The Pope and the Bishops Speak of Peace in Colombia

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos’s endorsement of last month’s April 9th rallies for peace signaled the beginning of a more active courtship by the government of key opinion leaders, and has opened the door for public expressions of support for the peace process from within and outside of Colombia.  Today’s post will look at a few initiatives from the upper levels of the Catholic church hierarchy.

Pope Meets Santos; Madre Laura Canonized as First Colombian Saint 

At the Vatican, Pope Francis urged President Santos to persevere in search of peace in Colombia. (Photo by Andrés Piscov, SIG)

On Sunday, May 13, President Santos visited the Vatican, where he met with Pope Francis and celebrated the canonization of Colombia’s first saint, Madre Laura (perhaps not coincidently on Mother’s Day…).  Santos linked both events to the peace agenda in Colombia.  He cited Madre Laura’s dedication in her life and writings to the themes of forgiveness and reconciliation, and used his private audience with the Pope to discuss the question of peace in Colombia.  Pope Francis encouraged the pursuit of peace, said Santos, and observed that only the courageous pursue such risky missions.  Santos noted that the Pope’s words filled him with “emotion, optimism, and energy to continue seeking peace for my country.”

New Apostolic Nuncio Will Work for Peace 

The new Apostolic Nuncio in Colombia, Mons. Ettore Balestrero, said in a May 9th interview with Caracol Radio that his primary pastoral task would be to work with the bishops on themes of evangelization and peace.  (“La Paz siempre llama la atención de la Iglesia porque es la atención de Dios, la Iglesia desea la Paz por que Cristo nos lleva la paz, ´mi paz os doy, mi paz os dejo´, la iglesia tiene que rezar para la paz y animar a buscar una convivencia que sea siempre en paz,” he notes in the interview.)  The prelate’s  role will be to represent the Pope before the political and civic institutions of Colombia.

Colombian Bishops Support Peace with Social Justice 

The Catholic hierarchy in Colombia has played roles as mediator, facilitator, providing good offices and venues, and carrying out “pastoral dialogues” in every other major peace process until now.  The Catholic church has been noticeably absent from Havana’s peace table, and some bishops have emphasized the role of the Catholic church in the later stages of peace-building and reconciliation.  The winds seem to have shifted however and religious leaders are beginning to speak out more forcefully about the peace process.

On April 19, the Bishops Peace Council (Consejo Episcopal de Paz) of the Colombian Bishops Conference (Conferencia Episcopal de Colombia) released a powerful statement, “La paz es obra de la justicia,” that supports dialogue as a path to peace, and lays out a framework for a just peace.  The 28 members of the Council, headed by Cardinal Rubén Salazar Gómez, note that “peace can only come about as a result of justice that highlights the restorative dimension [of a sentence/"pena"] and is capable of integral reparation for the victims.”  They urge the negotiators in Havana to create venues where the legitimate needs of the victims of the armed conflict can be heard and addressed, and to respect the victims’ rights to truth, justice, and reparations. (See full statement here.)   The “current conditions of poverty are a breeding ground for violence,” they observe.  They recognize that “some sectors will have their doubts or concerns about the negotiation process,” and consider such diversity of opinions a sign of a “healthy democracy and pluralism.” They call for a climate of respect and constructive interchange of ideas.   On a related note, the bishops urge the insurgents to “end all attacks on civilians” and call on the government to reach out to the National Liberation Army (ELN), a still-active guerrilla group founded in the 1960s by the revolutionary priest Camilo Torres.  The Council offered to facilitate a dialogue process with that insurgent group.

Brief Reflections on Peace Processes in Turkey and Colombia

I just returned from Vancouver, where I participated in workshops at the University of British Colombia and Simon Fraser University on the peace processes in Turkey and Colombia.  (See my previous post for details of the conference.)  It was stimulating for those of us following the Colombian process to exchange ideas with scholars of Turkey. Barriers of language, geography, and academic disciplines prevent discussions across these borders from happening as much as they should.  In the workshops in Vancouver, we began a conversation about the peace processes in Turkey and Colombia–both of which were launched late last year.

While at first glance, there seems to be little to join these two countries intellectually, both are engaged in a formal process of seeking a transition from war to peace, and both conflicts have been marked by similar patterns of violence that have affected civilian populations.  Both populations share widespread (if targeted) loss of lives and violations of human rights and international humanitarian law that include forced disappearances, massive displacement, and sexual violence.

The conference panelists–Onur Bakiner (Institute for International Studies, Simon Fraser University), Ceren Belge (Concordia University), Nicole Watts (San Francisco State University), Marc Chernick (Georgetown University), Pilar Raid (Liu Institute for Global Affairs, University of British Columbia) and I (U.S. Institute of Peace)–each laid out different aspects of the particular histories of conflict in each region and analyzed the current peace processes.  In the discussion and the roundtable at Simon Fraser University, we began to draw out some of the comparative aspects of peace and conflict in Turkey and Colombia.  I note here a few points that I found particularly striking:

• The roots of both conflicts stem from histories of political exclusion.  Governments in both cases might have prevented the outbreak of armed resistance by creating mechanisms for inclusion earlier on.  These exclusions (of peasants, the poor, and those with alternative political projects in the case of Colombia; and of ethnic Kurds in the case of Turkey) continue today.
• The nature and demands of the two insurgent groups–the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (the PKK) in Turkey and the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC), respectively–differ widely.  The PKK struggle has an explicitly cultural dimension (calling for political and cultural recognition of the Kurdish people living within Turkey) that is largely missing in the Colombian conflict, where issues of land, class, and rural discrimination have been primary.
• Although indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities have been disproportionately impacted by the Colombian conflict and these groups have demanded (and secured on paper at least) their cultural autonomy, their demands have not been part of the FARC agenda in the same way that Kurdish identity claims have been central to the PKK project.
• Both conflicts have been shaped by counterterrorism approaches that have resulted in widespread attacks on civilian communities. (FARC and PKK are both classified as “terrorist” groups).
• Both conflicts have taken a heavy toll on civilians, and civil society has played an important role in the call for peace. (See my two earlier posts on civil society roles in peace processes.)
• Turkey and Colombia seem to have quite different approaches to their peace processes.  Colombia has made more official attempts than Turkey at negotiating peace in the past, and the process Colombia has designed reflects lessons from those earlier attempts. (See my earlier blog on lessons from the past in Colombia.)
• Colombia’s peace process seems much more comprehensive than that in Turkey.  The Colombian parties have an agreed framework agreement, a defined roadmap and a six-point agenda.  Negotiators for both sides have been appointed along with their accompanying teams, and a strategy for dealing with potential spoilers is in place.  (We had a lengthy discussion about potential spoilers and enemies of the peace process in both countries.)
• The media can be an important actor in helping to build confidence for peace, but, more often than not, it perpetuates the stereotypes that prevailed during wartime and promotes fixed ideas about the “enemy” that make it more difficult for opening space within the nation for all voices and moving toward reconciliation or some form of peaceful co-existence.
• Turkey’s process seems to rely heavily on Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the head of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (the PKK). It is less developed as a process and more personality-driven than the Colombian process.  Though the Colombian process began with six months of secret talks, the Turkish process remains even more secretive.
• It is clear that the international environment in which peace processes occur has changed significantly in the last decades.  Amnesty is not an option as it was in earlier peace processes in Colombia, given the evolution of inter-American jurisprudence and the existence of the International Criminal Court, which prohibit amnesties or pardons for genocide, war crimes, or crimes against humanity.  In this new context, both countries are grappling with how much justice will be required, and how to ensure that those at the peace table reach agreement to end the conflict.  The tensions between justice and peace are being negotiated at the table and in society in apparently different ways, with Colombia seeking to explore avenues of restorative justice, in addition to or in lieu of retributive or distributive justice.
• Justice is a broader question that must be addressed in the peace process beyond a strictly legalistic view.  Peace processes allow a society to address root causes of injustice in ways that institutional structures have proven incapable of doing. Panelists agreed that a peace process should give priority to the needs of the victims for truth, justice, reparations, and guarantees of non-repetition, and explore the range of restorative, distributive and retributive options available for ensuring at least some justice.
• Both countries will have major challenges in overcoming legacies of mistrust.  In Colombia and Turkey, historical memory projects are taking off, even before the conflict has been settled.  A collective and inclusive history of the conflict can provide important symbolic reparations.  If done well, historical memory projects have the capacity to give voice to those who have been marginalized from national narratives.  Writing a new history that includes all citizens can deepen democracy.
• A peace process is a moment of opportunity to address historic exclusions and injustices.  If this is not done, the potential for the conflict to reignite is high.  If it is done well, it can help rectify past patterns of discrimination, exclusion, and persecution.

There was much that we didn’t have time to discuss.  It is notable that neither country is  using an official mediator.  The Colombian process is “guaranteed” by Norway and Cuba, and officially “accompanied” by Venezuela and Chile.  Turkey has been a leading advocate of mediation and a founder (with Finland) of the UN’s Group of Friends of Mediation.  (See my post on the launching of the UN Mediation Guidelines at the Turkish mission in New York.) Colombia is also a member of the Group of Friends of Mediation.

Another issue that didn’t come up but which will present challenges for the peace process is the widespread use of land mines in both countries.  It may also present opportunities, as de-mining the countryside will be a critical element of post-conflict security, and may provide jobs for demobilized ex-combatants as well as security sectors that are likely to be downsized in the aftermath of a successful peace process.

Much was left to discuss at a future, unspecified point in time.  Perhaps my colleagues will add their comments on this blog… or perhaps we will just have to meet again in Istanbul…

Venture to Vancouver

Termina octava ronda de conversaciones en La Habana

COMUNICADO CONJUNTO. LA HABANA, 03 DE MAYO 2013

Enviado por Mesa de Conversaciones en Sáb, 05/04/2013 – 09:28

Las delegaciones del gobierno y las FARC-EP, informan que: Como resultado del trabajo que han realizado las delegaciones de paz en este ciclo de conversaciones, se presentaron avances importantes en la construcción de nuevos acuerdos sobre los temas de programas de desarrollo con enfoque territorial, infraestructura y adecuación de tierras, desarrollo social (salud, educación, vivienda, erradicación de la pobreza), estímulo a la producción agropecuaria y a la economía solidaria y cooperativa. Puntos sobre los cuales hemos dejado un borrador de acuerdo después de discutir en profundidad sobre esta problemática, tal y como nos lo demandan los colombianos que en su gran mayoría apoyan los diálogos de La Habana. Las delegaciones agradecen a la Oficina de la Organización de Naciones Unidas en Colombia y el Centro de Pensamiento para la Paz de la Universidad Nacional por la organización y realización del importante foro sobre participación política que se llevó a cabo con éxito la semana pasada en Bogotá. Esperamos recibir en los próximos días las conclusiones y propuestas de este foro, que servirán de insumo para la Mesa de Conversaciones en la discusión del siguiente punto de la Agenda. Reiteran su agradecimiento a los países garantes, Cuba y Noruega, por su eficaz apoyo, al igual que a los países acompañantes, Venezuela y Chile. Un nuevo ciclo de conversaciones se inicia el próximo 15 de mayo.

Civil Society and the Peace Table

Although civil society is not represented at Colombia’s peace table in Havana, the parties have sought to engage civil society since the talks began through a variety of controlled mechanisms.  In this post, I will mainly discuss these “official” venues, recognizing that there has been an explosion of additional civil society initiatives within and across diverse sectors that also seek to influence the peace process.

The “General Agreement for the End of the Conflict and the Construction of a Stable, Durable Peace,” signed in Havana, Cuba on August 26, 2012, anticipated roles for civil society that have been fleshed out as the talks have proceeded.  The peace process is a response to “the clamor of the population for peace,” notes the preamble to the Agreement, and the parties proclaim moreover that “the building of peace is a matter for the entire society and requires the participation of everyone, without distinction.”  The August 2012 framework agreement anticipated three general vehicles for civil participation in the process.  They established mechanisms for receiving proposals electronically and in person, and anticipated direct consultations (possibly conducted by a third party), and consultations with experts.  These mechanisms have evolved over the course of the past months.

Generating Proposals Online and through Local Authorities

April 9 Peace Rally in Bogota                                          (Photo Courtesy of Giovanni Moreno C.)

First, the parties jointly established a webpage on the peace process at mesadeconversaciones.com.co.  This vehicle has allowed the public to provide direct inputs to the table.  The website gathered more than three thousand proposals in its first hours, and has generated some five hundred proposals on the land issue, the first item on the agreed peace agenda.  The webpage also provides a mechanism for the parties to inform the public of their activities and pronouncements, but in this aspect it has been less effective than it might be, given that the site is frequently not updated in a timely manner. Ideally, the website should be a one-stop shop for locating all of the joint declarations of the parties and a calendar of the peace talks schedule.

Secondly, the parties have made provisions to receive inputs on the different peace talk agenda items via the mayors’ and governors’ offices.  Interior Minister Fernando Carrillo Flórez and Sergio Jaramillo, the High Commissioner for Peace, attended the meetings of the National Federation of Municipalities in Cartagena on April 17 to receive proposals from the 600 mayors gathered there. Recognizing that the mayors are “los protagonistas del posconflicto” and key to the implementation of peace in the regions, a monthly working group at the Casa de Nariño has been established to monitor the progress of the peace process. (See related Semana article here.) Ensuring that these local government mechanisms are adequately prepared and engaged could help for smoother sailing in the aftermath of the peace process. Some lessons could be learned from the difficulties that have faced the local-level implementation of the Victims and Land Restitution Law.  (Listen especially to Zoraida del Castillo’s remarks at the Land and Peace Agenda Conference and see the report, Still a Dream: Land Restitution on Colombia’s Carribbean Coast.)

Direct Consultations

A third vehicle anticipated by the framework agreement have been direct consultations carried out by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Colombia and the think-tank “Centro de Pensamiento y Seguimiento al Diálogo de Paz” of the Universidad Nacional at the request of the parties.  The first of these was a forum on agrarian development policy in Bogota from December 17-19, 2012, to generate citizen inputs and proposals relevant to this first agenda item.  (See “Gobierno y Farc acuerdan mecanismos de participación de sociedad civil“).  The forum brought together some 1,300 academics and social organizations.  Although the powerful ranchers’ association, FEDEGAN, refused to participate, the discussions provided an opportunity to initiate a national dialogue about a critical theme for Colombia’s future, and their conclusions were presented to the parties in Havana on January 8, 2013, who appeared pleased with the effort. (See FARC video.)

This week’s forum on political participation in Bogotá (Photo Courtesy of PNUD-Colombia)

The parties subsequently asked the National University and the UNDP to prepare a similar forum on the next topic on the peace agenda– political participation.  (“Gobierno y Farc anuncian solicitud de foro sobre participación política”).  This second forum was held from April 28-30 at the Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada Convention Center in Bogotá and was webcast beginning last Sunday.  It focused on the following topics defined in the framework agreement: rights and guarantees for the exercise of political opposition; access to communications media; democratic mechanisms for citizen participation; and effective measures for promoting more participation in national, regional, and local politics.  An estimated 1,400-1,700 people–including representatives of peasant, indigenous, women, and Afro-descent organizations; political parties and movements; universities; think-tanks; media organizations; and members of the LGTBI community–participated in 20 working groups over the three-day period.

Presenters included representatives from a wide variety of Colombia’s political parties (with the exception of the Centro Democrático, the party of former President Alvaro Uribe) and the media.   International experts also presented case studies on the successful transition of armed groups to political life in El Salvador, Uruguay, Philippines, and South Africa.  It was notable that all of the political parties and social movements present backed the entry of the FARC into politics upon the signing of a peace agreement and called for electoral reforms.  Positions varied with regard to the question of pardons, amnesties, or transitional justice mechanisms that might be employed.   Some 400 proposals were collected and will be submitted, along with the presentations and a synthesis of the conclusions, to the parties in Havana on May 20 for their consideration.

Expert Engagement

The fourth and final defined avenue for civil society participation has been through invitations extended to thematic experts.  Numerous representatives of government, nongovermental, and international organizations have been invited to brief the delegations in Havana on particular issues, such as the land issue.  The details of these meetings, apart from a well-publicized visit by members of the Peace Commissions of the Colombian Congress Havana in early March, have tended to be private affairs.

Regional Consultations  

Beyond these formally defined mechanisms, a number of other vehicles have emerged.  Last October and November, the Congressional Peace Commissions (with the support of the United Nations Development Program) organized consultations (mesas de trabajo regionales) with the citizenry in nine regions of Colombia on three of the six items on the peace agenda—agrarian development, political participation, and illicit crop cultivation.  (See article in Razón Pública.)   The resulting recommendations were given to the ambassadors of Norway and Cuba, the two nations that serve as guarantors of the talks, and submitted for the consideration of the parties.  The table welcomed the inputs.

More recently, the congressional commissions, with the technical support of the UNDP,  are preparing to convene new mesas regionales to generate proposals on the agenda item on “victims.”  These will use the same methodology developed earlier by the UNDP, which has also provided facilitators and methodological guidance for conducting the consultations.

Further Channels for Participation

Civil society engagement is of course not limited to official channels structured by the peace table.  President Juan Manuel Santos‘s support for the April 9 marches for peace suggests that the president now recognizes that public support will be critical to the success of the process.  As the April 9 marches and last weekend’s National Peace Congress as well as countless regional and sectoral meetings suggest, Colombia is on the cusp of an era of mounting civic engagement that is likely to grow.

Many peace leaders today agree that the role of civil society will be especially important in ensuring that the parties don’t leave the table until an agreement is reached to end the conflict.  For now, public sentiment is beginning to gain momentum in support of the official process, but nothing can be taken for granted.  Former President Alvaro Uribe is still a force with whom to be reckoned, some of the organizers of the National Peace Congress have been receiving death threats, and the questions about accountability and justice have yet to come to the table.  A strong civil society movement for peace is the best assurance that an accord will be reached and will be implementable.

In Case You Get a “Not Found” Message

Some of my readers have notified me that they were not able to open this morning’s post.  A message appears that says “Not Found.  Apologies but the page you requested could not be found.  Perhaps searching will help.”  A search box also appears, with a button marked “Search” to the right.  If you are getting this message, simply click on the Search button itself, and the full post should appear.  Hopefully this will solve the issue.

En caso de no poder entrar en el blog de esta mañana, pulsa donde dice “SEARCH” (sin buscar nada en particular) y el blog aparecerá.

The Call for Peace from Colombia’s Social Sectors

In the absence of a national peace process in the last decade, local and regional peace initiatives have emerged in response to the conflict violence in Colombia.  The call for a political solution to the internal armed conflict, like the ideé fixe in Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, has been resounding persistently from the regions and has helped to pave the way for the talks that began in Oslo last October and continue today in Havana between the Colombian government and the FARC-EP guerrillas.  (See my article, “Building Confidence for Peace in Colombia.”)

These local and regional peace initiatives are highly diverse and span many sectors.  In 2009, the Catholic church organized a series of regional forums as part of a national consultation to identify consensus points for a National Accord for Peace and Reconciliation.  In August 2011, thousands of peasant, indigenous, and afro-Colombian communities gathered in Barrancabermeja and called for dialogue as the path forward.  The call gained resonance last year when violence escalated in Cauca and indigenous communities sought to evict all the armed actors from their territory, leading to a national “minga” last December that brought together representatives of indigenous communities from across the country.  Women have also been active proponents for moving the country toward a peaceful resolution of the conflict. (See my blog post for International Women’s Day).

Today the call for peace echoes across the country, emanates from every sector of society, and is beginning to articulate an identity of its own, independent of but in dialogue with the parties at the table.  Since the peace talks began, regional and national congresses have sought ways to link these separate initiatives into a common agenda for peace.

National Congresses for Peace

From April 19-22, 2013, a National Congress for Peace brought 20,000 leaders from all of Colombia’s regions to Bogota.  On the eve of the eighth round of peace talks between the government of Colombia and the FARC-EP in Havana, the Congress considered the role of Colombia’s social and popular movements in relation to the current talks and the future prospects for peace in Colombia.

Participants at the National Congress, which was preceded by regional Congresses for Peace throughout the country, represented the tremendous diversity of Colombian society.  They included representatives of the Catholic and Protestant churches, students, ethnic communities, peasants, women, workers, the oil sector, the Marcha Patriótica, community organizations, politicians, and local authorities.  In their final statement, participants expressed their support for the peace talks and called on the Colombian government to open channels of dialogue with the remaining guerrilla groups (ELN and EPL).  They noted that a genuine peace would require more than just the “silencing of the guns” and must be based on a “full guarantee of human rights.”  They underscored the contributions that those who have suffered from the war can make in ensuring that a peace agenda addresses the conditions of “poverty, inequality, marginalization, impunity and political exclusion” that have been at the roots of the Colombian conflict.  ”If the end of the armed conflict requires the consolidation of a democratic society,” the final statement read, “we need to begin by democratizing the search for peace.”  ( See the final statement here.)

Children and youth met separately in their own National Congress for Peace.  They discussed the impact of the war on their lives and called on the parties to cease the violence so they could stop worrying about being killed, recruited, or injured by landmines.  (Read their poignant statement here.)

These national congresses for peace, along with the national marches on April 9^th (see my blog post, “Rallying for Peace”) are important landmarks in the development of a public mandate for a peace process that has been relatively closed to civil society participation.  The results of these initiatives will feed back into the regions and should help prepare communities for future peace and reconciliation initiatives, and for implementing agreements reached in Havana.

Costs of Conflict

For years, civil society groups have underscored the costs of war for Colombian society:  violations of human rights and international humanitarian law by all parties to the conflict, youth recruitment, forced displacement, kidnappings, disappearances, and landmines.  The economic costs are high, but have received less attention; they include lost opportunity costs for investment, lost GDP, and budget priorities favoring defense and security at the expense of other needs.  Women’s groups have highlighted the militarization of Colombian culture and society has begun to share their concerns with the sexual and gender-based violence that has marked the conflict.  Ethnic communities have protested the threat to their cultural and physical survival and countered these threats with “mingas”–gatherings to celebrate life.  Victims are organizing themselves to claim their rights to truth, justice, and reparations.  Peasant organizations and labor groups have criticized the human and environmental costs of national development models and historic inequities that are at the roots of the conflict.  Publicizing these costs of conflict appears to have had a cumulative effect that has helped to ripen the conflict for resolution, is slowly shifting the balance of public opinion away from militarized solutions, and has helped to move the parties toward peace talks.  These gains are important, but public opinion favoring the talks cannot be taken for granted, and civil society will have an ongoing role to play in ensuring that the process delivers on its promises.