The Economist 20161001 ed79b8

Briefing Colombia’s peace
The Economist October 1st 2016 21
A chance to clean up
TUMACO
Forall its imperfections and complexities, the agreement between the government
and the FARC can transform a country that has been at warfor52 years
AFEW decades ago, Tumaco must have
been a kind of paradise. Built on two
small islands in the glaucous shallows of a
large bay on the Pacific, its beaches are
watched over by frigate birds and pelicans.
Now its population of 115,000, most of
whom are Afro-Colombians, live in some
of the most deprived conditions in Colombia.
Yet bottles of Royal Salute 21-year-old
whisky, priced at 500,000 pesos ($172),
“sell like water”, says a sales assistant in
one ofthe port’s liquor stores.
The reason why can be found an hour’s
drive east and a further hour’s ride in a fast
launch up the Mira river. El Playón is a
clutch of huts and bars blasting out vallenato
folk music. The ensign of the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia
(FARC)—the national flag with an image of
two AK-47 rifles crossed over a map of Colombia
superimposed on it—flies from a
tall pole at the waterside.
Formost ofthis century, the slice ofland
between the river and Ecuador has been
FARC territory. That has helped the coca
trade that entrenches inequality and violence—and
drives the demand for pricey
Scotch—down on the coast. It also led to almost
daily firefights with government
troops. Until a few weeks ago it would
have been unthinkable for your correspondent
to drop in unannounced.
But if all goes well, El Playón will soon
be becoming a normal part of Colombia.
In October some 200 FARC troops here,
like up to 15,000 of their comrades across
the country, will assemble at a designated
area and start putting their weapons into
containersunderthe watchful eyesof a UN
mission that will later supervise their destruction.
“There’s optimism, but there’s
also a lot of mistrust,” says a burly man
who is the civilian leader in the FARC territory
and gives his name as “Grossman”.
The FARC’s disarmament and conversion
into a political party is the crux of a
peace agreement forged over four years of
hard talking in Havana and signed in Cartagena
on September 26th. It is not quite
true to say, asJuan Manuel Santos, the president,
told the UN General Assembly on
September 21st, that “the war in Colombia
is over.” There are other illegal armed
groups. But the struggle between the FARC
and the state, exacerbated in earlier years
by right-wing paramilitaries, was by far the
biggest conflict (see chart on next page). It
was responsible for most of the 220,000
deaths due to conflict and thousands of
kidnappings seen over the past five decades.
It displaced perhaps 6m people.
The agreement comprises 297 dense
pages. It is ofenormous complexity and involves
controversial trade-offs, especially
between peace and justice. Politically, if
not legally, it can only come into effect if it
is ratified by Colombian voters in a plebiscite
on October 2nd. Polls suggest that
around 60% ofthose that turn out will vote
Yes. But will enough do so to meet the
minimum 4.5m votes (13%) required by the
lawunderwhich itisbeingheld? The country
has been split by a campaign in which
the naysayers, inspired by Álvaro Uribe, a
former president, accuse Mr Santos of selling
out democracy and claim he could and
should have struck a harder bargain. The
Yes campaign counters that its opponents
really favour war. “This is the best agreement
that was possible,” Mr Santos told
The Economist.
A libertarian streak
Most Colombians yearn to see the back of
a conflict that is unique in Latin America in
both its longevity and intensity. It owes
much to both geography and history. The
size of France and Spain combined, Colombia’s
mountain chains, deep valleys,
trackless tropical lowlands (llanos) and inhospitable
coasts make it hard for the state
to control. Its people have long had a libertarian
streak. “We always thought we
could rebel against an unjust order. That’s
how we Colombians were brought up,”
says César Gaviria, a former president. Colombia
was exceptional in Latin America
in having just one military president in the
20th century—and only for four years.
Thatdid notmake itpeaceful. Two political
parties, the Liberals and Conservatives,
fought periodic civil wars. The FARC,
founded in 1964, grew out of communist
peasant guerrillas in the mountains south
of Bogotá who had supported the Liberals 1