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ver more than 50 years, civil war in colombia has killed an estimated 220,000 people, and displaced as many as 8 million. Last September, after six years of talks, the Colombian government finally signed a peace accord with the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)— only to see citizens narrowly reject it in a shocking October referendum result. Days later, President Juan Manuel Santos, a former fellow at the Fletcher School, won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the suddenly ailing agreement.
Calling the Nobel a “gift from heaven,” Santos said it buoyed his efforts to salvage the deal and end the bloodshed. He quickly worked to strike a balance between granting amnesty to some former fighters and holding accountable those who committed war crimes. Under the revised accord, the FARC, which launched its guerrilla war in 1964, would relaunch as a political party and its estimated 7,000 fighters would disarm under United Nations supervision. This time, Santos bypassed the popular vote; he signed the agreement in November and the country’s Congress swiftly approved it. The challenge now is getting the plan to work. Since 2005, Kimberly Theidon, the Henry J. Leir Professor of International Humanitarian Studies at Fletcher, has consulted with the government of Colombia on transitional justice and reconciliation, and is now focusing on the mass demobilization and reintegration of former FARC fighters. She previously investigated similar issues in Peru, writing the book Intimate Enemies to chronicle the experiences of ordinary Peruvians working toward reconciliation after 20 years of armed conflict in their country. We spoke with Theidon about whether Colombians who lost loved ones in the civil war will accept former rebels in their neighborhoods and their legislature.
were over. Polls predicted that the public would approve peace accords by a 2 to 1 margin. What happened?
FLETCHER MAGAZINE: In late September 2016, it seemed the years of negotiations
I am guardedly optimistic. I was part of a U.N. Expert Mission on Gender and
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Transitional Justice in February, and the challenges are multiple. Moving from a complex peace accord to implementation will require great resources and considerable political will.
Some voters opposed the accord’s provision of stipends, support and training to help former fighters transition into civilian life. These opponents framed the provision as a form of rewarding—rather than punishing—individuals for their acts of violence. Opponents also criticized how the accord made rank-and-file FARC fighters eligible for amnesty, provided they were not involved in war crimes or crimes against humanity. And some voters opposed how the agreement promoted the equality and participation of women and LGBTI groups. The geographic distribution of the referendum votes suggests that people in regions that experienced high rates of violence voted in favor of the peace accords. The “no” vote revealed the deep gap that exists between certain urban centers—whose inhabitants see the war as the distant past and currently a subject for television series—and people in regions of the country in which the living legacies of war are a part of daily life. In those rural areas, the peace accords were embraced not for their perfection, but for their promise.
KIMBERLY THEIDON:
What do you think of the revised accord?
F L E T C H E R M AGA Z I N E | SUM MER 2017
This isn’t the first time that Colombia has tried to end the war with FARC. In the 1980s, FARC agreed to a ceasefire and created a political party, only to have 3,000 of its members assassinated by paramilitaries. How can Colombia better protect former combatants this time?
There’s a lot of bad faith on all sides around what’s going to happen next. The 1984 assassinations hovered over all Kimberly Theidon in her home.