Cuba was once again the scene of Colombian peace efforts. The first handshake between President Gustavo Petro and Antonio García, the supreme commander of the ELN guerrillas, last Friday in Havana was reminiscent of that between Juan Manuel Santos and Rodrigo Londoño, Timochenko, in the final stages of the peace negotiations with the defunct FARC. Both times they did it in front of the Cuban President who was hosting the event, yesterday Raúl…
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Cuba was once again the scene of Colombian peace efforts. The first handshake between President Gustavo Petro and Antonio García, the supreme commander of the ELN guerrillas, last Friday in Havana was reminiscent of that between Juan Manuel Santos and Rodrigo Londoño, Timochenko, in the final stages of the peace negotiations with the defunct FARC. Both times they did so in front of the Cuban President who acted as host, yesterday Raúl Castro, today Miguel Díaz-Canel.
The “bilateral, national and temporary” ceasefire was announced in the Cuban government’s protocol rooms in El Laguito, where some of the highlights of the long negotiations with the FARC were already taking place. The so-called “Cuba Accords” signed on Friday lay the foundation for both the ceasefire – initially for six months – and for civil society participation. These are unprecedented advances in a trial involving the National Liberation Army, the last armed guerrillas in Colombia. The table will return to Venezuela for the fourth cycle of talks, where negotiations began, and bid farewell to Havana with the first stone of total peace, a milestone that also marks reparations for the Caribbean island.
Petro thanked Cuba for decades of “hospitality” for peace in Colombia and, in his speech, retransmitted by the Presidency this Monday, described Cuba’s inclusion on the list of terrorism-supporting countries prepared by the United States as ” an act of profound diplomatic injustice”. as an address. He even said that at a recent meeting he asked President Joe Biden to correct this action because “it was an act of injustice that needs to be changed.” The government and guerrilla negotiators also expressed their thanks for the role played by the Cubans, who paid a high price for it.
The diplomatic hostility that characterized Iván Duque’s period (2018-2022) led Havana to end up once again on this blacklist, which entails the imposition of sanctions on individuals and countries carrying out certain commercial activities with Cuba. In his day, Duque, a harsh critic of the agreement with the FARC, took over the negotiations with the ELN that his predecessor Juan Manuel Santos had started. But he ended it after the guerrilla attack on a cadet school in Bogotá in January 2019 that claimed 23 lives, and after the break, Duque pretended to ignore protocols signed by the parties – including the guarantee countries – leaving the rebel delegation in Cuba in limbo. The island, under the protection of the protocols, refused to extradite them.
When Donald Trump’s administration called Cuba a “state sponsor of terrorism” in January 2021, just nine days after leaving the White House, it based its decision on the Colombian’s repeated claims. Cuba was removed from the list in 2015, and Trump’s latest move derailed efforts by Democrat Barack Obama’s administration to rebuild ties with the communist island, a historic Cold War enemy. It also complicated a potential thaw for Biden.
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At stake are not only a possible rapprochement with the ELN or the United States’ relations with Cuba, “but also the possibility of carrying out peace negotiations”, warned Humberto de la Calle and Sergio Jaramillo, the architects of the agreement with Cuba FARC, writing defended the role that the island has fulfilled as a guarantor country alongside Norway. Santos himself, supported by the group of world leaders assembled in the organization The Elders, called on Biden to revoke this designation. “Cuba should be commended for its crucial role in ending decades of conflict and facilitating reconciliation in Colombia and not face sanctions for doing so,” the Nobel Peace Prize winner said in February 2021. Petro has joined in the clamor.
Relations between Bogotá and Havana have returned to the state they were in before Duque with Petro, representing a bracket in Colombia’s diplomatic tradition, says internationalist Sandra Borda. “Virtually all governments have understood that it is very difficult to carry out a negotiation process with guerrilla groups in Colombia without Cuba’s participation,” emphasizes an actor who inspires confidence in them. Colombia, in turn, is helping to reintegrate Cuba into the international community and normalize its relations with Washington. But removing Havana from the famous list it shares with countries like Syria, Iran and North Korea is unlikely given the political transition the United States is going through, warns the scholar from the Universidad de Los Andes. “The Biden administration will try to move into the political center, which includes being a bit tougher on immigration and not becoming too flexible or flexible with Cuba,” he estimates.
Since taking office from Duque, the Petro government has refocused Colombian diplomacy on the cause of “total peace,” its flagship policy of more resolutely implementing the deal with the FARC, engaging in dialogue with the ELN, and pushing a policy of submission for criminal groups like the Clan del Golfo. Negotiations with the ELN, which arose precisely under the influence of the Cuban Revolution more than half a century ago, also go through Havana, a partner in the search for peace.
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