Journalist Juan Gossaín (left) and the Colombian government’s chief negotiator Humberto de la Calle in the latter’s apartment in Cartagena de Indias, during an interview about the peace talks with the FARC. Credit: Omar Nieto/Prensa de Presidencia de Colombia

By Constanza Vieira
BOGOTÁ, Jul 7 2015 (IPS)

There is a growing sensation in Colombia that the peace talks with the FARC guerrillas are “about to come to an end” – in success or failure, according to the government’s chief negotiator, Humberto de la Calle.

In his apartment overlooking the sea in the Caribbean coastal city of Cartagena de Indias, former vice president De la Calle (1994-1996) was interviewed by veteran Colombian journalist Juan Gossaín. The two used to work together on the morning news and talk programme of the RCN Radio station, which Gossaín headed for 26 years, until 2010.

The interview was more like a friendly conversation, without a question and answer format. It was distributed by the Office of the High Commissioner for Peace to be published Sunday Jul. 5.

The chief negotiator, generally reluctant to talk to the media, warned that the government might walk away from the talks: “I want to tell the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) in all seriousness, this could end. It is likely that one day they won’t find us at the negotiating table in Havana’.”

“The patience of Colombians is running out. The risk is real,” said De la Calle, although he also stated that the process could end “because we reach an agreement, since in this final stretch we are dealing with important underlying issues.”

As De la Calle said, “although it seems like a paradox, the peace process has received more support from outside than here at home.”

President Juan Manuel Santos worked painstakingly and in secret to launch peace talks after taking office in August 2010.

And while in the talks themselves the government has never threatened to pull out, it has made such statements to the media in the past.

In October 2012 the talks were officially launched in Oslo, two years after Santos was sworn in, with Cuba and Norway as guarantors and Chile and Venezuela as facilitators. Since then the meetings have been held in Havana, where the 38th round of talks is now taking place.

Under the principle that “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed,” preliminary accords have been reached on three of the six main points on the agenda, in 32 months of talks.

These three points involve a wide range of aspects related to land reform; political participation; and the substitution of drug crops.

The pending items involve the right of victims on both sides to truth, justice and reparations; disarmament; and mechanisms for the implementation of an eventual peace deal.

The negotiations are taking place as the decades-long conflict drags on, and it looks like a clause stipulating that nothing that happens on the battlefield can affect the talks has fallen by the wayside.

The intensification of hostilities is costing lives and causing environmental disasters, and support for a continued military offensive, rather than a negotiated peace, is growing again.

But the same thing happened 15 years ago, as indicated by Gallup poll results.

To the question “what do you believe is the best way to solve the problem of the guerrillas in Colombia?” the response in June 2015 was a tie between those who selected the option “continue the talks until reaching a peace agreement” and those who chose “no talks; try to defeat them militarily.”

A similar tie was seen in July 2003, March 2004, October 2010 and June 2011, while in the rest of the polls carried out, a majority chose a negotiated solution.

Since 2001, a majority of respondents have consistently supported peace talks over a military solution, with the exception of the December 2001- July 2003 period.

But since December 2001, respondents have said they do not believe the insurgents could ever seize power by force.

Looking at Gallup polls over the past 15 years, it is clear that De la Calle’s assertion that “people are more skeptical than ever” regarding the peace talks is not true. The results indicate that, no matter what happens, the sense of “desperation” that the chief negotiator mentioned, and that his interviewer emphasised, fluctuates.

“We have to be honest enough to tell Colombians that the peace process is at its lowest ebb since the talks began,” De la Calle said.

But why is that happening? It’s the question of justice, he said. “It is the touchiest part of the negotiations. The FARC have to assume responsibility for their actions. The state does too, of course.”

De la Calle said the Colombian government would only agree to a ceasefire if the top FARC leaders spent some time in prison for crimes against humanity – although the negotiator said they would be held “in decent conditions, without bars or striped uniforms.”

He also acknowledged that the FARC “have said they are willing to accept a system of justice that would include these components.”

If that is true, it’s not clear where exactly the problem lies.

In February, the attorney general’s office revealed that it planned to investigate over 14,000 businessmen, ranchers, politicians and members of the security forces with alleged ties to the partially dismantled far-right paramilitaries.

Almost simultaneously, former president César Gaviria (1990-1994) proposed for these non-combatants “a pardon in exchange for their recognition of the crimes committed, an apology, and a willingness to provide reparations for the victims.”

Segments of the business community and some political factions welcomed or expressed an openness to discussing the proposal, others rejected it, and others were concerned or upset.

In any case, the ever vulnerable climate surrounding the peace talks became even more tense.

Not long afterwards, the negotiators in Havana announced a preliminary agreement regarding an issue that is especially thorny for those who not only enjoy impunity but have also been active behind the scenes, anonymously: a non-prosecutorial truth commission.

Above and beyond the discussion on justice and punishment, De la Calle says the main obstacle now faced in the peace talks is the question of a bilateral ceasefire – “the FARC’s top priority,” in his view. The insurgents would also have to stop raising funds through practices like extortion and involvement in the drug trade, he added.

A bilateral ceasefire when “there are other sources of violence, besides the FARC,” as De la Calle rightly points out?

The much smaller National Liberation Army (ELN) would appear to be awaiting the results of the peace talks with the FARC before launching its own negotiations, while remaining active.

Then there are the ultra-right-wing paramilitary groups that either did not take part in the 2003-2006 partial demobilisation or regrouped as what the government calls “Bacrim” – for “bandas criminales” or “criminal bands”.

“We can’t tell the security forces to stay quiet,” De la Calle said. “If they want a ceasefire, the government is willing to do that, but ‘concentration zones’ would be essential.”

In these “rural concentration zones” first demanded by Álvaro Uribe during his presidency (2002-2010), “convicted guerrillas would be held for a time, without requiring that they turn in their weapons,” De la Calle explained.

IPS postponed publication of this article in an unsuccessful attempt to obtain a response by email from FARC chief negotiator Iván Márquez to several of De la Calle’s statements.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

The first delegation of victims of Colombia’s armed conflict offer a press conference after their talks with the government and FARC negotiators on Aug. 16 in Havana, Cuba. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Constanza Vieira
BOGOTA, Aug 25 2014 (IPS)

Three major advances were made over the last week in the peace talks that have been moving forward in Cuba for nearly two years between the Colombian government and the FARC guerrillas, while the decades-old civil war rages on.

On Saturday Aug. 16, a group of relatives of victims of both sides met face-to-face in the Cuban capital. It was the first time in the world that victims have sat down at the same table with representatives of their victimisers in negotiations to put an end to a civil war.

And on Thursday Aug. 21 an academic commission was set up to study the roots of the conflict and the factors that have stood in the way of bringing it to an end.

That day, the unthinkable happened.

High-level army, air force, navy and police officers flew to Cuba, under the command of General Javier Alberto Flórez, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

In the 24-hour technical mission they met with their archenemies, the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which emerged in 1964) to discuss “how to implement a definitive bilateral ceasefire, and how the FARC would disband and lay down their arms,” said President Juan Manuel Santos.

Santos described the participation of active officers in the talks, as part of a subcommission installed on Friday Aug. 22, as “a historic step forward.”

Twelve victims, of the 60 who will travel to Havana in five groups, met for nearly seven hours on Aug. 16 with the FARC and government negotiators, who included two retired generals, one of whom was Jorge Enrique Mora Rangel, an army officer accused of human rights abuses.At one extreme, former rightwing President Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010) proposes the creation of a higher court to review the sentences handed down against members of the security forces from 1980 to 2026, and to release them while the sentences are revised. At the other extreme, the FARC do not recognise Colombia’s legal system as having the authority to try the guerrillas, once a peace agreement is reached.

The group of 12 was made up of six relatives of victims of crimes of state and of the far-right paramilitaries (which partially demobilised in the last decade), four victims of the FARC, and two victims of two or three different armed actors.

It was “a unique experiment that has not been seen anywhere else,” according to Fabrizio Hochschild, representative of the United Nations in Colombia.

In previous forums in Colombia, thousands of family members of victims have expressed their main demands: the truth about what happened to their loved ones, improvements in the mechanisms for reparations, guarantees that what happened will not be repeated, and justice.

The negotiators gave the task of selecting the groups of victims’ relatives to the U.N., Colombia’s National University, and the Catholic bishops’ conference. They were chosen from an official universe of 6.7 million victims and survivors, including 5.7 million victims of forced displacement, most of whom are small-scale farmers.

In the Colombian conflict, the last civil war in Latin America, the dead number at least 420,000 since 1946, including more than 220,000 since 1958, according to commissions for the historic memory set up in 1962 and 2012.

The creation of a Historical Commission on the Conflict and Victims (CHCV), at the behest of the negotiating table, was announced Thursday Aug. 21.

The commission consists of six academics and one rapporteur named by each side, for a total of 14 historians, sociologists, anthropologists, economist and political scientists.

The CHCV will analyse the origins of the armed conflict, the aspects that have stood in the way of a solution, and the question of who is responsible for its impacts on the population.

The rapporteurs will produce a joint report, by late December, although they will not “attribute individual responsibilities” and the report “must not be written with the aim of achieving specific legal effects,” the negotiating table stipulated.

This is not a truth commission, which should emerge once a peace agreement is signed. But it is a firm step in that direction.

Meanwhile, the aspect that appears to be foremost in the mind of public opinion in Colombia is neither the question of truth nor how to guarantee that the atrocities won’t happen again; it is the question of justice.

At one extreme, former rightwing President Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010) proposes the creation of a higher court to review the sentences handed down against members of the security forces from 1980 to 2026, and to release them while the sentences are revised.

At the other extreme, the FARC do not recognise Colombia’s legal system as having the authority to try the guerrillas, once a peace agreement is reached.

That position is based on a certain logic: if the guerrilla group is part of the negotiations, along with the state, and both have committed crimes, the state “cannot be both judge and jury,” the FARC negotiator, a commander whose nom de guerre is Pablo Catatumbo, told IPS in Havana.

At the same time, the families of victims of forced disappearance do not accept impunity.

The victims’ families asked the negotiators on both sides not to get up from the table until an agreement is reached.

But the fragility of the peace talks, held under the principle of “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed,” is evident.

There are still 28 pending aspects in the three points that have been agreed, of the six points on the agenda for the talks. It will be difficult to reach a consensus on these unresolved aspects, which are marked in red: 14 sub-points in the area of agriculture, 10 in political participation and four in the area of illegal drugs.

The CHVC is to make recommendations for reaching agreement on these sub-points.
Besides its interest in the question of justice, the public wants the FARC to demobilise and lay down their arms.

General Mora Rangel said in June “they must demobilise and hand over their weapons…they have to do so to join society and Colombia’s democratic system.”

But according to peace analyst Carlos Velandia, there will be no demobilisation, no laying down of arms, and no reinsertion.

There will be no photo ops of a “mass demobilisation”, like the ceremonies held in the mid-2000s showing the paramilitaries handing in their weapons, he said. Instead armed structures will be transformed into political structures, although the mechanism has not been worked out yet, he added.

And unlike in the case of the paramilitaries, “there won’t be thousands of insurgents stretching out their hands for ‘Papá State’ to help them,” he said.

Despite the obstacles, “the problem doesn’t lie over there, where both sides are taking a proactive stance,” a Catholic priest who is well-informed on what is going on in the talks in Havana told IPS.

The problem lies in Colombia, he said, where Uribe – now an extreme-right senator and a leader of the opposition in the legislature – had an enormous influence on public opinion during his two terms as president.

Uribe is “working on” businesspersons, bankers, large-scale merchants, and some journalists, to win them over in his fierce campaign against the peace talks, the priest said.

“Santos isn’t a leader, he’s a follower. If the country turns against him, he’ll abandon the peace process,” he maintained.

If there is strong public support for an eventual peace deal, the powerful oligarchy’s pressure on Santos could convince him to block a referendum on the peace agreement.
But if Uribe and victimisers who do not want to be more openly identified by the victims manage to foment rejection of the peace talks among voters, they would not object to a referendum on an eventual peace accord.

A precedent for this was set in Guatemala, where turnout for a referendum on a peace deal that put an end to 36 years of civil war – 1960-1996 – was extremely low, and among the few voters who did show up, a majority rejected the peace agreement.

In Colombia’s peace talks in Havana, the mechanism of a popular referendum is the sixth point on the agenda, which is still pending, and Santos has not referred to it in public.

To block these maneuvers, “there have to be more and more decisions aimed at recognising the legitimacy of the talks, including acts of truth and forgiveness. That will make it more likely, although not more sure, that the peace process will move forward successfully,” because “the more people who can forgive, the closer we are to seeing peace win out,” the priest said.

Different sectors of society agree on the need for “a new social pact” to approve the accords and work out the pending aspects marked in red. For the FARC and many others, on the left or the far right, these pacts should be reached through a constituent assembly that would rewrite the constitution. But Santos would appear to be leaning towards a referendum instead.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

García Márquez in 1984. Credit: F3rn4nd0, edited by Mangostar C BY-SA 3.0

By Diana Cariboni
MONTEVIDEO, Apr 18 2014 (IPS)

The first time I read Gabriel García Márquez (1927-2014) was when I was proofreading the galleys of “The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor”, which the Editorial Sudamericana was getting ready to reprint in Argentina.

I was working in the offices of the Sudamericana publishing house, in the Buenos Aires neighbourhood of San Telmo, where I could find myself editing a gothic novel or a literary classic or a work by the Argentine poet Alejandra Pizarnik, due to the varied menu.

I was 17 years old and I was mesmerised by that short tale, a journalistic report by García Márquez published in a number of instalments in the El Espectador newspaper in Bogotá, in 1955, which came out as a book in 1970.

The complete title was “The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor: Who Drifted on a Liferaft for Ten Days Without Food or Water, Was Proclaimed a National Hero, Kissed by Beauty Queens, Made Rich Through Publicity, and Then Spurned by the Government and Forgotten for All Time”.

Through the first-person account of the exploits of the survivor, García Márquez denounced that the shipwreck of the sailor and his seven companions, who drowned, was due to overweight contraband on the Colombian Navy’s destroyer Caldas.

Colombia at the time was under a military dictatorship, so the report led to the closure of the newspaper and the first of García Márquez’s various periods of exile. The last one began in 1997. He never returned to live in Colombia.

From there, of course, I jumped to “One Hundred Years of Solitude”, the masterpiece that the same publishing house, the Editorial Sudamericana, published in 1967, which was going to revolutionise Spanish language literature and influence the rest of the world’s image and cultural impression of Latin America.

We Latin Americans fell in love, and were shocked, by the Colombia that García Márquez described in this novel and in his other great works of fiction.

The cruelty of Colombia’s wars, the solitude of its heroes, the pathetic flip-flops of its politicians and military leaders, the eternal rule of its dictators, the ominous foreign presence, the state of abandon of its rural villages – all of it contained the realistic feel of first-hand experience. And, while unique, it was also similar to what was happening in so many other corners of the region.

But in the voice of García Márquez it took on another dimension, dreamlike, exuberant and humorous, which transported us as readers and allowed us to reflect on our own woes even with a kind of joy.

Like other great writers, García Márquez built a universe of his own, made up of real and invented places, unlikely characters, and lineages and genealogies.

Their names, like Macondo or Aureliano Buendía, now form part of the collective memory of Latin America, just like what happened centuries earlier with El Quijote.

I devoured all of his short stories and novels, from “La Hojarasca” (Leaf Storm – 1955) to “Memoria de mis putas tristes” (Memories of My Melancholy Whores – 2004), through the formidable and very dissimilar “El otoño del patriarca” (The Autumn of the Patriarch – 1975) and “El amor en los tiempos del cólera” (Love in the Time of Cholera – 1985).

When I was proofreading the galleys of “The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor”, I didn’t yet know that I was going to become a journalist.

Many years later I travelled to Colombia as a reporter, and had the chance to see the land that I had caught a glimpse of through the books of García Márquez, who in 1982 was awarded the Nobel Literature prize.

I saw for myself how the war continued, undaunted, with shifting protagonists and nerve centres, but with the same trail of blood and the same grinding dispossession and neglect.

Since 2012, the Colombian authorities and the main leftist guerrilla group have been discussing in Havana how to put an end to the last half century of war.

García Márquez, who died of cancer on Thursday Apr. 17 in Mexico, did not live to see his country at peace. Hopefully his fellow Colombians won’t have to wait another 50 years.

Diana Cariboni is Co-Editor in Chief of IPS.

Carmen Moreno in the Las Pavas community kitchen. Credit: Gerald Bermúdez/IPS

By Constanza Vieira
LAS PAVAS/BOGOTÁ , Nov 14 2013 (IPS)

The rural community of Las Pavas in northern Colombia received this year’s National Peace Prize Wednesday in recognition of its peaceful struggle for land that is claimed by an oil palm company, in a case that became an international symbol of the conflict over land in this country.

The day before, the members of the community, organised in the Asociación Campesina de Buenos Aires (Asocab – Peasant Association of Buenos Aires), were formally recognised as victims of forced displacement in a ceremony held in the offices of the government’s Unit for Integral Assistance and Reparations for Victims in Bogotá.

Inclusion on the official Registry of Victims strengthens Asocab in its legal battle against the company with which it is disputing ownership of the land – Aportes San Isidro SA.

As of Oct. 1 the registry included the names of 5,087,092 victims of forced displacement, out of a total of 5,845,002 victims of crimes committed since 1985 in Colombia’s nearly half-century civil war.

Adjacent to the 1,338-hectare Las Pavas hacienda, Buenos Aires is a small village in the municipality of El Peñón in the northern province of Bolívar, some 270 km southeast of the provincial capital Cartagena de Indias.

The village, which has a single street, is on Papayal island located between the river of that name and the Magdalena river, which crosses Colombia from south to north.

People in this area live in villages like Buenos Aires and depend on fishing, farming and raising farm animals for a living.

Through the Unit for Integral Assistance and Reparations for Victims, the state has rectified its previous position, and now officially recognises that the community was forcibly displaced at least twice from Las Pavas, where they worked the land.

“This is an admission of judicial incomprehension because it wasn’t understood that this community was displaced from its source of livelihood, not its place of residence” in Buenos Aires, said Juan Felipe García with the Javeriana Pontifical University’s legal clinic on land, which is providing legal assistance to Asocab.

“Today we’re going to celebrate because the truth has triumphed,” he told IPS.The campesinos want to change the name of Las Pavas, “which reminds us of difficult times,” says Misael Payares. It will now be called Milagro de Dios (Miracle of God).

The decision benefits 464 people belonging to the 124 families grouped together in Asocab. However, it does not imply recognition of ownership of the Las Pavas land.

The dispute over ownership of the hacienda is a separate legal case, which is before the Council of State and could drag on for 10 more years, the director of the legal clinic, Roberto Vidal, told IPS.

“What lies ahead now is working with the community to decide what measures they want to prioritise; reaching all of the institutional agreements necessary; coordinating with the various institutions; and obtaining the reparations they are demanding,” the director of the Victims Unit, Paula Gaviria, told IPS.

“We have to wait for the authorities to comply,” said Asocab leader Misael Payares, “so that we can see our dream come true, which is to stay in Las Pavas.”

The hacienda has been at the centre of the wider dispute over land in Magdalena Medio, a stunningly beautiful region that used to be coveted by the drug barons because of its location, which is strategic in the logistics of the trafficking of cocaine by air.

On a nearby farm, Rancho Lindo, planes landed and took off until 1983. “Were they shipping firewood, manioc, yams, or what?” Payares quipped.

Since that year, Jesús Emilio Escobar Fernández, a cousin of and front man for notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar (1949-1993), has figured on paper as the owner of Las Pavas.

Up to 1963 the land was unused publicly owned rural property.

The hacienda was abandoned after 1992, as a result of the crackdown on Escobar’s Medellín drug cartel. An enormous tree growing out of a swimming pool is testament to the fact that the property was abandoned.

The people of Buenos Aires, who have large families and are often illiterate, decided then to plant crops on part of the land of Las Pavas, and set up the Association of Peasant Women of Buenos Aires.

Later they learned that, according to article 52 of a 1994 law, the owners of privately-owned rural land lost their property rights if the land was used for drug trafficking or if it had been abandoned for at least three years.

So they occupied Las Pavas, and Asocab was born in 1997, to cultivate cacao, plantain and oak.

The left-wing guerrillas (which emerged in Colombia in 1964) used to simply pass by Buenos Aires, on their way to a nearby hill covered with coca crops, which drew many temporary harvest workers.

Sometimes they would demand payment of a tax, in the form of a chicken or a pig, from the campesinos working Las Pavas, and once they shot and killed a man who they accused of being an army informant.

When the far-right paramilitaries (which began to be formed in 1981) arrived in the area along the Papayal river in 1998 and set up camp a 20-minute walk from Buenos Aires, the guerrillas pulled out.

The paramilitaries “started to kill people,” one of the founders of the women peasant association, Carmen Moreno – whose brother is ‘disappeared’ – told IPS.

Bodies missing the head or legs would float down the river past Buenos Aires. “Even the kids would see them. And they would come shouting ‘Mommy! Mommy! There’s a leg floating by….It’s a woman, mommy, because the toenails are painted!”

But all through those years, hunger would push the villagers, confined to Buenos Aires, to brave their fear and panic over and over again and return to Las Pavas to plant and harvest their crops.

In 2006 they began the legal proceedings to get the state to revoke the existing land title, under the 1994 law. They even applied for and were granted farming loans from state institutions.

But in 2007 it turned out that the front man Escobar Fernández had sold Las Pavas to the companies Aportes San Isidro and CI Tequendama – the latter of which belongs to the Daabon group.

These firms say that no authority informed them that the private ownership status of the land was in question – which made it legally impossible to buy or sell the land.

The companies set up an oil palm production project, drying up wetlands, diverting streams and blocking roads.

President Andrés Pastrana (1998-2002) made oil palm production his administration’s chief agribusiness strategy, and his successor Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010) continued that policy.

The government decided that 66,000 hectares of oil palm should be grown in Papayal, and that a palm oil refinery to produce biofuels should be installed there.

Oil palm is the third-largest crop in Colombia, planted on more than 400,000 hectares and employing over 130,000 workers, according to the international organisation Solidaridad, which promotes responsible food production and sustainable alternatives to fossil fuels.

Oil palm has great production potential compared to other oil-producing plants, and its use is growing in the food, hygiene and cosmetics industries as well as the emerging biodiesel industry.

But in Las Pavas, palm oil is no longer being produced, and the legal battle continues.

In 2009, the companies in question got the police to evict the local campesinos. The incident cost Daabon its contract as the main palm oil supplier for The Body Shop cosmetics chain, whose parent company is L’Oreal.

Daabon preferred to pull out of the project rather than negotiate with Asocab, as The Body Shop had urged it to.

The local campesinos returned to Las Pavas in 2011. Since then they have been living there, some of them in shifts, in a settlement with two dirt roads running between improvised dwellings covered with black plastic.

In the hacienda house, Aportes San Isidro has posted armed men, without official authorisation.

The campesinos constantly complain about intimidation, destruction of crops, tires shot out on Asocab’s tractors, theft of livestock, or fires set to seeds stocks or nearby brush by incendiary device attacks on the camp.

“An outlaw group no longer has control; a few companies do,” said Payares.

“We haven’t had a human victim yet, because we have been smart enough to keep that from happening,” said Efraín Alvear, the community’s historian.

“Conquest without rifles” is the title of the book he has been writing by hand for years about the story of Asocab, he told IPS.

After their inclusion in the registry of victims and the award of the National Peace Prize, the campesinos plan to change the name of Las Pavas. “That name reminds us of difficult times,” says Misael Payares. It will now be called Milagro de Dios (Miracle of God).

FARC negotiators in Havana speak to the press in November 2012. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Constanza Vieira
BOGOTA, Aug 23 2013 (IPS)

Colombia’s FARC guerrillas announced Friday a “pause” in the peace talks in Havana, which formally opened a year ago. But analysts say it is only a temporary glitch.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos unexpectedly announced Thursday that he had introduced a fast-track bill in Congress to hold a referendum in which voters would approve or reject any peace agreement reached with the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia).

The president said it would be best for the referendum to coincide with the March 2014 legislative elections, although he left open the possibility of it being held in May 2014 instead, during the presidential elections, when he is expected to run for re-election.

Colombia’s laws do not allow referendums to be held simultaneously with elections. The reform presented by Santos would make that possible.

That would formally set a deadline for the peace talks, even though the agreement to negotiate, published in September 2012, did not contemplate any time limits.

A clause in that agreement states that neither of the two sides will leave the negotiating table until a final accord has been reached. Norway and Cuba are guarantors of the peace talks, and Venezuela and Chile are observers.

Prior to the current crisis, sources knowledgeable about the negotiations said a final peace agreement could be ready in the first few months of 2014.

The sixth point in the document published in September 2012 includes the discussion of a referendum or another mechanism for approval of the final peace deal. But that question has only been addressed informally in Havana.

According to official reports, agreement has only been reached on the first point on the agenda – integral agrarian development – in the talks so far, although there are still key details to be worked out on that question.

The negotiators are reportedly discussing the second point, regarding rights and guarantees for the opposition, access to the media, and mechanisms of citizen participation, including guarantees of safety and equal conditions for vulnerable segments of the population.

Conflict and peace analyst Carlos Velandia said the talks in Havana “are much more advanced than what they have told us.”

He said progress has been made on several aspects of the agenda, although it is not clear which ones.

Historian Carlos Medina Gallego tweeted that “Conflict occurs in peace talks when one side takes decisions outside of what was agreed and seeks to impose its will on the other.”

The “pause” introduced by the FARC apparently indicates that there is no agreement on the mechanism for voters to approve an eventual peace accord.

The rebel group wants a constituent assembly to be elected, to rewrite the constitution.

But serious problems with the electoral system that have been denounced, such as vote-buying, raise fears that politicians with funds from drug trafficking and corruption would win a majority of seats on the assembly.

Nor is any parallel reform planned in the legislature, where the conservative president’s supporters hold a broad majority of seats, to resolve issues like low voter turnout or barriers that make it virtually impossible for voters in remote communities to participate in elections.

The communist FARC was founded in 1964, as was the second-largest insurgent group, the pro-Fidel Castro National Liberation Army (ELN), which was influenced by liberation theology, a current in the Roman Catholic Church which finds in the teachings of Jesus Christ a call to free people from unjust economic, political, or social conditions.

Discreet exploratory talks with the ELN have taken place since Santos took office in August 2010, but with ups and downs that led to a breakdown.

However, this week there were signals that the exploratory talks may resume.

According to Velandia, a former ELN leader who spent time in prison for his involvement in the guerrilla group, said the “pause” in the talks between the FARC and the government “is a temporary situation.”

“The FARC will certainly not leave the negotiating table,” he told IPS. “But the government’s actions have done a great deal of damage to the talks and could slow down the process.”

José Jairo González, an analyst with the Centro de Estudios Regionales del Sur, a local think tank, told IPS that “I don’t think it is the government’s intention to try to impose the referendum at any price.

“This is a reasonable pause to look at the limits and reach of the referendum and the prior conditions for participation in the (legislative) elections in March or the presidential elections,” said the analyst, who studies Colombia’s nearly half-century armed conflict.

González added that the referendum could not be held under the current electoral system, “which is being questioned; that’s what the FARC is saying.”

The referendum would have to be decided on by the new legislature elected in March.

In any case, it is not clear in Santos’ bill when a special constituency would be created to allow FARC representatives to run for Congress.

The FARC’s “pause” coincides with a national strike launched Monday Aug. 19 by coffee, cacao, potato and rice farmers, cargo truckers, gold miners and health workers, who have blocked key roads. There have been violent clashes between strikers and the riot police.

Late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez played a decisive role in bringing about the exploratory talks with the FARC, which apparently began in early 2011.

Hundreds of families hope the remains of loved ones forcibly “disappeared” in the war will be found in cemeteries full of unidentified bodies, like this one in La Macarena in central Colombia. Credit: Constanza Vieira/IPS

By AJ Correspondents
DOHA, Jul 25 2013 (Al Jazeera)

Almost a quarter of a million Colombians have been killed in the country’s internal conflict since 1958, most of them civilians, a government-funded report has said.

The much-anticipated report was produced by the National Centre of Historical Memory, which was created under a 2011 law designed to indemnify victims of the conflict and return stolen land.

The law prefaced peace talks now being held in Cuba with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the country’s main leftist rebel group.

The 434-page report, titled “Enough Already: Memories of War and Dignity”, says most of the killings occurred after far-right militias backed by ranchers and cocaine traffickers emerged in the 1980s to counter the FARC and other leftwing insurgent groups.

The report said that more than four out of every five victims were civilian non-combatants.

“We all deserve to know the truth, we all deserve to understand what happened in our rural areas and cities, and only then will we be able to say forcefully: ‘Stop!’ Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said at the presidential palace on Wednesday, when the study was released. “Only in a Colombia without fear and with truth can we begin to turn the page.”

Living in fear

The government has been in peace talks with the FARC since November. While human rights violations have receded, the report painted a grim picture of bloodshed from the height of the conflict until 2012.

Colombia’s armed forces, backed by billions of dollars in U.S. aid, have used better intelligence and logistics over the last decade to combat the illegal armed groups, pushing their fighters deep into the country’s jungles.

“It’s a war that has left most of the country in mourning, but very unevenly. It’s a war whose victims are, in the vast majority, non-combatant civilians. It’s a depraved war that has broken all humanitarian rules,” said Gonzalo Sanchez, director of the centre, who presented the report to Santos.

In over half a century, the war killed 220,000 Colombians, more than 177,300, or 80 percent, of whom were civilians, according to the report. Another 40,787 members of the armed forces, paramilitary and rebels groups were killed in combat.

The 400-page study, packed with shocking photos of victims, was conducted in some of Colombia’s most volatile areas, where communities have lived in fear for decades.

Published under an agreement with Al Jazeera.

Schoolchildren in Quibdó, the capital of Chocó, a province where displacement is on the rise. Credit: Jesús Abad Colorado/IPS

By Helda Martínez
BOGOTA, Jun 4 2013 (IPS)

Drugs and arms traffickers are muscling in on Colombia’s Pacific coastal region, forcibly displacing local people, according to a new report by the Consultancy for Human Rights and Displacement (CODHES).

One of the factors forcing people to leave their homes is “disputes and strategies to consolidate control over territories by the armed actors,” said Marco Romero, the head of CODHES, at the launch of the report titled “La crisis humanitaria en Colombia persiste: El Pacífico en disputa” (Colombia’s humanitarian crisis continues: The disputed Pacific region) on May 31.

Displacement in the region “is a consequence of its geographical location, as well as neglect by the state, which has benefited the drug trade. In addition the government policy known as ‘locomotora minera’ (‘drive for mining,’ a policy to foment large-scale mining) has increased production since 2009, and with it, the ambition of the armed factions,” Romero said.

Colombia’s internal armed conflict has dragged on since the early 1960s. Now the government of conservative President Juan Manuel Santos and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) are holding peace talks in Havana. But there are a number of other armed groups in this country, including drug trafficking syndicates and far-right paramilitary militias.

The report by CODHES, which is the most respected non-governmental source of statistics on displacement, says that last year 92,596 people were forced to flee their homes in the country’s Pacific region – 36 percent of the 2012 victims of forced displacement nationwide.

Since 1999, over 860,000 people have been displaced in the Pacific region, according to CODHES. The worst year for the region was 2012, when the number rose by 22 percent compared with 2011.

Nationwide, there were 256,590 cases of displacement last year, some 2,500 fewer than in 2011, when the number totalled 259,146.

But the number of cases of mass displacement in 2012 was 98 percent higher than in 2011.

“Mass displacement is the term used when a single episode of violence forces the migration of at least 10 families or 50 people,” CODHES researcher Paola Hurtado told IPS.

In the Pacific region, mass displacements have increased by 45 percent over the last two years.

Afro-Colombian and indigenous people, who live mainly in the western Pacific coastal departments (provinces) of Nariño, Cauca, Valle del Cauca and Chocó, are the most affected. In 2012, an estimated total of 51,938 blacks and 18,154 native people in this region were victims of forced displacement.

“The situation of Afro-descendant people is terrible,” Ariel Palacios, of the National Conference of Afro-Colombian Organisations (CNOA), said at the presentation of the report.

“Government protection policies are ineffective, and racism is rife in the cities. That’s why most Afro-Colombians try to relocate in small towns or villages, to mitigate the gravity of their situation,” Palacios said.

A newer aspect is intra-urban displacement, within or between cities, to which CODHES devotes part of its report, attributing it to disputes between criminal bands for control of small-scale drug dealing.

Romero said, “Paradoxical as it may seem, in the midst of conflict and the humanitarian crisis, the country is seeking peaceful solutions and reparations for the victims, with Law 1,448 and the peace talks between the national government and the FARC.”

He was referring to the Victims and Land Restitution Law, which began to be enforced in 2012 in response to the main injustice arising from the war, the other side of the coin of displacement: illegal appropriation of land.

The law “is a positive development because it accords recognition to victims and acknowledges that, if the state was not capable of protecting them in the past, it must do so now,” Gabriel Rojas, CODHES’s research coordinator, told IPS.

“It’s also positive that economic resources have been assigned,” amounting to some 30 million dollars, he said.

“However, we know, and the outgoing agriculture minister (Juan Camilo Restrepo) has admitted, that there are serious problems with organisational aspects and registration, which have caused difficulties and in some cases re-victimised people, who suffer anxiety knowing there is a law to protect them and yet, a year and a half later, implementation lags far behind,” Rojas said.

Colombia has one of the largest populations of internally displaced people in the world. Civil society organisations and official estimates put the number of displaced since the 1980s at over five million people in this country of approximately 46 million people.

The situation reached such a pass that in 1998 the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) opened a permanent office in Bogotá.

IPS requested comments and statistical information from the government’s Unit for Care and Comprehensive Reparations for Victims, and was promised a reply, “which would not be immediate,” on condition the request was sent by e-mail.

“The lack of official statistics is becoming a problem. The last known figure for the total of Afro-Colombian people affected by forced displacement in 2012 was about 90,000, but there is no certainty,” Rojas said.

Coal mining company Prodeco's port terminal in the Colombian city of Santa Marta, on the Caribbean coast. Credit: Juan Manuel Barrero/IPS

By Constanza Vieira
BOGOTA, May 9 2013 (IPS)

“I was displaced here by mining a month ago. Illegal miners forced me out of my municipality. No, don’t write down where I’m from, let alone my name,” said a 40-year-old black man frightened for his safety. IPS agreed to say only that he is from Colombia’s southern Pacific coast region.

Two leftwing guerrilla movements are active in the biodiverse area between Colombia’s Andes mountains and the coast. The larger group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), is currently engaged in peace negotiations with the government of conservative President Juan Manuel Santos, and the smaller one, the National Liberation Army (ELN), is expected to start peace talks soon.

Far-right paramilitary groups are also operating in the region, termed by the authorities “bacrim” (from “bandas criminales” or criminal bands), after the demobilisation negotiated during the administration of former rightwing president Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010). The paramilitaries are the only armed sector that is growing in numbers.

The illegal armed groups are now involved in artisanal gold mining, which has long been practiced in the area. Production and trafficking of cocaine are apparently in decline in the south of the Pacific coast region. “Gold is the business now,” the displaced source said.

He said gold generates between 13 and 23 times more net profit now than cocaine in the southwest of Colombia, near the Ecuadorean border.

But to extract gold, initial capital is needed. And mining brings conflicts in its wake.

In the last 20 years, Colombia has been transformed radically, as it became a mineral and oil producing country. And its institutions have not yet adjusted to the new reality.

These are the conclusions arrived at by experts who talked to IPS at the presentation of “Minería en Colombia: Fundamentos para superar el model extractivista” (Mining in Colombia: A basis for improving the extractivist model), the most complete study to date, and the first of a series of reports from the comptroller-general’s office, the country’s highest fiscal control agency.

For six months, economist Luis Jorge Garay led the group of co-authors, made up of experts Julio Fierro, Guillermo Rudas, Álvaro Pardo, Fernando Vargas, Mauricio Cabrera, Rodrigo Negrete and Jorge Espitia.

The speakers during the Monday, May 6 launch of the report were former environment minister Manuel Rodríguez; Jorge Iván González, head of the National University of Colombia’s Centre for Economic Studies; and constitutional law expert Rodrigo Uprimny, head of the local NGO Dejusticia.

“This study is extremely important,” Rodríguez said. “For the first time, the complexity of mining in all its facets has been analysed in one volume, including environmental, social, legal and economic aspects.”

The report “indicates that we are undertaking mining with very little regard for the enormous social and environmental costs involved,” he said.

The 1991 constitution establishes a series of fundamental rights that have, however, been eroded when it comes to mining regulations. A government official can adopt a measure that runs counter to the constitution, but will take precedence in practice.

“For the last two or three decades, the state has been giving up a large part of its potential share in legal mining profits,” said Rudas, an economist. “The problem is not only illegal mining, but legal mining too, which is not yielding enough returns for the country to have a strong state that can afford to solve its other problems.”

Comptroller General Sandra Morelli said “the Colombian state has been considerably weakened, and it is not a question of size but of technical capacity and legal powers to intervene in a much more timely manner, to prevent the public interest from being harmed.”

Mining brings 1.1 billion dollars a year to Colombia, according to Morelli. “But the question is whether this sum is sufficient compensation for the impact of mining activity,” she said.

Colombia’s main mineral products are coal, nickel and gold, for which it is the world’s tenth, seventh and 22nd largest producer, respectively.

“There is an idea in Colombia that foreign investment must be attracted by offering gifts. This is not true. Foreign investment goes where there are resources, but even more to where there are clear rules,” said Garay, who coordinated the study.

“The report shows that mining, while it is promising, also entails enormous dangers,” said Uprimny. These range from environmental hazards, harm to indigenous and Afro-Colombian people, and disputes over land, to the possible intensification of armed conflict and forced displacement.

The study “makes recommendations to strengthen environmental regulations and legal regulatory powers. It is a very important report in a country that has become a mining nation,” said the expert on constitutional law.

“Environmental licences (to conduct mining operations) are given to anyone who asks; only three percent of applications are denied,” said Uprimny.

The displaced man, who attended the launch of the report, is part of the affected minorities – and of the three percent who are refused mining licences. “Afro-descendant communities are not given mining permits. We are told that we do not meet the requirements,” he said.

“In geographic terms, there is overlap of areas where displacement has occurred and where licences have been applied for or granted,” said report co-author Fernando Vargas, a lawyer and sociologist.

“Especially in the ancestral territories (of indigenous and black communities), gold mining is generating extremely serious tensions and humanitarian crises, violations of international humanitarian law and serious and systematic violations of human rights,” he said.

By Clara Nieto
BOGOTA, May 7 2013 (IPS)

The crisis in Venezuela caused by the violent opposition of followers of Henrique Capriles, who is accusing President Nicolás Maduro of election fraud, and peace talks between the Colombian government and the FARC guerrillas in Havana, are occupying the attention of national and foreign media.

Cuba and Norway are guarantors of the Colombian peace negotiations, and Venezuela and Chile are observers. Commentators and analysts of all stripes are wondering about the role of Venezuela and its late president Hugo Chávez (who died of cancer Mar. 5), and of Cuba and the Castro brothers, in this process that aims to end 50 years of armed conflict.

Achieving peace is a priority for Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos.

Bogotá and the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) chose Havana as the location for the talks. Cuba has been a friendly nation to the guerrillas, which gives them confidence and a sense of security.

Clara Nieto. Credit: Margarita Carrillo/IPS

However, according to José Arbesú, a high-ranking official in the Communist Party of Cuba, his country has not given the Colombian insurgents arms or funding, as it did in the case of Central American rebels decades ago when they were involved in civil wars against brutal and corrupt dictatorships.

Santos sought an understanding with Cuba, talked of inviting the country to be an observer at the Fifth Summit of the Americas, a United States-backed project that excluded the Caribbean island nation, and sought the support of Fidel Castro and President Raúl Castro to hold secret exploratory talks with the FARC in Cuba. These led to a 10-point agenda that is the basis of the current negotiations.

Venezuela and Chávez supported Colombia in this. Santos reestablished good bilateral relations with Venezuela, broken off during the government of former president Álvaro Uribe, and created an atmosphere of peace and collaboration. Recently he stated that this support was crucial for achieving essential agreements in Havana.

Chávez, a friend to the FARC, regarded the Colombian conflict as a threat to the security of Venezuela. A solution was necessary to remove a pretext for the United States to intervene in their countries, he said. Venezuela is surrounded by U.S. military bases in the Caribbean, including seven in Colombian territory that former president Uribe ceded to the United States.

Peace in Colombia is a security issue for Venezuela, and also for Ecuador. Leftist insurgents and far-right paramilitaries cross their porous borders freely, and thousands of undocumented Colombian refugees flock to the neighbouring nations, fleeing the conflict and the chemical spraying intended to eradicate coca crops (ordered by the United States) that poisons their families and animals, and destroys the soil and subsistence crops.

Chávez, the main challenger to Washington’s influence in Latin America, was the architect, along with former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, of regional integration systems that exclude the United States (such as the Union of South American Nations, UNASUR).

Chávez was more than a pebble in Uncle Sam’s shoe, and it is in the U.S.’s interests to eradicate Chavismo. This poses a major threat to President Maduro, his successor.

The Venezuelan right, headed by Capriles and supported by the international far right, is already on the move against the new president, purportedly “in defence” of Venezuelan democracy which it claims was violated and abused by “the dictator” Chávez.

Meanwhile, the moment is ripe for Colombia’s peace plans. The most influential leftwing leaders in the continent, Chávez and Fidel Castro, repeatedly stated that the time for armed struggle was over. Chávez asked the FARC to release their hostages unconditionally and to end the fighting.

The conservative Santos, for his part, has co-opted some of the leftwing rebels’ core demands, such as redistribution of land to the destitute and to those whose land was taken by paramilitaries and guerrillas, and offering compensation for victims.

Times have indeed changed.

Uribe’s government, in which Santos was defence minister, hit the FARC hard and killed several of its top leaders. The guerrillas were not defeated, but they have been weakened.

The negotiations are taking place in the midst of conflict, and peace would be a boon. But they are demanding structural changes to ensure an equitable country – Colombia is the most unequal country in Latin America – with opportunities, land, health and education for all.

The Colombian far right, with Uribe at the head, is mobilising against the peace process, and encouraging discontent in the armed forces against the government.

And, if not U.S. President Barack Obama himself, the U.S. Southern Command is also active. General John Kelly, its commander, spoke at length in a presentation to Congress on Mar. 20 about the regional danger represented by the FARC, saying they had acquired surface-to-air missiles and submarines that could reach Florida, Texas or California in 10 to 12 days, and could travel as far as Africa.

Such statements could influence the Colombian military, which is hostile to negotiations with the guerrillas, and undermine the peace process. Kelly mentioned the joint operations carried out with the Colombian army against the FARC – an intervention in internal affairs and public order in the country – and he spoke in favour of the continuation of military action against the guerrillas.

The media are closely observing both these conflicts. In Colombia, most media outlets support the peace process. In Venezuela it remains to be seen whether Chavismo, without Chávez, will fully back Maduro, who is faced with a difficult scenario. There are many who are trying to not let him govern. Colombia needs peace in its important neighbour, and ought to have Venezuela’s support. Maduro has promised that it will.

* Clara Nieto is a writer and diplomat, former Colombian ambassador to the United Nations and author of the book “Obama y la nueva izquierda latinoamericana” (Obama and the New Latin American Left).

Excerpt:

Left to right: Juan Camilo Restrepo, Josefina Stubbs and Alex Segovia Credit: Juan Manuel Barrero/IPS

By Helda Martínez
BOGOTA, Apr 25 2013 (IPS)

International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) initiatives working to overcome poverty and improve food security in the Colombian countryside can make a positive contribution to government efforts to tackle some of the most neglected problems facing this South American country.

“Rural development was forgotten in Colombia for a long time,” Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Juan Camilo Restrepo said at a seminar on Monday Apr. 22, organised by IFAD and his ministry to share experiences linking the situation in rural areas with peace efforts in this country that has seen nearly 50 years of armed conflict.

“That’s why we’re now making great efforts to give rural development pride of place. But there is a long way to go,” Restrepo admitted at the opening of the seminar on “Desarrollo rural y construcción de territorios dinámicos y pacíficos” (Rural development and construction of dynamic and peaceful territories).

Recent indicators show progress has been made against poverty, but it is still concentrated in the rural areas where one-third of Colombia’s 47 million people live.

According to figures released Apr. 18 by the National Administrative Department of Statistics, while the overall poverty rate declined from 40.3 percent in 2009 to 32.7 percent in 2012, the urban rate last year was 28.4 percent compared to 46.8 percent in rural areas.

“The country needs to work extremely hard to give rural areas the importance they deserve, with or without a peace accord,” said the minister, referring to the talks taking place in Havana between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas, in which land reform is a key issue.

“The support we receive from IFAD, and events like this, contribute to increasing our resolve,” Restrepo said.

Josefina Stubbs, Latin America and Caribbean director of IFAD, said “Colombia today is at a crucial moment, redefining its frameworks, policies and laws for rural development.” That is why “this event is very important, as much for IFAD as for other development sectors here present,” she told IPS.

The Victims’ Law, in force since January 2012, provides for the restitution of lands taken by armed groups from campesinos or peasants and other people displaced by the conflict.

The government says it has already distributed over one million hectares and is waiting to recover another one million hectares of idle land to form a land bank. The authorities estimate that some 200,000 campesino families lack land to farm.

Another bill, the Law on Land and Rural Development, which Restrepo is promoting, is under consultation with indigenous and campesino communities before it is presented to Congress.

In this context, “strengthening dialogue with the Colombian government at this point is extremely important, because this country is trying to close the gaps of inequity and the large differences between urban and rural sectors, and very seriously re-thinking the processes of rural development in a way that would contribute effectively to poverty reduction,” said Stubbs.

IFAD’s experience in this field is vast. Through its Rural Opportunities Programme, shared with the government, “it has generated support covering 20,000 families and 400 businesses,” Roberto Haudry, IFAD country programme manager for Colombia and Peru, told IPS.

The Rural Opportunities Programme “is an off-shoot of another programme with which IFAD has contributed to public policies in Colombia through the strengthening of over 1,000 campesino enterprises involving some 120,000 families,” he added.

“The country is changing. It’s time to talk less theory and to put people to work with other people, with the state as a partner. We can have absolute confidence if small entrepreneurs are empowered to make changes in this country. Campesinos, young people and vulnerable sectors with a productive attitude will emerge from poverty under their own steam, with their own motivation and abilities, without intermediaries of any kind,” Haudry said.

This is what Teófila Betancourt has done. She is an Afro-descendant from Guapi, a small town on the Pacific ocean in the southwestern department of Cauca.

“We have worked for many years to improve people’s welfare, based on the recovery of traditional practices, food security, territorial solidarity and human rights, and we have made considerable progress,” she said.

There are 25 cooperatives in Guapi, with an average of 15 women each. They plant food crops for their own consumption, as well as aromatic and medicinal species, and they make jams, crafts and traditional musical instruments. They sell their produce in local markets and have gradually taken up the public space that had been occupied by vendors from other regions.

These producers have also opened a restaurant that promotes typical foods of the coastal region, and they offer accommodation to visitors.

Along the Pacific coast, there are 84 groups doing similar work. “We have been doing this for 22 years” and recently, “we have received support from IFAD through Fundación Acua (an Afro-descendants’ cultural organisation),” Betancourt said.

“They support us because they know what we contribute to the rural area of Guapi. And that’s why I’ve come here (to the seminar) today. Although I feel a bit like a fish out of water, I have learned that this is where we can find out exactly what the government is thinking and what it is doing,” she said.

Alex Segovia, technical secretary in the office of the president of El Salvador, described the experience of his country, where a 12-year civil war came to an end in 1992, and which is governed today by the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, the former guerrilla group that laid down its arms and took the path of electoral democracy.

“This debate is very important because rural development is combined with the urgent need for peace,” Miguel Fajardo, the head of the Centro de Estudios en Economía Solidaria (CEES – Centre for the Study of the Solidarity Economy), told IPS. He described the achievements of cooperativism in three provinces in the department of Santander, in the northeast of Colombia.

“There are signs of change linked to justice and land restitution in rural areas, and without a doubt minister Restrepo is presenting carefully thought-out reflections on issues that had practically vanished from the agenda over the past 20 years or more,” said Fajardo, a sociologist.

However, he expressed “uncertainty” about the advance of the mining industry in locations like Páramo de Santurbán, an area of rich biodiversity with a wealth of water resources, and in the region of Vélez, “which have been granted in concession to multinational corporations, with the result that the regions have become impoverished.”

Restrepo told IPS that “Colombia began a peace process in spite of ongoing armed conflict, which is not usual, but even within the conflict one must begin to think about what the post-conflict reality is going to be in every sense, and particularly in terms of rural development.

“Let us remember that real peace comes after an accord has been signed, when a country’s institutions achieve the administration of that peace and its adaptation to the times,” he said.

Campesinos from around the country flocked to Bogotá to demonstrate for peace and demand relief and protection. Credit: Helda Martínez/IPS

By Helda Martínez
BOGOTA, Apr 12 2013 (IPS)

Wearing a dusty hat and a smile that lights up his face, the septuagenarian José Alicapa does not shrink from the overwhelming bustle of the Colombian capital, which he reached after a 13-hour bus drive from the western province in Caldas.

He and hundreds of other small farmers from across Colombia came to Bogotá this week to demonstrate for peace and demand that the government of Juan Manuel Santos give them support and protection to enable them to continue producing food in the crossfire of the half-century armed conflict that pits the armed forces and far-right paramilitaries against leftwing guerrillas.

Their demands include title deeds for those who work the land, technical assistance, subsidies, credit, development programmes and facilities to give them access to land.

“Campesinos (peasant farmers) are fundamental to production. That’s why I think the entire country should be declared a reserve where the rural population is protected,” Professor Tomás León Sicard, director of the ecological agriculture programme in the Environmental Studies Institute of the National University of Colombia, told IPS.

León Sicard was referring to the need to implement a 1994 law that hasn’t yet been codified, which would establish reserve areas for indigenous, black and campesino communities with certain conditions of autonomy and security.

That is precisely one of the key points on the agenda of the peace talks taking place in Havana between the Santos administration and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

“Even though they are the main victims of the conflict, campesinos continue working, in shocking conditions. They’re still in the countryside, producing around 70 percent of the food that Colombians eat,” he said.

Alicapa reflects that perseverance in the face of myriad difficulties. “On my land I grow coffee and bananas, but the last hailstorm caused a lot of damage,” he told IPS without losing his smile, more worried about the possibility of the bus leaving without him.

Fulgencio Yangües, of the Association of Farmers who are Victims of the Conflict, was more emphatic. “The government does not live up to its promises, and year after year we remain forgotten victims, displacement (of the rural population from their land by the conflict) continues, and the violence rages on,” he told IPS in a march on Tuesday Apr. 9 in Bogotá.

The latest report by the National Planning Department (DNP), based on statistics from 2011, indicates that poverty reached 46 percent in rural areas that year, and extreme poverty 22 percent.

According to the Gini Index, which measures income inequality on a scale of 0 to 1, land concentration in Colombia increased in the last decade from 0.74 to 0.88.

Agriculture represented 5.9 percent of the country’s GDP in 2011. By comparison, mining and quarries accounted for 14.3 percent.

A study carried out at the private University of Los Andes found that 77 percent of the land is in the hands of 13 percent of owners, and 18 percent of small-scale farmers do not hold formal title to their land.

The severe problems in the countryside were reflected by protests and a strike by coffee growers demanding relief in late February and early March. They lifted the strike only after the government announced that it would pay producers 80 dollars per sack of coffee beans.

But Finance Minister Mauricio Cárdenas clarified that this will “only be for this year, while coffee production recovers.”

But coffee producers have been in crisis for years in Colombia. The National Federation of Coffee Growers said that since 2004 the country has had to import coffee, mainly from Ecuador and Guatemala.

Today, up to 70 percent of the coffee consumed locally is imported, according to spokespersons for the Movement for the Defence and Dignity of Coffee.

After the coffee growers’ strike, rice farmers threatened to take similar action. But the government headed off the strike by offering economic supports and stiffer measures to curb contraband, especially from Ecuador.

“All of the difficulties arise from the concentration of land, but redistribution is apparently unlikely for the time being,” said León Sicard.

“The last agrarian reform process was carried out by President Carlos Lleras Restrepo (1966-1970), but the ‘Chicoral Accord’ of 1972 accelerated the colonisation of the tropical rainforest, which at the same time brought campesinos into contact with the coca trade. So these problems have been around for a long time.”

The Chicoral Accord with landowners limited the expropriation of idle land by the state and facilitated the colonisation of formerly protected areas.

“In Colombia we have a large range of conditions: rainforest, tropical, sandy and muddy soils, flat lands, steep slopes, and increasingly variable climates. But the policies now in effect don’t take into account the specific characteristics of each area,” he said.

“Today, 99 percent of agricultural practices favour methods using sophisticated machinery which, along with the use of pesticides and agrochemicals, demonstrates the powers and interests that lie behind them,” said León Sicard.

“Who builds the tractors, and who sells them? It’s not exactly the people who favour the campesinos from the highlands. So what transnational corporations are behind this? It’s a complex issue,” he said.

As a solution, the professor suggested “agroecology, which has brought very significant results in Cuba and Brazil.

“But in that area, Colombia has made much less progress than any other country of the Americas. Our dream is for this issue to be taken seriously and dealt with in a committed fashion in the peace talks,” he added.

Presidents Santos and Chávez at a 2010 Colombia-Venezuela summit en Santa Marta, Colombia. Credit: Constanza Vieira/IPS

By Constanza Vieira
BOGOTA, Mar 15 2013 (IPS)

Late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez played a key role in the current attempt to negotiate peace in Colombia. Along with Cuban President Raúl Castro, he confidentially urged the FARC guerrillas to agree to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos’s secret proposal for peace talks.

For years, the late Venezuelan president and Cuba’s Fidel Castro had argued that armed struggle was a thing of the past. And Raúl, Fidel’s successor, took the same stance.

Chávez,who governed Venezuela since 1999 and died on Mar. 5, also provided the logistics to transport the FARC’s negotiators abroad incognito during the preliminary talks, when Santos decided that the contacts should no longer take place in Colombia.

Getting the two sides together “was the hardest past,” according to political scientist Ronal Rodríguez, a professor and researcher at the Venezuela Observatory of the private University of Rosario, in Bogota. Once that was achieved, Norway and Cuba assumed the role of guarantors and Venezuela apparently took a backseat, as a facilitator, along with Chile.

“In politics, only what has already happened is certain,” former Colombian minister Horacio Serpa told IPS. But the most likely scenario is that acting president Nicolás Maduro will be elected president of Venezuela in the Apr. 14 elections.

“In that case, as he has specifically stated, he will continue along the lines followed by President Chávez in this matter,” Serpa said.

“We Colombians hope that Venezuela will continue to help, and continue creating conditions so we can make peace…and that whatever the outcome of the elections, Venezuela will continue cooperating towards that end.”

Rodríguez said that in any case, “Venezuela has already played the most important role it could play with respect to peace in Colombia, by getting the FARC to have the confidence and trust to sit down at the table for peace talks.”

“The challenges that lie ahead mainly concern the negotiating parties, so Venezuela’s role will not be as important as it has been up to now,” he said.

But he said that if Maduro is elected, it would “give continuity to the process” and would give the FARC confidence regarding Venezuela’s presence as one of the guarantors that the peace talks would continue to move ahead.

He said, however, that if opposition candidate Henrique Capriles won the elections, Venezuela’s support for the talks would continue, because for Venezuela, Colombia’s peace process “is a structural, state question that goes beyond the differences between Chavismo and the opposition.”

Rodríguez noted that Colombia’s decades-long armed conflict “has already had a contagion effect across the border in Venezuela,” which suffers “kidnapping, extortion and all those dynamics that the armed actors (from Colombia) have brought.”

Like the FARC, a smaller rebel group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), has also been active in Colombia since 1964. And far-right paramilitary groups, which were partially dismantled in 2006 after closed-door negotiations with the Colombian government, are another actor in the conflict.

“As in the case of all borders during wars, cross-border routes are sought for smuggling arms, provisions of all kinds and financing by means of legal and illegal operations,” former minister Camilo González, director of the Institute of Studies for Development and Peace, told IPS.

González added that “not only has business activity been affected, with negative effects for local residents, traders and producers on both sides of the border, but in several Venezuelan states, the insecurity associated with the presence of the FARC or the ELN has had an impact on many sectors.”

According to accounts gathered by IPS along the border in November, remnant or regrouped paramilitary bands are also active in the Venezuelan border cities of Ureña, San Antonio and San Cristóbal, the capital of the state of Táchira, where they extort local traders and businesses.

González said that “Venezuela in the post-Chávez era will continue collaborating with the peace process in Colombia,” because putting an end to the armed conflict “is in the interests of all sectors of society in Venezuela.”

“I think there will be continuity,” said Carlos Velandia, known as “Felipe Torres” when he was a member of the ELN national leadership. Now he is dedicated to research and consulting on peace.

His arguments are based on Maduro’s close involvement “in the construction of Venezuela’s willingness to support a political solution to the conflict” and the fact that “the conflict has leaked across the border, and also affects Venezuelan territory.

“And the only way to put an end to it is to negotiate peace here in Colombia,” he added.

“The presence of foreign forces is disturbing Venezuela’s democratic stability,” Velandia said.

In Venezuela, he said, “there are factions in the military that want to fully live up to the constitutional mandate to defend sovereignty and territorial integrity. And it’s really hard for a member of the military to see foreign forces in his country and look the other way.”

That means that “Venezuela has no alternative other than supporting a political solution in Colombia, because its security and tranquillity depends on that,” the former guerrilla said.

Alfredo Molano, a Colombian sociologist and writer, went a step further. He said that “if Chavismo collapses in Venezuela and a military dictatorship is established to, let’s say, avoid civil war, what prospects would the FARC have with regard to their own future?”

He said Chávez played the role of a peace-maker “in a clean, transparent fashion, which infused the different parties with confidence.”

But above all, “he was able to show the FARC that the conditions were in place to lay down their weapons, without renouncing their political objectives. Chávez established himself in power without weapons, simply with votes, and with them he subordinated the Venezuelan armed forces,” he told IPS.

“When they agreed to peace talks, the FARC had the Chavismo model in mind. They decided to trade bullets for votes because it is possible – as shown by Venezuela (where Chávez, as an army lieutenant colonel, led a failed coup attempt in 1992). But if that door is closed, the peace talks in Havana will fall apart,” Molano said.

Christian Völkel, a Colombia analyst with the International Crisis Group, takes a less pessimistic view. “Regardless of how important Venezuela’s participation was in the secret phase of talks, the negotiations now have enough momentum of their own to sustain them,” he told IPS.

“Chávez, without a doubt, was the politician that the FARC respected the most,” but that doesn’t mean his death “will have a dramatic effect,” he argued.

“The two sides have been negotiating in Havana for five months, and it looks like they’re already moving towards agreements,” said Völkel, referring to progress that has apparently been made on the issue of land ownership, the first question on the six-point agenda for the talks.

Alirio Uribe of the Jose Alvear Restrepo Lawyers’ Collective (CAJAR), questioned by reporters before filing a lawsuit against the expansion of jurisdiction of the military justice system. Credit: Courtesy of CAJAR.

By Constanza Vieira
BOGOTA, Mar 7 2013 (IPS)

Victims of crimes of the state want their recommendations to be taken into consideration by the peace talks between the Colombian government and the FARC guerrillas that are seeking to end half a century of armed conflict.

The “victims’ demands to the parties” involved in the talks, outlined in an 11-point document presented Wednesday Mar. 6, include “deliberate and decisive participation” by their representatives in the peace process taking place in Havana, Cuba, and state that “everyone guilty of crimes should be punished.”

“We feel solidarity with the victims of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, founded in 1964),” Franklin Castañeda, the president of the Committee of Solidarity with Political Prisoners and a spokesman for the Movement of Victims of State Crimes (MOVICE), said in a press conference in the capital Wednesday.

But, he added, “Colombian society shouldn’t only demand things from the FARC.”

“State crimes should not be amnestied,” he said, and the state should acknowledge that it created far-right paramilitary groups to back up the army, and “should effectively dismantle” these structures.

“It is unacceptable for state crimes to be erased from the history of this country,” said left-wing parliamentarian Iván Cepeda.

“Our message is very clear: if there is going to be talk of justice, truth and reparations, everyone who has participated in this conflict has to assume their responsibility,” he said.

MOVICE, the Association of the Families of Detained-Disappeared, founded 30 years ago, and groups of sons and daughters of people who have been killed, as well as numerous human rights organisations, say that is the only way to keep the internal armed conflict from continuing, as it has despite several attempted peace processes that have taken place since 1955.

The organisations signed the “proposals on truth, justice, reparations and guarantees of non-repetition” delivered Wednesday to the United Nations, which is facilitating the peace talks.

“This analysis based on international human rights law is built on the basis of much pain and many tears,” Jesuit priest Javier Giraldo said in the news briefing.

Giraldo and human rights lawyer Federico Andreu of the non-governmental Colombian Commission of Jurists headed the group that drafted the document, which sets forth 11 proposals, including the creation of an independent truth commission.

Preliminary negotiations between the government and the FARC began around two and a half years ago, in total secrecy, at the initiative of President Juan Manuel Santos.

The talks were officially launched in October 2012 in Oslo, and continued in Havana, where five rounds of negotiations have been held behind closed doors. Cuba and Norway are guarantors of the talks, and Venezuela and Chile are observers.

Progress has reportedly been made on several points, such as land ownership, the top issue on a six-point agenda that also includes the question of human rights.

In 2008, Mar. 6 was chosen as the “day of dignity of the victims of state crimes in Colombia”. On that day, large protests were held to pay homage to victims of forced disappearance and extrajudicial executions since 1946.

This year, 500 delegates met in Bogota in the sixth national conference of victims of state crimes. Besides producing proposals for the peace talks, they filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the expansion of the jurisdiction of the military courts, a reform approved by Congress in 2012.

They argued that the civilian justice system should have the authority to decide whether crimes committed by members of the armed forces are human rights violations or “acts of service” committed in the line of duty.

Andreu told IPS the groups’ demands to the government and the FARC were “based fundamentally on the obligations that international law imposes on the state, and on the rights that it upholds for victims.

“Any peace process, in order to be real, has to focus on strengthening the state of law, and on guaranteeing the key question: that the main authors of crimes against humanity, war crimes and human rights violations must be tried and punished,” he said.

“A series of measures must also be taken,” Andreu added, “to guarantee that the doctrines that prompted these crimes are abolished from the military sphere.”

The document demands that “the agents of the state who have committed, tolerated or incited these crimes, or have guaranteed the impunity surrounding them, be purged from the public administration.”

Unless these things are done, he said, “the peace process will be incomplete. There will be a process of demobilisation of one of the actors in the conflict (the FARC), but the violence and human rights abuses will continue.”

The issue of land ownership is at the centre of Colombia's peace talks. Credit: Constanza Vieira/IPS

By Constanza Vieira
BOGOTA, Dec 20 2012 (IPS)

Colombia’s large-scale agricultural producers and peasant farmers managed to listen to each other for the first time about the core cause of the decades-long armed conflict: the concentration of rural land ownership and the social and economic development of the countryside.

The exchange of views took place at a three-day forum held in Bogota at the request of the negotiators taking part in the peace talks between the government of Juan Manuel Santos and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which began a month ago in Havana.

The left-wing FARC emerged in 1964 from a group of peasant farmers who were forced in 1948 by violence waged by large landowners and the government to colonise land abandoned by the state, which they defended with guns since 1950.

Six decades and hundreds of thousands of victims later, there is little public information about how the peace talks are going. But it is clear that the different sides see the question of land ownership as lying at the centre of the hostilities.

It is the first point on the agenda for the talks, which were unexpectedly announced in late August, after two years of secret preliminary negotiations.

The forum on “integral agrarian development”, which ended Wednesday Dec. 19, was organised by the United Nations Development Programme and the Centre of Thinking and Follow-up on the Peace Talks, an ad-hoc body set up by the National University of Colombia.

The organisers brought together 1,314 delegados – 33 percent of whom were women – from 522 social and business organisations representing 15 productive sectors from around the country. The debates of the commissions, made up of 20 groups of 60 to 90 people on average, were closed to the press. The conclusions of the debates were sent to a final plenary session.

The delegates discussed the different issues contained in the first point of the peace talks agenda: access to and use of land; unproductive areas; the formalisation of property ownership and of rural labour; the agricultural frontier and protection of nature reserves and communally owned indigenous and black territories; rural development programmes; and infrastructure.

Other issues debated were the social development model; incentives for agricultural production, cooperatives and a solidarity economy; technical assistance, subsidies, credit and marketing; and food security.

The conclusions compiled by the commissions included all of the contrasting positions, as well as the areas where agreement was reached. The final document will be presented to the negotiators on Jan. 8 in Havana.

The statistics from the Colombian countryside speak for themselves: 1.15 percent of rural property owners hold 52 percent of the agricultural land. The country’s Gini coefficient, which is commonly used as a measure of inequality of income or wealth, stood at 0.87 in rural areas – one of the highest levels of inequality in the world given that a score of 1.00 would represent a single person or body owning all of the farmland.

Currently, 38 million hectares are used for large-scale cattle-ranching. But if that total was cut in half, neither productivity nor profitability would be affected, said Agriculture Minister Juan Camilo Restrepo. Meanwhile, just five million hectares are dedicated to agriculture, when at least 22 million are needed.

Optimising land use would bring greater prosperity and profits, Restrepo said in late November. But he added that this cannot be imposed by decree.

Rafael Mejía, the president of the rural association of Colombia, which represents large landowners and agribusiness interests, punctually attended the forum. “I came to listen to you, and for us to be listened to with respect and civility. We managed to do this, and I am satisfied,” he said in his brief closing message.

“I listened to you attentively. I have learned from all of you….We have to learn to turn the page if we want to build, all together…a rural sector like the one we all want, where we all have a place,” he added.

IPS was informed that Mejía commented in the hallways that this was the first time that he had the opportunity to listen to the peasant farmers, and that he realised that they had proposals “that can be discussed.”

On the first day of the forum, Mejía stressed that the poverty and poor conditions in rural areas could not be eradicated if the violence continued. He also said that “private property and productive activities, in the framework of a market economy, are non-negotiable.”

But Jesuit priest Francisco de Roux, provincial of the Society of Jesus’s Colombia Province, stated in his own closing remarks that “What Colombia is doing is discussing the model to be applied, even if some say it is not negotiable.

“The model that we have had until now has produced inequity; it is at the heart of the conflict; it has to do with the mass migration caused by forced displacement; and it has not produced the expected economic growth in the rural sector,” said the priest, who is an economist known for his work on behalf of the country’s poor farmers.

For his part, Andrés Gil, the head of the Asociación Campesina del Valle del Cimitarra, an association of small farmers from the central Cimitarra valley, said the forum “has created an atmosphere in which it is possible to try to bring about a closer alignment of positions in the world of agriculture – the positions of the rural associations and peasant organisations.”

The best aspect of the forum was “the debate of ideas and proposals through political channels rather than war,” he told IPS. “That is the stride forward made by this event…Opportunities like this should be fomented around the country. This should be the way politics and strategic decisions are built in Colombia.”

But the Colombian federation of cattle ranchers refused to attend the forum because the resulting conclusions would go to the peace talks with the FARC, the federation’s spokesman, José Félix Lafaurie, told the press.

Lafaurie, who has been accused of ties to the far-right paramilitary militias, argued that many cattle ranchers have been the victims of the rebel group over the past decades.

Colombia will be removed from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights “blacklist” next year. In exchange, the government of Juan Manuel Santos facilitated a visit to the country by a delegation from the Commission.

For 12 years in a row, war-torn Colombia has been included in Chapter IV of the IACHR’s Annual Report, which singles out those countries with the most worrisome human rights situations. In 2012 the so-called blacklist included Colombia, Cuba, Honduras and Venezuela.

Colombia will now be the focus of a lengthier report, containing recommendations. In 2014, the IACHR will verify compliance with the recommendations. If Colombia has failed to comply, it could once again be included in Chapter IV in 2015.

But “the fact that a country report is being drawn up, rather than a country being included or not in Chapter IV, does not imply an improvement in human rights,” IACHR commissioner Felipe González said Friday Dec. 7 in Bogotá.

In fact the five IACHR commissioners who visited Colombia Dec. 3-7 observed “a serious humanitarian crisis” among those displaced from their homes by the civil war, who are “disproportionately” indigenous and black. It also documented threats faced by activists and homosexuals.

According to the IACHR’s preliminary observations from its in situ visit, between 8.6 and 11.2 percent of Colombia’s 47 million people have been forced to flee their homes by the internal armed conflict.

The rate at which people were displaced increased 63 percent in 2012, especially in the western and southern parts of the country, the Consultancy on Human Rights and Displacement (CODHES), a prominent local human rights group, reported.

Colombians are fleeing fighting and death threats. But lately, the number of families leaving their homes to prevent the two main guerrilla groups – the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) – from recruiting their children has risen.

In addition, displaced persons in the southwestern department or province of Cauca told the IACHR that the authorities do not recognise them as victims because they were displaced by far-right groups that continued to be active after the demobilisation of the paramilitaries.

The commissioners visited Bogotá and the cities of Quibdó, Medellín and Popayán – the capitals, respectively, of the departments of the Chocó and Antioquia, in the northwest, and of Cauca.

González said they found “two different realities” in Colombia: while there are “sound institutions” in Bogotá, in the interior of the country “the state faces major obstacles to enforce the law and implement existing programmes,” due to “corruption at a local level, and a low level of political and social development.”

This is “especially seen in rural areas and with respect to certain population groups,” including blacks, who according to the IACHR, suffer “direct and indirect discrimination.”

González visited Popayán, the city that receives the largest number of displaced persons, in proportion to its population.

“We met with internally displaced persons, indigenous communities, women’s organisations, senior military officers, the governor, the ombudsman and the office of the public prosecutor. We observed a very complex situation. From the women, we received some specific complaints. But in general, they provided us with information that gave us an overview of the situation there,” the Chilean commissioner added.

The IACHR referred to “alarming information” on sexual violence against women by armed groups. Although according to the authorities, only one legal complaint has been filed, the regional ombudsman’s office found that cases were severely under-reported, especially when the perpetrators were members of the military.

“We told the military commanders about all of these reports we have been receiving,” González said. “We are going to remain in contact with them, while drafting our report.”

Many communities in Cauca are caught in the crossfire between government troops and the FARC, although the situation is changing now that peace talks have begun in Havana and the rebel group has declared a unilateral ceasefire.

Indigenous people in Colombia “are very worried about not being taken into account, or only in a marginal manner, and without meaningful participation in the negotiations,” said González, referring to the peace talks between the FARC and the Santos administration.

They believe that “eventually, part of the agreement could be that the FARC could maintain some reserves that are situated in indigenous territories.

“Of course, the IACHR encourages peace processes. But they have to be participative in nature, and they cannot be carried out at the cost of basic human rights standards,” he added.

”That puts the state in sort of a dilemma, but it would be regrettable if setbacks occurred after the important advances made by transitional justice in Colombia,” González said.

“History has shown that justice and reconciliation can be ‘married’,” he stated.

The IACHR, like the International Criminal Court, warned that an imminent constitutional reform that will expand the jurisdiction of military justice tribunals in Colombia would be “a serious setback, and would endanger the right of victims to justice.”

The Organisation of American States human rights body also said the reform contains “several provisions that would be incompatible with the American Convention on Human Rights.”

The IACHR pointed out, moreover, that judicial protection of fundamental rights “cannot be suspended, even in times of war.”

Joint FARC and Colombian government press conference in Havana. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Patricia Grogg
HAVANA, Nov 30 2012 (IPS)

The Colombian government and the FARC guerrillas will resume the peace talks in the Cuban capital on Dec. 5, in a climate of moderate optimism surrounding a process in which citizen participation could play a key role.

After 11 days of talks that started Nov. 19, the negotiators decided to take a brief recess for consultations and internal discussions on the issues being addressed, Humberto de la Calle, the head of the delegation of the government of Juan Manuel Santos, announced Thursday.

De la Calle broke the silence he has kept since arriving in Havana to say that so far the talks have been “advancing as expected.” He said the government puts “special importance on broad, pluralistic participation.”

Both the government and FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) delegates agreed that the talks were going well.

The head of the rebel group’s delegation, Iván Márquez, said in a press conference that “the necessary steps and solutions have been taken” to begin discussing the first point on the agenda.

“In Colombia and around the world, people are clamouring for peace in our country. We are very optimistic,” said Ricardo Téllez, another FARC negotiator. He said “serious, profound” issues have been discussed, while adding that “there has also been room for laughter and jokes.”

“We have been building up trust, which is extremely important,” he said. “Don’t forget that these two sides are involved in a conflict that hasn’t ended yet…the FARC have declared a ceasefire, but the clashes continue.”

In Bogotá, President Santos has reiterated that the armed forces will not cease their actions against the guerrillas.

The results of the first stage of talks, which have been held behind closed doors in Havana’s Palacio de Convenciones, include plans for a Dec. 17-19 public forum on agricultural questions, and the creation of a web site and other mechanisms for people to set forth proposals regarding the points on the agenda.

The web site will begin to function on Dec. 7, when a broad information campaign will be launched on TV and radio and in the press, to invite people to send in their opinions, ideas and recommendations. A form will also be distributed, for people who prefer to send in a written suggestion, rather than participate on-line.

Analysts say the initiative to open up the talks to citizen participation represents a major stride forward in the talks that officially began on Oct. 18 in Oslo.

Norway and Cuba are guarantors of the negotiations, and Chile and Venezuela are observers. The talks will mainly be held in Havana, although some sessions could take place in other countries.

Mechanisms for public input were foreseen in the general agreement on the negotiations signed by the FARC and the Santos administration at the end of the preliminary talks, which took place in Havana from Feb. 23 to Aug. 26.

A joint communiqué issued by the two delegations says they asked the United Nations in Colombia and the National University’s Centre of Thinking and Follow-up to the Peace Talks to organise a public debate on a “policy of integral agrarian development”.

The U.N. and the National University centre are to report on the conclusions reached in the public debates to the negotiators on Jan. 8. De la Calle said the delegates also agreed to receive the results of forums organised by the congressional peace commissions, which had the support of the U.N. office in Bogotá.

“The aim is to get citizens and organisations from all sectors to set forth relevant, useful proposals in the debate on the agenda agreed in the general agreement on the talks. With this public input and the direct talks that we are holding, we hope to reach accords that will lead to the end of the conflict,” de la Calle added.

The FARC sees the public debate on agrarian policy as “a watershed” in the talks, because “we think it is a good time for the country to express its views,” Márquez told journalists.

“We want the people of Colombia to point out the route to peace,” he added.

A policy on integral agrarian development is the first item on the negotiators’ six-point agenda. The issue includes access to and use of land, unproductive rural property, formal land titling, the agricultural frontier and the protection of nature reserves, development programmes, and infrastructure.

It also covers social development aspects such as healthcare, education, housing and poverty eradication in rural areas, incentives for agricultural production, cooperatives and the solidarity economy, technical assistance, subsidies, affordable credit, the generation of income, markets, the creation of formal sector jobs, and food security.

FARC has repeatedly stated that the extreme concentration of land ownership in Colombia is the historical cause of the insurgent struggle.

In 2003, 0.4 percent of landholders owned 63.6 percent of the country’s farmland, while small farmers, who represented 86.3 percent of all agricultural producers, had just 8.8 percent of the land.

The rebels are pressing for comprehensive land reform, which would include the confiscation of land to be distributed among landless farmers.

*With reporting by Ivet González

IPS spoke to people Sunday in Bogotá’s Bolívar square about the peace talks that began Monday in Havana. Credit: Helda Martínez/IPS

By Helda Martínez
BOGOTA, Nov 19 2012 (IPS)

Scepticism, fear of expressing an opinion and a dash of hope make up the cocktail of responses from Colombians asked about the possibility of the decades-old civil war finally coming to an end as a result of the peace talks between the government and the FARC guerrillas, which began Monday in Havana.

“I really hope so,” María Jaramillo, a 40-years-old accountant, told IPS. “God willing. But I think it’ll be difficult, because nothing is easy with the guerrillas. Of course if peace is achieved it would be an enormous accomplishment, because many peasants would return to their land, all the bombing would stop, and the country would grow.”

Some of the other people interviewed by IPS in Bogotá’s central Bolívar square were more sceptical. Political science student Elizabeth Núñez said she did not believe the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) were really seeking peace, “although nothing is impossible.”

“So far, to judge by what the guerrillas are saying, it’s the same as ever. As if they had no intention of respecting the results of the dialogue,” Núñez told IPS, before the FARC negotiators announced a unilateral ceasefire on Monday in Cuba.

The actual start of talks in Havana is the culmination of six months of secret preliminary contacts between the government of conservative Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and leaders of the FARC, the left-wing rebel group created in 1964 in the central province of Caldas by peasant farmers in response to injustice on the part of the government and the courts.

Santos announced in August that peace talks would be launched as a result of the preliminary negotiations held with the support of the governments of Cuba and Norway, which are now guarantors of the talks, and of Venezuela and Chile, as observers.

The “general agreement for the end of the conflict and the construction of a stable, lasting peace” that emerged from the preliminary talks basically proposes that the FARC will abandon armed struggle if the government agrees, among other things, to bring to a halt major mining and infrastructure projects in rural areas, and to carry out an ambitious comprehensive agrarian development plan.

The peace talks formally began in October in Oslo, with an agenda that encompasses land reform, including alternatives for illegal drugs; the future legal political participation of the guerrillas; an end to the armed conflict; and assistance for victims.

However, the content of each point on the agenda has not been clearly worked out, and radical differences have emerged. For example, the land restitution programme, the Santos administration’s flagship strategy, which the president sees as a major stride forward in the area of land reform, is criticised by the guerrillas as a measure that will actually benefit the business elites and foreign corporations.

Many Colombians, meanwhile, prefer to keep silent in this polarised nation.

When IPS approached a random selection of people in the square, which is surrounded by the cathedral, parliament, the Supreme Court, and city hall, nearly a dozen declined to talk, saying they didn’t have time, even though it was Sunday.

But many others did respond. “Peace! We have been needing a peace process for the past 20 years. The deaths of so many soldiers, guerrillas and civilians would have been avoided. That’s why I hope there will be no interferences in this process,” responded Arturo, 50, who said he was a secondary school teacher.

“But we also know about the economic interests behind the war,” he added. “Peace would take resources away from the army, and would end the business of the others (the insurgents), which is also lucrative. I think the conflict will still stretch on for a number of years.”

“One factor is the polarisation that was aggravated by (right-wing) president (Álvaro) Uribe in his two consecutive terms (2002-2010), by fanning radical hatred,” university professor Armando Ramírez, an expert on public opinion, told IPS.

“To this is added the generalised lack of understanding, all the way from primary school up to university, of the real significance of democracy, public opinion or civil society…and the media efficiently contribute to the disorientation by favouring the establishment’s arguments,” said Ramírez.

“On radio and television, most political programmes address this issue like show business: there are anecdotes, curious aspects, and short reports devoid of context, while serious newspaper stories and columns target experts or academics, not ordinary people,” he said.

Andrés Felipe Ortiz, a member of the non-governmental Observatorio de Medios en Derechos Humanos, Medios al Derecho, agreed with Ramírez. “People depend on information to have an opinion, but the press is not clear, and polarisation is exacerbated, so people conclude that the (peace) process won’t go anywhere,” he told IPS.

“Santos called for prudence, and that’s valid, but it’s not the same as concealing things,” he said. “It’s clear that the media do not help people understand things that are of mass interest. Nor is there any sort of teaching on human rights or international humanitarian law. Journalists document things, they don’t explain.”

In Bolívar square, there were also people who believe the peace talks should be joined by the demobilised United Self-Defence Units of Colombia (AUC), the far-right paramilitary militias created by large landowners in the 1980s, allegedly to fight the guerrillas, and who took part in a demobilisation process under the Uribe administration.

“It’s obvious that we should give ourselves a chance at peace,” Carlos Blanco, a lawyer who said he was an adviser to “an organisation that defends the demobilised” paramilitaries, told IPS. “But it’s also obvious that in this process, the AUC should be represented, because their demobilisation was autonomous and voluntary.”

The AUC “were created as a political platform that collapsed, because the initial rules of the game were modified and the chiefs were extradited,” he said, referring to the paramilitary leaders who were extradited to the United States on drug charges, such as Salvatore Mancuso, who is serving time in a U.S. prison and has asked to take part in the current peace talks.

“We will achieve peace when the different sides give in and the victims and victimisers sit down across from each other and forgive each other,” said Ismael Rodríguez, a 31-year-old airline employee.

Protests held in Bogotá by groups that suffer the consequences of the war and do not feel represented in the peace talks. Credit: Constanza Vieira/IPS

By Constanza Vieira
BOGOTA, Oct 17 2012 (IPS)

Closed-door talks between members of the FARC guerrillas and the Colombian government began in Oslo Wednesday, after the delegates were taken from the airport to an undisclosed location.

The negotiators plan to speak to the press in the Norwegian capital on Thursday. The two delegations travelled to Norway separately on Tuesday afternoon.

The government and the communist FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) rebels, which have been fighting since 1964 and control a large part of rural Colombia, each named five chief negotiators, five alternates, and 20 other delegates as advisors.

The number of delegates formed part of the agreement reached after a year and a half of exploratory talks held in near total secrecy, with Norway and Cuba as guarantors and Venezuela and Chile as observers.

The government delegation is headed by former vice president Humberto de la Calle, and includes other key negotiators chosen by conservative President Juan Manuel Santos, such as representatives of industry and senior military officers.

A source close to the FARC told IPS that in Wednesday’s meeting, the insurgent group’s delegation would draw attention to an “empty chair.”

While there are five government delegates, there are only four sitting on the FARC’s side of the negotiating table.

The empty chair belongs to Simón Trinidad, nom de guerre of former banker Ricardo Palmera, who was extradited to the United States in 2004 by then president Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010). Trinidad is serving a 60-year sentence in a Colorado maximum security prison for the FARC kidnapping of three U.S. military contractors in 2003, who were held as hostages by the rebel group until 2008.

By naming Trinidad as one of their principal negotiators, the FARC is apparently indicating that his extradition marked the start of the undermining of Colombia’s autonomy in solving its internal armed conflict.

The group also appears to be pointing out that the peace talks require definitions of the U.S. role in the counterinsurgency war in Colombia, where it is the main source of military funds and the principal military strategist.

On Sept. 7, Colombia’s RCN radio station read out a letter from Trinidad in which he told President Santos: “My attendance as a peace delegate is feasible…All it would take is a simple political and diplomatic request on your part to the government of the United States; you know that very well.”

Colombia’s Justice Minister Ruth Stella Correa and the attorney general, Eduardo Montealegre, expressed more modest expectations, saying Trinidad could participate by means of a teleconference, if the U.S. authorities gave their permission.

There has been no public reaction on the question by the government of Barack Obama.

On Tuesday, INTERPOL’s (international police) wanted list still included the names of two other FARC negotiators facing U.S. arrest warrants in connection with the kidnapping of the three military contractors: Andrés París (Emilio Carvajalino), one of the FARC’s chief negotiators, and Tanja Nijmeijer, a Dutch-born rebel who forms part of the team of advisers.

But Interpol confirmed Tuesday that it had suspended the international arrest warrants for the negotiators named by the FARC, as requested by the Colombian government. Colombian arrest warrants for the guerrilla negotiators were also suspended.

The empty chair has been a symbol in peace talks between the government and the FARC since January 1999.

At that time, the then FARC commander Manuel Marulanda left his seat empty next to then president Andrés Pastrana (1998-2002) when formal negotiations began in San Vicente del Caguán in southern Colombia.

On that occasion, Marulanda – described to IPS by someone in the know as “a tremendously wary peasant and a born military strategist” – contended that the FARC had uncovered a plan to assassinate him during the ceremony.

According to another source in Bogota, the second issues that the FARC will bring up in Oslo is the need for a comprehensive peace process, that would also include the National Liberation Army (ELN) in parallel talks.

The ELN, which also emerged in 1964, inspired by the Cuban revolution, is smaller than the FARC but has an influence over many communities.

In 2009, the FARC and the ELN put an end to a war between regional structures of the two guerrilla armies, which had led to the deaths of insurgents as well as civilians and had driven a wave of refugees across the border into Venezuela.

The agreement between the two rebel groups included a commitment not to negotiate for peace without the other insurgent organisation.

A communiqué issued by the leaders of the FARC and the ELN, with a September dateline, reported that a summit of guerrilla leaders had stressed the two group’s staunch determination to seek a peace agreement, and the aim to make their “ideas and actions converge.” However, they did not specifically state an interest in talks between the ELN and the government.

The same source close to the FARC told IPS that eventual negotiations with the ELN would be independent, until the two processes merged into one towards the end of the talks, when the question of victims would be addressed.

The source also confirmed that there have been contacts between the ELN and the government.

At the meeting between leaders of the two insurgent groups, they decided to mutually back the negotiating agendas of the respective peace processes.

The agenda for talks with the FARC contains five main points: land, political participation, an end to hostilities with the surrender of weapons, drug trafficking and victims.

The ELN agenda refers to power relations, territory and population, as well as natural resources and sovereignty.

The need for peace talks with the ELN is also underscored by new civil society networks and coordinating mechanisms that are emerging with the objective of influencing the peace talks with the FARC and the changes that lie ahead if a peace accord is reached.

Rodrigo Granda, alias Ricardo Téllez, is one of the FARC’s leading negotiators in the peace talks. Credit: Patricia Grogg/IPS

By Patricia Grogg
HAVANA, Oct 15 2012 (IPS)

As peace talks between the Colombian government and the FARC guerrillas are about to start in Oslo, the possible participation of rebel leader Simón Trinidad, in prison in the United States, has not yet been decided.

Colombian Justice Minister Ruth Stella Correa said last week in Bogotá that Trinidad’s “virtual participation” in the negotiations set to begin Wednesday Oct. 17 is “legally feasible,” although it is up to the U.S. authorities.

Trinidad, the nom de guerre of Ricardo Palmera, has been serving a 60-year sentence since 2005 on charges of conspiracy and kidnapping of U.S. citizens.

The United States should allow Trinidad to travel to Oslo and then to Havana, where the peace talks will continue, because he is deeply familiar with the situation in Colombia, another insurgent leader, Rodrigo Granda, told IPS in this interview in the Cuban capital.*

Granda, alias Ricardo Téllez, is in Havana as a member of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) negotiating committee.

Q: Is Trinidad’s participation at the negotiating table a condition for the talks? What will the FARC do if he is not allowed to take part?

A: Simón will be in the talks no matter what. His spot at the table will be marked with his name. Because he is one of the 10 members of the negotiating group – and one of the key negotiators.

The government of Juan Manuel Santos has named its 10-member team, and we have not questioned any of their choices. We hope Santos will live up to what was stated: that the FARC commission would be complete, without any limitations set.

Q: Do you believe that Washington should also sit down at the negotiating table?

A: The FARC are not enemies of the people of the United States. But that country has provided 12 billion dollars for this cruel war in Colombia. That is, it is part of the internal conflict, and its presence at the negotiating table would be a big help. We are not opposed to that.

It would also be helpful if the United States recognised that Simón Trinidad is a political prisoner, and allowed him to go to Oslo and then to Havana, to contribute to the Colombian peace process in person.

We Colombians cannot afford to do without a man who is completely familiar with the problems in the country, who has a great deal to contribute to this process. The Americans know him and know that he is deeply familiar with the situation in Colombia.

Q: What do people expect from the peace talks that will begin in Oslo?

A: We mustn’t get our hopes up too high. We will get to know each other; we are two enemies who in many cases will be seeing each other face to face for the first time. We’ll have to start out by building trust. We will undoubtedly clarify some questions about how the talks will work – rules, places, schedules, but nothing of great significance.

The talks will continue in Havana a few weeks after they begin (in Oslo), and then the serious, in-depth analysis of the points mentioned in the “General Agreement for the Termination of the Conflict and the Construction of a Stable and Lasting Peace” will begin.

Q: The agrarian question appears to be a key point for the FARC. Why is that?

A: Colombia is the only country in Latin America that has not carried out an agrarian reform process, and there are “latifundio” (large landed estates) of up to 100,000 hectares, while 87 percent of the peasants have no land.

We are talking about a comprehensive land reform process, involving the confiscation of land for its distribution among those who want and can work it.

At the same time, the government says it has a project for the integral development of the countryside.

We will bring our positions closer together. All of the points to be discussed are important. We are going in with an open mind, to address all of the problems, no matter how painful they are, and seek solutions to them.

Q: Do you agree with those who maintain that this is the last chance for peace?

A: There will always be opportunities for peace in any conflict in the world, and Colombia is no exception. The thing is that now there are factors that increase the sense of optimism that at last an agreement can be found through dialogue.

I have the impression that at this moment, the government is being realistic. They know that they cannot defeat the guerrillas by military means.

The dialogue process will have problems and ups and downs that will have to be overcome with dedication, taking into account the supreme interest of peace for Colombia. It is the FARC’s big contribution to our country and to the revolutionaries of Latin America.

We believe that even today our struggle is fully justified. If the situation changes, we also change.

Q: The regional context does not favour armed struggle. Why does the FARC insist on this kind of struggle?

A: In the specific case of Colombia, all of the factors that gave rise to the armed struggle remain in place. That there is now a president who wants to stop, study these causes and put an end to it, is something else.

(Santos) sees the FARC as a valid interlocutor, that tells him: “if you attack and dismantle these factors that have led to the armed struggle, we can stop and shift to another form of struggle that would be open, legal and political.” A stable, long-lasting peace treaty will take time to achieve.

We want to stop the war, although the mentality of the government and the high military command is aimed at the physical elimination of the insurgency, and in that effort they are using every form of fighting. They have dealt us a blow, but we have dealt them a blow too. You could say we are in a military deadlock that makes it necessary to find a political solution.

As things stand now, the conflict could last another 20 or 30 years. Is that good for the country, the region, Latin America? We believe it is not. And we especially believe it is not good for the Colombian people.

Q: Recently, the Secretariat of the FARC and the Central Command of the National Liberation Army (ELN) met. Was any idea about the participation of that other Colombian guerrilla group defined?

A: No. However, in the accord signed with the government, it was stated that other guerrilla organisations could support, initiate or contribute to the peace process.

Each guerrilla organisation is sovereign, and the ELN has stupendous people, very intelligent. Undoubtedly they will try to take from this experience what can work for them.

We believe they have are very willing to work for peace in Colombia. Gabino (Nicolás Rodríguez Bautista, the head of the ELN Central Command) has publicly expressed that.

We are very optimistic that the ELN could launch a process similar to ours.

Q: But separately?

A: At this point, our process with the government is quite advanced. The government and the ELN are apparently just starting to make a series of contacts.

In this sense, whatever could be and is in the hands of the FARC to help clarify things for our compañeros in the ELN, we are willing to facilitate all of the information that we have and to share the experience that we have accumulated in these months of discreet secret meetings in Havana.

* With reporting by Constanza Vieira in Bogotá.

Excerpt:

Sandra Ramírez on Havana’s malecón, or seaside drive. Credit: Patricia Grogg/IPS

By Patricia Grogg
HAVANA, Sep 27 2012 (IPS)

It’s hard to imagine her in guerrilla fatigues, carrying a 25-kg backpack and firing shots to repel an enemy attack, or diving for cover from aerial bombardment. She is known as Sandra Ramírez, and she has left the field of battle in Colombia to come to the Cuban capital to talk peace.

So far she is the only publicly recognised woman to be involved in exploratory talks between delegates of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the country’s government, headed by President Juan Manuel Santos, aimed at initiating dialogue for “the construction of a stable and lasting peace.”

When she arrived at the first press conference held in Havana in August by FARC representatives, not all the journalists knew who she was. But soon the news spread round the room that one of the initial negotiators was the partner of “Manuel Marulanda”, the nom de guerre of Pedro Antonio Marín, founder and leader of Latin America’s longest-lived guerrilla group.

One interpretation of her presence at the talks is the reaffirmation of the continuity of a process initiated by Marulanda, who died of a heart attack in March 2008, at the age of 77.

“What is present here is his legacy. During his 60 years of struggle, he was seeking a political solution to the conflict, and that has always been our aim,” Ramírez said in this exclusive interview with IPS.

“At Commander Marulanda’s side I learned to love this cause of ours, and the much greater commitment it implies. We worked together for many years and we shared so many things,” she said, her normally calm voice breaking.

Ramírez comes from a large peasant family. “We were 15 brothers and sisters and we had few opportunities in life, especially the girls.” She joined the guerrillas when she was 17. In May she turned 48, and she has no regrets about the path she chose. In the jungle she learned nursing and communications and she was a member of the corps guarding the FARC national directorate.

Apparently, that is how she became romantically involved with Marulanda, whom she accompanied and cared for in his last years.

Colombian journalists recall seeing her with him 10 years ago, at the peace talks between the FARC and the government of former president Andrés Pastrana (1998-2002) in the southern municipality of San Vicente del Caguán.

Q: Those talks failed. What are your expectations for the dialogue due to start in Oslo on Oct. 17, and to continue in Havana?

A: We are starting a new talks process to see if, with everybody’s efforts – those of the guerrillas, the government and the Colombian people – we can achieve a political solution to the conflict.

The endeavour has always had a chance of success, but the difficulty is that the Colombian oligarchy has always refused to give up a millimetre of its power, which it uses to shoot the opposition down.

Q: Do you think it is possible to hold peace talks without a ceasefire?

A: The government of Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010) exercised extreme violence and did not open its doors to peace. Now the correlation of forces is different, both within the country and in the broader Latin American context, with democratic governments in countries like Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador.

People in these societies are developing different forms of struggle, and this is having an effect on the people of Colombia. The decision is to sit down to talks, but logic and the scenario itself will determine whether or not there is a ceasefire, which would have to be bilateral if it is to occur.

Q: In the early 1990s, Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who led the armed insurrection that brought him to power in 1959, began to speak out against armed struggle and to recommend mass struggle, especially of “the people united, the people coordinated, the people struggling in the same direction.” What did you think of this statement?

A: Conditions in Colombia are very different. There is no freedom for political participation. The far right clings to power and physically eliminates its opponents; it has closed all avenues and left us no other option than to take up arms to make ourselves heard. Because that is what this is about: we take up arms in order to make ourselves heard.

Q: It is said that the FARC want to negotiate because they have been weakened.

A: The FARC have sought peace ever since they were founded, and this is a new opportunity. Of course, as an organisation facing all the latest technology provided by the United States, we cannot deny that we have been hit hard and lost valuable members. But that does not mean we are weakened.

Q: Do you think conditions are right for the Colombian people to support this process?

A: Yes, of course. This dialogue is supported by indigenous people, Afro-descendants, and every movement and social sector in the country. It is not a whim of the Santos government nor of the FARC.

Q: The agreements you regard as the road map for the peace talks do not mention the situation of women. Why is that?

A: The situation of women in Colombia is as difficult as that of all Colombian people – that is why it is not mentioned specifically.

Q: Around 40 percent of FARC troops are women; however, there are none in the organisation’s Secretariat.

A: According to our calculations, at the moment more than 40 percent are women. There are no women in the national directorate, but there are some in the Central High Command and intermediate echelons. And at company level, there are women in leadership positions.

Q: Women in Colombia, too, are subject to domestic violence and are discriminated against by machismo. Do these problems exist in the guerrilla?

A: Our organisation arose from Colombian society and is affected by these realities. But within it, women combatants are trained to express themselves, participate, take decisions and assert their rights. We have disciplinary regulations and fights are not allowed, let alone violence against women.

Q: Is it true that there are children among the guerrilla?

A: There have been exceptional cases with the children of guerrillas killed in combat. Sometimes their grandparents can’t look after them, and they are closely watched and pursued by the police or the army. Then there is no alternative but to take them with us. We give them an education, a combatant is designated to care for them, we try to give them the best possible care.

Q: What happens if the child wants to leave?

A: We analyse the situation. They generally choose to stay for security reasons. In many cases children have become excellent combatants, and even commanders.

Q: Is there any pressure or coercion on young people to join the guerrilla?

A: None at all. Entry is voluntary for everyone, men or women. The minimum age for entry to the FARC is 15.

Excerpt:

Peasant delegates at the Marcha Patriótica peace movement’s first public appearance, on Jul. 20, 2010 in the town of La Macarena, in the FARC’s zone of influence. Credit: Constanza Vieira/IPS

By Constanza Vieira
BOGOTA, Sep 13 2012 (IPS)

What are the obstacles to peace in war-torn Colombia? When government and rebel negotiators asked themselves this question, they concluded that one problem was that the media in this country had turned “peace” itself into a dirty word.

But Enrique Santos – the former owner of the leading daily newspaper, El Tiempo, older brother of President Juan Manuel Santos, and a key participant in the preliminary talks with the rebels – reportedly quipped: “That can be fixed in two weeks.”

IPS was told about the comment by a source close to the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Enrique Santos reportedly made his remark during the exploratory talks that began a year and a half ago and led to the president’s Aug. 27 announcement that formal peace talks would start in October.

“That assertion, if he really made it, is also a confession about how news is handled in a manipulative fashion,” journalist Arturo Guerrero told IPS.

Changing the mentality of the media “isn’t an easy task,” because “constant genuflexion before those in power is a characteristic of our press,” said Javier Darío Restrepo, a veteran reporter who heads the ethics department of the New Ibero-American Journalism Foundation (FNPI), founded by Colombian Nobel Literature Prize-winner Gabriel García Márquez.

Under the government of right-wing President Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010), the media were “totally obsequious,” he told IPS. “No one could raise any doubts about him being the Messiah, the man who was going to change the country.”

During the Uribe administration, the media, basing their reports almost exclusively on military sources, celebrated bombings of guerrilla camps and rebel casualties. And anyone who dared talk about peace risked ridicule and accusations of complicity with the FARC, the main rebel group, in arms since 1964.

By means of a constitutional reform, Uribe managed to be re-elected to a second term, although his bid for a third term was cut short by the Constitutional Court. “Little by little, the press left him behind, and now they criticise him more and more openly. Why? Because the ones in power have changed, now it’s Juan Manuel (Santos),” Restrepo said.

Since Aug. 27, headlines trumpeting the benefits of peace mushroomed overnight. All of a sudden peace has become more profitable than war, and studies have been published to demonstrate this.

“Santos is realistic” a guerrilla leader and negotiator who until recently was dubbed a “narco-terrorist” blares out from the front page of one newspaper. “Peace comes first” states the president of the Supreme Court, Javier Zapata Ortiz, on another. “The Pope encourages the peace process with the FARC” says a front-page headline the next day.

Restrepo said “there is a kind of worship of those in power. That is one of the most worrisome aspects of our press, because it keeps it from being effective in its analyses and in denouncing abuses of power.”

In 1999, a United Nations general assembly resolution, the “Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace”, defined a “culture of peace” as “a set of values, attitudes, traditions, modes of behaviour, and ways of life…”

And article 7 of the Declaration states that “The educative and informative role of the media contributes to the promotion of a culture of peace.”

For that reason, upbeat headlines aren’t enough.

In order to usher in a culture of peace based on respect for life in Colombia, it is necessary “to work to change the mentality of journalists,” Restrepo said.

“Change has to do with training, and with incentives” such as prizes and praise, because “journalists love it when their work stands out,” added Restrepo, who said he imagines a kind of “ongoing campaign that would help the public learn how to distinguish what is going well and what has to improve.

“But above all, change has to do with journalists learning how to look at their own work with a critical eye,” he added.

Restrepo said it was “very difficult” to say when “the hatred propagated over the past decade will be appeased, because it will entail a change of attitude, which will require a long-term effort, in which the press has to be very involved.”

But it’s not a question of no longer reporting on “the barbarities being committed by the guerrillas, because this isn’t about achieving peace with our eyes closed,” he stressed.

What is needed, he clarified, is context; showing “how different countries that have experienced similar situations have resolved their problems, paying the price that is paid for peace.”

In his view, this “contextualisation” is not seen in certain newspapers, “because they are giving in to the primal instinct of ‘they are cheats, and how can we make peace with cheats?’ Well, it isn’t with friends that you make peace,” he said.

A country that is caught up in war for decades is repeating mistakes over and over again, he said. And the mistake made by the press is, “precisely, insisting on stirring up toxic memories, that poison people’s minds,” Restrepo said.

“It is the duty of journalists not to spread the poison,” but to report on these issues in such a way that “feelings turn into logic,” he argued.

Reality “is made up of many elements that, understood by readers, help them react intelligently instead of with knee-jerk reactions based purely on feelings,” he said.

The outlook has changed since late August.

The revelation that the government was holding exploratory talks with the FARC and that formal peace negotiations would begin in October in Oslo and would then continue in Havana took the media and pundits by surprise.

But for the past year, Congress has been debating legal reforms that now make sense in light of the announcement. The reforms would pardon war crimes committed by all of the parties involved in the decades-long armed conflict.

The projected reforms included the expansion of the jurisdiction of military tribunals; the creation of a legal framework for peace talks, that would benefit politicians and businesspersons with ties to the far-right paramilitaries; and an attempt at judicial reforms, already blocked by a civil society campaign waged by journalists and ordinary citizens over the Twitter social network.

Guerrero, a columnist with the El Colombiano newspaper who has helped raise awareness among journalists about the need for responsible coverage of the conflict, does not believe that public opinion “in today’s world of Internet” is as easily manipulated as Enrique Santos’s alleged remark would indicate.

“The absolute reign of the traditional media has noisily collapsed, because the social networks, blogs and the Internet in general have become a sixth continent, where these media no longer have an influence,” he said.

“That sixth continent is overwhelming…and many people are turning to it as a source of news,” he said. Meanwhile, “the large mass of people who do not follow the news and only find out what is going on every once in a while…are more susceptible to manipulation,” he added.

One decisive aspect is that “functional illiteracy is still high in the country, especially in rural areas,” Guerrero added. And that segment of the population also has “a quite rudimentary understanding of politics.”

In large cities, on the other hand, “what predominates is the conscious vote, and those sectors that have access to the Internet, that are the most educated, play a part in marking the horizon towards which the country is marching,” he said.

Technical experts from the prosecutor's office working in a cemetery in La Macarena, in central Colombia, full of unmarked tombs of the “disappeared”, some of the thousands of victims of Colombia’s civil war. Credit: Constanza Vieira/IPS

By Constanza Vieira
BOGOTA, Aug 29 2012 (IPS)

The Colombian government and FARC rebels will start formal peace talks in Oslo on Oct. 5, in an attempt to put an end to an armed conflict that has gone through different stages since 1946, with brief lulls.

The text of the agreement signed in Havana has not yet been divulged. But it reportedly contains a clause stating that neither party will withdraw from the negotiating table until a final peace deal is reached.

President Juan Manuel Santos decided to cut short the rumours in the local press, and announced Monday that “exploratory talks” had been held and that “in the next few days the results of the contacts with the FARC (Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia) will be made public.”

He said there were three “guiding principles” in the talks. “First: we are going to learn from the mistakes of the past, in order to avoid repeating them. Second: any process has to lead to the end of the conflict, not to its prolongation.

“Third: military operations and a military presence will be maintained in every centimetre of the national territory,” he added – raising questions with respect to speculation about a possible bilateral ceasefire as of October, or at least within the next six months.

The contacts apparently began at an informal level a year and a half ago, and moved into a phase of greater commitment, but still in secrecy, in May, according to the news director of the Venezuela-based Telesur TV network, Colombian journalist Jorge Enrique Botero.

According to Canal Capital, a Bogota public TV station, more than 30 meetings have already been held, in Colombia and abroad.

IPS was able to confirm that a member of the FARC high command took part in the meetings – physician Jaime Alberto Parra, whose nom de guerre is Mauricio Jaramillo. He currently commands the eastern bloc of the rebel group.

Different sources have also confirmed that conservative President Santos was represented in the secret preliminary talks by his brother, journalist Enrique Santos, former president of the Inter-American Press Association, and director of El Tiempo, Colombia’s leading daily newspaper, from 1999 to 2009.

In the 1970s, Enrique Santos founded the – now defunct – left-wing magazine Alternativa along with Colombian Nobel Literature Prize-winner Gabriel García Márquez.

On the government side, the contacts have been led by the president’s senior security adviser Sergio Jaramillo and Environment Minister Frank Pearl – both former officials under the government of right-wing President Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010), who is now an outspoken critic of the government and of the talks.

Between one and three retired generals also reportedly took part in the preliminary talks.

Botero confirmed what British correspondent Karl Penhaul told the W Radio station on Aug. 1, when he revealed meetings between the government and the FARC in Cuba.

According to Penhaul, when President Santos visited Havana, supposedly to wish his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chávez a speedy recovery after surgery for cancer, he met with FARC emissaries.

“Guerrilla sources…told me that the president himself (Santos) met with guerrilla commanders in Cuba to explore the possibility of talks,” the British reporter said.

In late July, Penhaul published a videotaped interview with Benito Cabrera, alias Fabián Ramírez, a commander of the powerful Southern Bloc of the FARC who had been reported as killed by the army.

Penhaul said at the time that the positions of the government and the communist guerrillas were “very distant from each other.”

Two recent surveys by the Fundación Ideas para la Paz (FiP), an independent non-profit think tank founded by a group of Colombian entrepreneurs, said a successful military solution to the civil war was unlikely, and the armed forces’ offensive was seen as a tactic to force the FARC, the country’s main rebel group, to the negotiating table.

But in the last three years, support for the use of military force rose from 28 to 37.3 percent among those surveyed, while preference for a negotiated solution dropped from 67.1 to 54.6 percent. Backing for a combination of the two strategies went up from 4.9 to 8.2 percent in the same period.

Another reporter, former vice president Francisco Santos (the president’s cousin), who is now his opponent and works in the RCN Radio station, said that “it all started” in the Colombian city of Santa Marta in August 2010, in a meeting of reconciliation between the left-wing Chávez and Santos, who had just taken office.

According to an IPS source close to the FARC, who will remain anonymous for security reasons, it is not true that Chile and Spain are among the facilitators of the peace talks, although Venezuela, Cuba and Norway are. The latter hosted the talks between Palestinians and Israel that gave rise to the 1993 Oslo Accords.

A prominent Norwegian figure reportedly took part in the preliminary talks from the start, but the identity of that individual has not been revealed.

RCN Radio said the government itself has been leaking details of the negotiations to begin acclimating the highly polarised Colombian public to the idea of peace talks.

The negotiations will be held behind closed doors, although they will take into account proposals and input from the citizens, and the negotiating table will issue joint reports, RCN Radio reported.

In late July, President Santos said the conditions were not in place to sit down to talks with the FARC.

However, the Caracol Radio station reported that four months ago, the president began to hold discussions with generals and colonels, to convince them that peace was possible.

In addition, two weeks ago, meetings were stepped up with the different parties in Congress to create regulations for some aspects of the so-called “legal framework for peace,” approved in June, which will apparently provide the guidelines for the negotiations with the guerrillas.

The military argue that the legal framework has gaps. But the controversial law reportedly did not please the FARC either.

A regional commander whose nom de guerre is Pablo Catatumbo, who heads rebel forces in western and southwestern Colombia, said in a letter read by IPS that the legal framework “runs counter to peace.”

The legal framework, added Catatumbo, “is more oriented towards including in the processes of impunity those who were left out of the earlier legislation: the ‘parapoliticians’ and the army.”

The “parapoliticians” have ties to the far-right paramilitaries and have formed part of their strategy of terror, which has killed and “disappeared” thousands of peasants and forced millions to flee their rural homes.

When “just one of the sides” draws up a framework of this kind, “it is to favour its allies,” not to achieve peace with the other side, the letter says.

In the letter, dated in July, Catatumbo also mentioned that the FARC have suggested that the United States be included in the talks, since it is the country that finances the war and sells Colombia most of its weapons.

Illegal spying on human rights activists and journalists is still happening in Colombia, according to a new report by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Juan Carlos Monge and Todd Howland presenting the report. Credit:OHCHR Colombia

In response to the allegation, Interior Minister Germán Vargas categorically stated: “It’s not true. There is no illegal wiretapping.”

“These allegations should be more precise, they should not be generalisations,” he added.

After a major scandal broke out in 2009 over wiretapping and harassment of Supreme Court magistrates, political dissidents, human rights defenders and reporters by the Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad (DAS), the domestic intelligence agency was officially closed in October 2011.

One month earlier, Jorge Noguera, director of DAS from 2002 to 2005, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for his involvement in the 2004 murder of a prominent sociologist by far-right paramilitaries.

More recent DAS directors as well as over 40 DAS employees and several high-ranking officials of the government of rightwing president Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010) are currently under prosecution for illegal spying and harassment.

Nevertheless, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) states in its report for 2011, presented Monday Feb. 27 in Bogotá, that it continued receiving reports about illegal spying, especially from human rights defenders and journalists.

The OHCHR report on the situation of human rights in Colombia says “there has been uncorroborated information on the involvement of State agents, including members of civilian and military intelligence services, in illegal and clandestine operations.

“Most cases have not been resolved. If no significant progress is made in preventing, investigating and punishing these acts, it will be difficult to guarantee non-repetition,” it adds.

The report cites, for example, interception of emails and information theft against human rights defenders and journalists, even after DAS was closed down.

Virtually every United Nations report on Colombia since 1997 has recommended purging the country’s intelligence files, to guarantee respect for human rights. The latest report is no exception, which indicates that the purge has not been carried out.

The report recommends that “the process for updating, rectifying, annulling or keeping personal information in intelligence files should be regulated,” Juan Carlos Monge, deputy director of the OHCHR office in Colombia, said in a press conference in Bogotá Monday.

The Constitutional Court handed down a ruling to that effect in October.

The report says “The military intelligence services require public regulations to define and limit their actions. Their internal control mechanisms and public accountability need to be substantially strengthened, particularly in view of the increased allocation of military intelligence service resources planned” by the government of centre-right President Juan Manuel Santos, who took office in August 2010.

The OHCHR report, which was also presented Monday in Geneva to the U.N. Human Rights Commission, recognises that progress has been made in some cases of interception of emails and surveillance. “Not progress that we can be totally satisfied with, but a step forward at least,” Monge said.

The main progress made on that front, according to the U.N. agency, was the adoption in mid-2011 of the “Intelligence Law”, which was drawn up with advice and observations from the OHCHR office in Colombia, “to ensure that it was compatible with international human rights standards,” Monge said.

The report explains that “The law defines the limits and purposes of intelligence in terms of respecting human rights and creates two commissions: one to assist in the purging of intelligence files and another, a congressional commission, to monitor intelligence activities.”

But, it adds, “Noteworthy challenges to the implementation of this law are the weak mandate of the congressional commission and the lack of effective internal control mechanisms.”

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay recommended that the office of the inspector general (Procuraduría General de la Nación) “take more in-depth preventive and disciplinary actions vis-à-vis the intelligence agencies” Monge said.

The office of the inspector general should take on a more active role in purging the intelligence files, the OHCHR report adds, especially given the fact that it was left in charge of the DAS files when the intelligence agency was shut down.

“The 2011 report indicates the importance of the procuraduría in the purge,” Todd Howland, the new director of the OHCHR office in Colombia, said in response to a question from IPS. “That recommendation is very important, because they can take on a role of civilian oversight with respect to the files and that process.”

In response to another question from IPS, and referring to the prosecutions in the DAS case, Monge said it is best in these cases to continue forward “with actions that vindicate the good use to which intelligence should be put.”

The OHCHR recommends that measures be adopted in order to comprehensively reform the intelligence services and “transform the institutional culture that led to the commission of human rights violations.”

It also says it is “necessary to protect public officials from the intelligence services who report abuses or refuse to comply with illegal requests.”

The espionage carried out by the DAS, which answered directly to Uribe, went across borders, targeted citizens from other countries, and purportedly diverted U.S. and British military aid.

In May 2011, the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee urged Colombia to clarify and explain DAS’s spying activities and determine who was responsible for illegal espionage activities carried out in Europe, and against European citizens.

And the U.S. Congress ordered the State Department to review the use to which military aid to Colombia was put over the last decade. The aid totalled eight billion dollars and was channelled through the Plan Colombia military and counterinsurgency programme. (END)

Cleaning up a stream that used to be a garbage dump and restocking it with fish, or helping demobilised far-right paramilitaries reintegrate into society by returning to school, are some of the early outcomes of a project involving community radio stations in a remote area of northwest Colombia.

The project is called “Con-vivencias al dial: Radios para el encuentro” (roughly, “tuning in to shared experiences: radio stations bringing people together).

These social and environmental success stories stand in stark contrast to the long history of violence in the municipality of Tierra Alta, in the province of Córdoba, which has claimed countless victims, including Sergio Restrepo, a Jesuit priest killed by paramilitaries in 1989, after whom the community radio station that is a part of the project is named.

The agreement for the demobilisation of paramilitary groups, negotiated by the government of rightwing president Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010) and paramilitary commanders, brought about an improvement of the general situation.

But “there is still tension in the local area, and it will take 10 or 12 years to eradicate it, by developing educational and employment programmes, especially for young people,” Víctor Pantoja, a member of the programming committee for the Sergio Restrepo radio station, 105.0 FM in Tierra Alta, told IPS over the telephone.

“It’s also true that the messages of ‘Con-vivencias al dial’ are beginning to have an impact,” he said enthusiastically.

Of course, the initiative will not reach all 56,000 paramilitaries demobilised over the past decade, nor all of the victims of the armed conflict in this war-torn country.

But it is teaching radio production and broadcasting skills while producing 120 10-minute programmes that will be distributed to the radio stations participating in the project.

The plan was instigated by the Ministry of Information and Communications Technologies (MINTIC) and the Colombian Agency for Reintegration (ACR) – the government agency in charge of demobilisation and reinsertion strategies – with support from the Japanese fiduciary fund managed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).

“The Japanese fund contributed 113,000 dollars, the ACR 150,000 dollars and the ministry 130,000 dollars,” María Fernanda Ardila, the deputy director of methodologies, monitoring and evaluation at MINTIC, told IPS.

“The main goal is to provide tools for community radio stations to support social reinsertion processes and play the role of mediators in bringing about peaceful coexistence,” Esmeralda Ortiz, a journalist who has worked in community radio since 1990, told IPS.

Ortiz, who works in the Ministry of Culture, has been coordinating the project, which is to last one year, since August 2011.

“The Ministry of Culture’s mission is to create contents that are consistent with the social reality of the specific cultural contexts in the different regions, and programming that strengthens nationality, identity, social participation and democracy,” said Ortiz.

To develop the plan, 20 municipalities were selected out of 1,067 studied, with a particularly violent history resulting from the forced displacement of persons and later mass demobilisation, in the context of the decades-long war in Colombia between leftwing guerrillas and government forces and their paramilitary allies.

The municipalities are located in the provinces of Atlántico, Bolívar, César and Magdalena, in the northern Caribbean region; Antioquía, Córdoba, Sucre and Santander, in the centre and northwest; and Casanare, Huila, Meta, Cundinamarca and Tolima, in the east, centre and west of the country.

Participants in these 20 municipalities are developing their skills and capabilities, in order to produce the radio programmes on their own in the future.

In the municipalities of Soledad and Planadas, in Atlántico and Tolima provinces, respectively, the main goal is to discourage young people from joining illegal armed groups.

The community radio station participating in the project in Soledad is Madrigal 88.1 FM Stereo, and in Planadas it is Musicalia Stereo 106.0 FM.

“The radio programme has been very, very, very useful. The skills training courses are very interesting,” Efrén Silva, an observer for the NGO Cruzada Social (Social Crusade) in Planadas, told IPS over the phone.

“This project is like a light for us, because we have been living in the midst of war here since 1940, and we have been perpetually afraid of saying anything,” Silva said.

Planadas is in the south of the western province of Tolima, near the Cañón de Las Hermosas, a remote river canyon taken over by the insurgent Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). It was in this area that the Colombian army killed the top FARC commander, known as “Alfonso Cano”, in a military operation in November 2011.

“I would say that 60 percent of the population of about 40,000 people has come together because of the project. Women, children, teachers are all participating, and many musicians come here once a week to make music and entertain people,” said Silva.

“People are so keen on the project that one member of a community action group walks for two hours to get to Planadas, because, he says, he is convinced of the importance of the work that can be done through the radio station,” said Ortiz, the coordinator.

“I am surprised by the mass participation of young people in most of the municipalities. But the thing is that local people want not only music, but also to know what is happening in the country, and to find out about ways of solving their problems without violence and with respect for different ways of thinking and doing things, and there is a great deal to be done in that area,” she said.

Once the radio programmes are made, in addition to distributing them to the community stations, “we will take them to be broadcast by the national police radio station, university stations, and as many other stations as possible,” said Ortiz.

“We have so many stories to tell about people who used to be armed combatants, but who are now working for the community,” she said.

“For example, in Montes de María (a mountain range in the northern provinces of Sucre and Bolívar) former combatants are clearing minefields, and demobilised women are now running soup kitchens for the elderly,” she added.

* This story was produced with the support of UNESCO.