THE PRICE OF PEACE IN COLOMBIA

By: Maria Valentina Rico Gómez
THE PRICE OF PEACE IN COLOMBIA
Common crime, Transformation of public entities and more taxation, this will be the
price of peace for Colombia.
The peace agreement with FARC (Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces, in
Spanish) was signed on November 10, 2016; this ended 50 years of armed conflict
with the largest subversive group in the country. In spite of this the state will have
to face everything that the implementation of the agreements will bring with it.
The nation spent 12 billion pesos every year financing the war. Although, the
country's largest guerrilla has already signed its final, we cannot leave aside the
price of peace, because right now, It will be necessary to finance the reintegration
of the demobilized people, the creation, organization and the maintenance of the
veredales zones. Besides, new entities must be created to investigate and monitor
the administrative, disciplinary, criminal and other situations that may arise with the
implementation of the agreements made in Havana Cuba. Although we must also
emphasize that not everything is bad. In fact, peace will bring revenues in tourism,
foreign investments, additionally, it reduces drug trafficking, restore land, it reduces
violence in the countryside, kidnapping, extortion, terrorist attacks, as well as other
forms of violence provoked by the FARC ep.
In the second place, the signing of the peace agreement will bring benefits, but to
tell the truth, we have to know that the country will also have to face difficult
situations such as: The increase of crime by emerging groups that did not accept

the peace agreement, which, will form criminal gangs, additionally, the massive
dismissal of members of the military forces due to the necessity to transform these
institutions because it will not be necessary so much personnel to fight in the war,
with the demobilization of approximately 17,500 members of the FARC, in addition,
new jobs will be needed to prevent the creation of more criminal gangs, and last of
all, new taxes will be created to finance all the expenses of the peace agreements.
We could say that the most affected part with all these will be the military since
they will have to be relocated and therefore, certain benefits that they had , must
be changed, not to mention, that society as we know it will have to change to give
way to a new stage in the history of Colombia.
On the other hand, now, Colombia has a challenge to achieve a definitive peace,
the negotiations with the ELN, started on February 8 th of this year, on Ecuador, If
the result manages to be favorable, the same as with the last agreement, surely
great benefits will come to the country, meanwhile, Colombia will have to learn
about inclusion, coexistence and forgiveness.