IBEROAMERICA: Peace in Colombia – New Common Int’l Objective

By Estrella Gutiérrez Reprint | | Print |

Estrella Gutierrez

MARGARITA ISLAND, Venezuela, Nov 6 1997 (IPS) - On the occasion of the Seventh Iberian American Summit, Colombia will take a big step towards firmly inserting the pacification of its territory onto the international agenda, said Venezuelan Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Burelli.

The Caribbean island of Margarita, off Venezuela’s northeastern coast, will host this weekend’s summit of heads of state and government of 19 Latin American countries plus Spain and Portugal.

Besides participating in the summit, Colombian President Ernesto Samper will attempt to accelerate “the process of formation of a Group of Friends to boost future, gradual negotiations” for peace in Colombia, said that country’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Clemencia Forero.

One of the key meetings to run parallel to the annual summit will be a gathering between Samper and his counterparts from Costa Rica, Spain, Mexico and Venezuela, who at the September UN General Assembly formalised their decision to support peace in Colombia.

And several delegations that began to hold preparatory meetings Wednesday prior to the summit in the city of Porlamar on Margarita, as well as Burelli himself, said peace in Colombia would be one of the key issues discussed during the leaders’ closed-door meeting on Sunday.

In his gathering with the group of four countries, “Samper will report on the scope of possibilities for peace, what is and isn’t feasible and to what extent we can act,” Burelli told IPS.

The group is an informal “group of friends for now, a goodwill or contact group, which is at the service of Colombia,” the minister explained.

“Samper will spark the countries’ interest in the design of the guidelines favoured by the government to activate the peace process,” Forero said in Margarita.

Samper underlined in July that none of the parties involved in the armed conflict – the Colombian army or the guerrillas – had been able to win the war, a fact that has made gradual peace negotiations through sectional accords an inescapable necessity.

He also visited Guatemala, where he clearly indicated that the Central American country’s peace process – which led to the signing of a peace accord in December 1996 – was the model his government wanted to adopt.

But the creation of a Group of Friends like the ones formed by Spain, France, Mexico and Venezuela to back peace negotiations in El Salvador and Guatemala also requires support from the guerrillas.

Colombia’s guerrilla groups – the oldest in the world – have not yet clearly signalled that support, although the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) has insinuated that it would be willing to take part in a UN-sponsored peace process.

However, doubts remain as to the attitude of another, smaller group that has been waging armed struggle for the past four decades, the National Liberation Army (ELN). The group may not be willing to participate in negotiations that include the participation of Venezuela, across whose border Colombian rebels, particularly the ELN, make frequent incursions.

Burelli added that in Sunday’s closed-door meeting between the 23 heads of state and government – two each in the case of Spain and Portugal – Samper would explain his country’s internal turmoil, “and countries that have not yet done so will be made aware that Colombia’s problem concerns all of us.”

The Venezuelan government feels the international community has taken too long to understand the magnitude of the impact of the virtual civil war racking Colombia, which has drawn much more attention as a key focalpoint of the world’s drug trade.

The area along Venezuela’s extensive border with Colombia is constantly shaken by guerrilla activity, a situation that would have to change if a Group of Friends were created.

At the UN General Assembly in September, a number of countries expressed their desire to actively participate in a peace process in Colombia, especially European nations like Sweden, Norway and even Switzerland, little given to breaking with its traditional international neutrality.

But the four nations that signed a communique issued Sep. 25 offering to back a Colombian peace process reportedly did so to keep the Group of Friends from becoming large and unwieldy, particularly in the crucial preliminary phase.

Diplomats and analysts say a clear signal will emerge from Margarita indicating that the international community has taken up peace in war-torn Colombia as a common objective, just as it had done earlier with respect to the search for peace in Central America.