilateral ceasefire. Such a move was intended to create an environment of peace with which the two parties could move forward. The extent to which the ceasefire was upheld throughout the FARC’s ranks however, is up for debate. The Colombian military claimed a total of 52 FARC responsible incidents of violence took place throughout the supposed ceasefire.
The top brass in Havana may have intended the two months to pass peacefully, but the FARC is a fragmented organization; something Matt Ince of the Royal United Services Institute see as the major stumbling block to lasting peace. The ability of the FARC secretariat to enforce a peace accord across its ranks is frankly unknown, and untested.
Ince argues that, as the ideological unity of the FARC has faded, alliances with serious organised crime groups across the country have grown. As a result, the formation of FARC splinter groups (interested more in the lucrative business of drug trafficking than in the political objectives of Iván Márquez and co) in the coming months is, for Ince, a very real possibility.
Throughout the talks former President Alvaro Uribe has been vocal in his disapproval, describing them as ‘…legitimising the terrorism of the FARC’. Uribe, said to building a force to fit the congressional and presidential elections next year, is using this stance against the talks as a political platform. His campaign message is effectively, yes to peace, no to FARC impunity.
Uribe attracts a significant following among those within the influential land owning, entrepreneurial and military sectors who oppose the peace process.
While Uribe´s vocal opposition should have no direct bearing on the outcome of the negotiations, it does little to aid the talks, and there can be no doubt that the slow progress of negotiations is damaging to Santos politically. His current approval rating of 47% is the lowest since he took office, and confidence in the talks within the society is falling.
The truth is, the two parties have found it virtually impossible to progress beyond the first point of negotiation. Talks on agrarian development are in to their eight round of discussions.
Land reform is seen as the key to tackling the social and economic disparity that exists throughout Colombia, the key reason behind the inception of the FARC in 1964. The FARC have been vocal in their belief that large land and farms in particular should be handed over to the poorest communities, while their disdain for foreign investment, in particular the oil and mining industries has been expressed in numerous attacks, including pipeline bombings.
While no official agreement regarding this topic has been announced however, the understanding from Havana is that an agreement is close. Both parties have reached a preliminary consensus, a significant achievement in itself (which starts to position these talks in a different light to the last negotiations in Caguán.
It´s fair to say the teams began with perhaps the hardest topic of all – both in terms of what changes the government can promise without proposing a dramatic rethink of the Colombian state and her economic model, and what the FARC is willing to concede to.
It is understood that the FARC have relaxed their demands regarding large farm lands, and only seek those that are unproductive to be turned over to the peasant communities. The discrepancies regarding foreign investment however likely remain, and may yet provide a significant stumbling block to an agreement.
If an agreement on point one of the agenda can be pushed over the line then it is possible to see the development of sufficient trust between the parties to make the subsequent battles less arduous.
Both sides are pushed for time. Santos needs the agreement quickly for his re-election hopes, while the FARC – despite what they claim – will be aware that with Uribismo in the congress and a complicated presidential election by mid next year their hope of leaving the battle field to take up a role in the parliament will be significantly diminished.
Photo EFE