An understandable thirst for justice should not block a deal that would save lives
The Economist – WHEN the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), as they grandly call themselves, took up arms to install communism in their country, Nikita Khrushchev was still running the Soviet Union.
FARC negotiator Pablo Catatumbo. left, shakes hands with Colombia’s government negotiator Frank Pearl during a conference in Havana, Sunday. (Enrique De La Osa/Reuters )
For half a century, the FARC have stuck to their guns, even as Colombia has become a more inclusive democracy. The cold war ended but the FARC kept going, through drug running, kidnapping and extortion.
They twice used peace talks as a cynical tactic to regroup, only to try once again to seize power by force. No wonder many Colombians have been sceptical about the latest peace negotiations, launched by President Juan Manuel Santos in October. So it was welcome that on May 26th the government and the FARC announced a deal on rural development.
That is only the first of five points on the agenda. But it is confirmation that these talks, which take place in Havana, are largely free of the political grandstanding of the past and are aimed at ending the conflict. The difference this time is that the military balance has changed irrevocably against the FARC. Partly thanks to Plan Colombia, an American-funded aid scheme, but mainly because of Colombia’s own efforts, especially under Álvaro Uribe, Mr Santos’s predecessor, the army has reduced the FARC by half and killed many of their leaders.
Difficult discussions still lie ahead. The FARC have to be persuaded to abandon a 50-year project, their arms and their drug-trafficking businesses, and be convinced that the state can guarantee their safety. And the rest of Colombia’s citizens are hardly united in support of the negotiations.
The talks face opposition on two grounds. The first is that they should not be happening at all. Mr Uribe and his supporters recommend a few more years of war, which they say would finish off the FARC. That policy might be justifiable were it remotely likely to succeed. Past governments have thought the same and been proven wrong. The FARC, though weakened, are still a potent force with the capacity to disrupt the country and kill many more Colombians.
A second objection is that Mr Santos is going too fast. His opponents claim that he is rushing to close a peace deal in order to secure re-election. Legislative elections are due in March next year, and a presidential poll in May. But even if his motives are tainted with selfishness, the country has an overriding interest in getting a deal quickly, for negotiations are unlikely to continue during the campaign, and if they are halted, the prospect of peace could vanish.
If those objections are overcome, the hardest issue to deal with will be justice. The FARC carried out terrible atrocities—bombarding villages, dismembering landowners while they were alive, killing hostages. The army, too, murdered innocent people. Many Colombians, understandably, believe that those who ordered such crimes should spend many years in prison. But if the FARC’s leaders face lengthy sentences, they are unlikely to stop fighting.+
Let the people, not the lawyers, decide
Peace would transform the social and economic prospects of Latin America’s third most-populous country and also improve human rights there. It would spare thousands of human lives, and leave hundreds of thousands of people in homes that they might otherwise be forced to flee. To bring that about it may be necessary to allow guilty men to go free.
That will stick in many throats. Human-rights groups might be tempted to try to overturn a deal in an international court. Yet Mr Santos has come up with a good way of reconciling justice and peace. He has promised that any agreement will be subject to popular ratification (ideally through a referendum). Colombians will ratify a deal only if they feel it is fair; and that judgment is better left to them than to foreign lawyers.
