A woman hugs a hostage recently released by FARC dissidents in Tacueyo on September 26. Andres Quintero (AP)
The peace agreement agreed on November 24, 2016 between the Colombian government and the former FARC guerrillas has passed the middle of a 15-year horizon intended for its implementation. a road full of bumps and climbs. The respite that accompanied the signing at the Teatro Colón in Bogotá was sealed with a handshake between the then President of the Republic, Juan Manuel Santos, and the last commander of the subversive group, Rodrigo Londoño – who, before the signing, went by the pseudonym Timochenko was known to jump into a life without weapons – has contracted.
The country is facing a new climate of violence, especially in the areas where dissident groups such as the Central General Staff and other illegal organizations such as the ELN – the last armed guerrilla – and the Clan del Golfo – a group of former paramilitaries – are based linked to the drug trade that dominates the illegal passage of migrants through the Darién Gap – increased and dispersed like ants in the years following the demobilization of the majority of FARC members.
The kidnapping numbers are similar to those of a decade ago, when it was considered Colombia’s largest irregular army. In areas far from the gaze of central power, communities face forced displacement, imprisonment and extortion. Between Monday and Wednesday of this week alone, five massacres and two murders of social leaders demonstrated once again the reality that for a time seemed to be the misfortune of the past. Before the wounds of more than half a century of conflict heal, more will be opened.
In municipalities such as Cartagena del Chairá (Caquetá) or Tibú (Norte de Santander) in the Catatumbo region, the main coca-growing enclave on the border with Venezuela, mayors have had to govern from exile due to threats. The indigenous and Afro-Colombian population also continues to bear the burden of the war. The Vice President France Marquez recognized the need to achieve more concrete achievements in the ethnic chapter of the peace agreement.
The current portrayal of the conflict has the backdrop of an implementation with timid and questionable progress in the government of former President Iván Duque, Santos’ successor. Seven years after signing with the FARC, President Gustavo Petro, the first left-wing president in modern-day Colombia, faces major challenges in accelerating comprehensive rural reforms and achieving the change in drug policy he championed, two of the central points of the text.
Both challenges intersect with the pursuit of total peace, the simultaneous negotiations with several illegal armed groups and criminal gangs, which brought little progress and many setbacks, as reflected in the recent dismissal of Peace Commissioner Danilo Rueda.
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The lack of equal access to land is at the root of the armed conflict that has taken deeper roots in Colombia and represents one of the biggest gaps in the implementation of the agreement. The document considers “structural change in rural areas” with a gender focus and appropriate land use. That not only is the ownership of titles secure, but that it is more productive in a country with the paradox of being an agricultural power where 28 out of 100 households are at risk of starvation.
To achieve this, it orders a land fund for comprehensive rural reform of 3 million hectares and the massive formalization of small and medium rural properties with another 7 million hectares. Of this, President Petro claimed last July to have approved one million hectares, an inaccurate figure that caused controversy within the Cabinet itself and was adjusted to 240,000 hectares. It currently stands at 450,640, according to an official accountant set up by the Agriculture Ministry to improve transparency following the confusion. Of the 3 million in the fund, 61,255 hectares are, 12% of the 500,000 hectare target set by the government for this year.
The Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations and head of the UN Verification Mission in Colombia, Carlos Ruiz Massieu, points out that agrarian reform lagged behind in the early years. “Fortunately, the current government has made this issue a priority. In fact, there is currently greater progress in rural reform than before,” he states in a dialogue with EL PAÍS.
For her part, the former Minister of Agriculture in the Petro government, Cecilia López, warns that there is still a lack of coordination between the entities responsible for the reform in the Interinstitutional Coordination System, a mandatory mechanism that made the National Development Plan possible. He is also concerned about the gaps in complete peace that complicate the already steep path to compliance with the agreement with the FARC.
“Violence hurts the rural sector the most. Today we came back to the story that the landowners themselves told about people not returning to their farms, especially large-scale farms such as rice or palm. It is very serious, it is history repeating itself from before the peace process and of small farmers experiencing massacres and kidnappings. Are we at war again? It is the question that deserves an answer from the government,” he questions.
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The intensification of the conflict in the territories not only poses a threat to rural areas, but also makes it more difficult to break the illicit drug trafficking chains, the main financial strength of armed groups. The peace agreement made it clear that, from a public health perspective, a definitive and comprehensive solution to the problem of illicit drugs, from production to consumption, must be found.
Efforts focused more on the comprehensive national illicit crop substitution program than on prevention strategies, comprehensive anti-consumption interventions and the national consumer support system, and other measures included in the agreement. The images show sterile results.
According to the United Nations Integrated Illicit Crops Monitoring System (Simci) report, the country set a new record for coca cultivation at the end of 2022 with 230,000 hectares under cultivation, compared to 204,000 the previous year. According to the Colombian Drug Monitoring Center, 843,905 hectares of coca cultivation were forcibly eradicated between 2012 and 2022, but the area under cultivation increased by 327% during the same period. One step was taken forward and three steps back.
Ana María Rueda, drug policy analyst, regrets that the substitution program has not achieved its goals. “Although there has been progress in operations and investments, the results are nil. The plan failed to reduce families’ dependence on illegal crops. “This is very unfortunate,” he explains.
When the program was launched, it provided access to areas previously not possible due to FARC control. However, this space has been reduced by the presence of other armed groups in producing communities where poverty rates are above the national average.
“The state has not arrived through public authority and other institutions, or not with the expected strength. Unfortunately, the armed groups present in the areas are strengthening their positions or expanding their influence in the communities, so the security and initial benefits perceived with the signing of the agreements have been lost over time,” adds the head of the UN verification mission added.
Rueda, also a researcher at the Ideas for Peace Foundation (FIP), believes that the drug problem is hardly left in the agreement. “The challenge is to renegotiate with farming families and build relationships of trust that did not exist in the previous government. There is a large window of opportunity in this, but it was not used,” he says.
President Petro defends the need to change the anti-drug strategy. “The war on drugs has failed,” he declared in his first speech to world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly in September 2022. A year later, he launched a new national policy based on “oxygen” for farmers Supporting the transition to legal economy and “suffocation” for criminal organizations. The goal is to reduce illegal coca cultivation to 90,000 hectares by 2026. “The proposal points in the right direction, but does not suggest how the country will create the capacity of the state to be able to achieve these goals,” the expert points out.
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There is clearer progress in the area of political participation. The Comunes party, made up of former members of the FARC, is completing its second term in the Congress of the Republic, where it has five seats in the Senate and five in the House of Representatives until 2026. This year they have to convince voters to keep their seats. In the last parliamentary elections, after a four-year delay, the 16 peace seats were created and were filled by representatives of the victims.
Meanwhile, other signatories to the agreement have managed to start new lives without the burden of guns. “International cooperation was crucial. They supported us in productive initiatives related to housing construction, such as a stone factory, a carpentry workshop and a transport truck and dump truck,” celebrates Abelardo Caicedo, one of the 162 signatories from the Tierra Grata region in the Department of Cessation.
But reintegration, Caicedo makes clear, did not have the same face everywhere. Forced relocations have occurred in some areas, such as Vistahermosa (Meta), where dozens of families were forced to flee last July. According to the Institute for Development and Peace Studies, Indepaz, 402 signatories and 1,561 social leaders have been murdered since the peace agreement was signed.
The UN Verification Mission in Colombia highlights achievements such as the consolidation of the final report of the Truth Commission and the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), the transitional justice mechanism for crimes committed before December 1, 2016, as part of the comprehensive system of truth, justice, reparation and Non-repetition.
“The fact that a former guerrilla admits to having committed war crimes just a few years after a peace agreement was concluded is something historic that does not happen in many parts of the world. “There is very important progress,” emphasizes Ruíz Massieu.
Ángela María Ballesteros, mother of Ángela Yesenia Briñez, a person from Roncesvalles (Tolima) murdered on July 11, 2002, agrees with the importance of taking steps towards reconciliation. “For me, this process was very valuable because it helped me heal many wounds in the victims’ encounters with those responsible. You learn to forgive. “It is as if I have rested, a burden has been lifted from my shoulders, but I hope that before I go to the grave they will reveal to me the truth about the death of my daughter, which I have been waiting for,” he says .
The agreement on the peace agreement, which the United Nations says is likely the youngest in the world, represents a historic achievement. “The invitation is to renew the commitment to redouble efforts, particularly in areas that have been left behind, and “I think that is what we all strive for,” concludes Carlos Ruíz Massieu, representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
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