Paul KeenanTalks on Colombia’s future reach a dangerous crossroads, writes Paul Keenan
As ever in conflict situations, when the firing stopped, the war of words began.
No sooner had the first reports emerged from Colombia of an April 15 ambush on government troops by members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) than the sides were claiming the moral high ground.
Over the corpses of 11 dead soldiers, slain during a patrol in the south-western province of Cauca, the government of President Juan Manuel Santos was crying foul over the FARC’s breaching of its unilateral ceasefire, declared in December as part of ongoing peace negotiations.
Mr Santos, who had responded to that ceasefire by ending air strikes on FARC in March, ordered their immediate recommencement. Denouncing the “reprehensible” attack, he vowed that it “will not remain unpunished and demands decisive measures, and it will have consequences for those involved”.
Simultaneously, FARC commander Pablo Catatumbo declared the action of his fighters as one of self-defence against an ongoing siege of them in Cauca.
Into the breach stepped Bishop Fabio Suescun Mutis. In his role as Military Bishop of Colombia (and from nearly 50 years of pastoral service in his native country), Bishop Mutis lamented the loss of life in the ambush and the fact “that there is still war and we hope that this becomes an invitation to continue on a path of lasting peace”.
The words of Bishop Mutis can be understood in two contexts here. On the one hand, the prelate was again fulfilling his Church’s role as peace broker between the nation’s warring sides – the Church in Colombia has repeatedly called for peace during five decades of fighting and, in this role, was invited by FARC last December to verify the group’s latest ceasefire. Bishop Mutis’ own long experience of the FARC conflict saw him included in the Vatican’s 2012 line-up for its peace delegation to Syria – a mission cancelled before the off due to surging violence there.
On the other hand, and just like all Colombians desirous of an enduring peace, Bishop Mutis was undoubtedly mindful of the threat posed by the ambush to ongoing negotiations taking place in Havana, Cuba, between FARC and government representatives. The defensive comments uttered by Pablo Catatumbo came from his seat at those very talks.
Ongoing for just over two years, it has been over the most recent months that the Havana negotiations have begun to pay the most promising dividends. Not alone was there the current ceasefire, but there had been assurances gained from FARC on the issue of recruiting child soldiers and an agreement for a cooperative approach to dealing with a lethal legacy of the conflict, the many thousands of landmines littering the countryside.
Overall, the Havana talks focus on five key areas: agricultural reform (the very origins of the FARC movement in 1964), an end to the illegal drugs trade, FARC members’ future participation in politics, victim reparations and FARC demobilisation. Though no single area is straightforward or definitively settled, progress has been such that, before the Cauca attack, government negotiator Sergio Jaramillo felt buoyed enough to announce publicly that “the end of the longest-running conflict in the Americas is within reach”.
As a side note, the Cuban administration must surely be hoping that Mr Jaramillo’s assessment is correct; despite a new cosiness with America, President Barack Obama noted, when taking Cuba off his country’s terror watch list on April 14, that the island nation remains a safe haven for FARC guerrillas wanted in Colombia, a situation readily rectified through success at the Havana negotiations.
Matters around the table in Cuba are directly affected by those in Colombia, however, and the Cauca attack has other far reaching consequences for President Santos.
Just two days before the FARC attack, Colombia’s Conservative Party walked out of the coalition government led by Mr Santos and his Social Party of National Unity, citing misspent finances and corruption as its impetus. However, it cannot be ignored that the Conservatives themselves had watched with growing alarm its own members defecting to the Democratic Centre, a party fiercely opposed to any talks with FARC.
The talks were the price the Conservatives had grudgingly agreed to pay for a place in the coalition in the first place. Two days after the move, the Cauca attack afforded former president Alvaro Uribe, a founding member of the Democratic Centre, the opportunity to publicly denounce President Santos’ continued attempts for a negotiated settlement.
“The FARC commits murder and the answer of the government is, we’re going to accelerate the negotiations,” Mr Uribe mocked. For the record, Mr Uribe’s father was killed by FARC during a botched kidnaping in 1983 and the former president came to power on a promise to tackle and defeat the group once and for all.
It is in opposition to such voices that Bishop Mutis continues to speak softly, while perhaps directing his words of lasting peace towards Mr Santos (as a liberal politician, there is little else the prelate and President would agree on).
But on the FARC issue, President Santos appears to be man of the hour for Bishop Mutis. In his televised address, the President’s strong words were tempered with a cautionary note against temptation on the part of political hawks in Colombia to drag the country back into a full scale conflict with FARC. As he ordered the restart of airstrikes, he added: “The easiest thing today would be to say war, war and more war, but I was elected to make peace and as Colombia’s leader that is my mandate.”
He went on to implore of all: “Do not be deaf to Colombians who are shouting for an end to the war, who are losing patience.”
Expressing his hopes for an ultimate peace deal, Mr Santos insisted that, after five decades of conflict, the time has now come for FARC to put a deadline in place for the successful culmination of talks. “If (FARC) want peace they must demonstrate with deeds and not with words,” he stressed.
Listening from Havana, the negotiators must surely hear the sense communicated by President Santos and Bishop Mutis.