The Colombian Peace Agreement (EN)

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civilians who were displaced during the operations and to the lack of strategy to hold the regained territory by establishing a permanent State presence”. 12 During Uribe’s crackdown, the FARC were forced to relocate and seek refuge in rural areas bordering Ecuador and Venezuela, and Colombian military incursions across those borders sparked tensions with its neighbours. In 2010, Uribe’s former Minister of National Defense, Juan Manuel Santos, was elected President. After continuing the aggressive security policies of his predecessor, and having dealt several significant blows to the FARC leadership through targeted killings, he resumed peace talks with the FARC in October 2012, initially in Oslo, Norway, and then, as planned, in Havana, Cuba. The talks began after FARC leader Rodrigo Londoño, alias Timochenko, made a public overture to the Santos government, and proceeded only once the group had released all remaining army soldiers held for ransom, and publicly renounced to kidnapping as a practice. After four years of intense negotiations, on 23 June 2016 the FARC and the Colombian government agreed to a bilateral ceasefire. The accord, which called for “A Bilateral and Definitive Ceasefire, Cessation of Hostilities, and Laying Aside of Weapons”, represented one of the main substantive items on the negotiating agenda, and paved the way for the final deal, which was signed two months later. Crimes committed The armed conflict continues to have a massive impact on civilians, especially in rural areas. All parties to the conflict are responsible for crimes under national and international law – including, but not limited to, unlawful killings, forced displacement, enforced disappearances, death threats and crimes of sexual violence. Children continue to be recruited as combatants by guerrilla groups and paramilitaries – the FARC have recently announced they will cease such practice for youths under the age of 17. 13 According to figures from Colombian NGO Codhes, more than 204,000 people were forcibly displaced in 2014 alone, and almost 220,000 in the previous year. 14 The government has registered more than 70,000 as missing or disappeared, 15 and more than 5.7 million people have been displaced since the conflict began, creating one of the largest populations of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the world, “greater than 10% of Colombia’s estimated 47 million inhabitants”. 16 According to figures published by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, up until 2015, 7,874,201 victims have been registered, about 50% of which are women and children. The government has calculated that reparations will involve some 6,084,064 individuals, totaling 12.4% of Colombia’s population. IDPs amount to 6,897,450, the most numerous group of victims registered. In 2015, 76,017 were registered as newly displaced. 17 This large displacement has generated a humanitarian crisis, which has disproportionately affected women, afro-Colombians and indigenous people, and left many dispossessed and impoverished. In addition, the use of land mines laid primarily by the FARC has caused more than 10,000 deaths and injuries from 1990 to 2015. According to the government, Colombia’s casualty rate from land mines is second in the world,only to Afghanistan, with 222 victims reported in 2015 alone. 18 Because of the massive drug 8
profits, land control is a fundamental issue in the conflict, and most of the violations and crimes are connected to such interest. Fighting between the FARC and right-wing paramilitary groups over coca fields and drug smuggling corridors has been a key factor in the conflict’s extreme levels of violence, forced displacement and land grabs. The FARC In the early 1990s, the breakup of the Medellín and Cali cartels and the military campaigns against coca farming in Peru and Bolivia resulted in much of the Andean coca crop shifting to the southern Colombian jungles, “where there was scant government presence and where the FARC held sway”. 19 From a few thousand acres, the size of Colombia’s crop jumped to more than 400,000 acres in 2000, capable of producing 680 tons of cocaine. 20 Control over coca fields helped the FARC to consolidate and grow, but eventually attracted right-wing paramilitary groups, which had allied with drug traffickers and large landowners who financed small private armies to counter FARC taxing, extortion and kidnappings. Paramilitaries usually targeted the rebels’ civilian supporters, and became increasingly involved in drug trafficking. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, much of the fighting between the FARC and paramilitaries was for control over coca plantations and trafficking routes. Due to the growing revenues of the illegal drug trade, “the FARC initially began collecting taxes from marijuana and coca growers in areas they controlled, but their role in the drug trade expanded rapidly”. 21 The FARC also conducted bombings, mortar attacks, murders, kidnappings for ransom, extortions and hijackings. “Their involvement in the drug trade deepened to include all stages of drug production, including cultivation, taxation of drug crops, processing, and distribution”. 22 By the early 2000s, the FARC were thought to control about 60% of the cocaine departing Colombia and, some estimates say, Colombia overall supplied about 90% of the world’s cocaine. 23 The almost 6 million Colombians forced from their homes are a direct result of battling over coca fields: paramilitaries, drug traffickers and FARC rebels are believed to have stolen millions of acres of land to intensify coca cultivation. All kinds of means have been used to force the population out, hence the diverse, extensive and grave nature of the crimes committed. Massive displacement and land grabs have contributed to one of the most disproportionate ratios of poverty distribution in Latin America: despite recent progress and stable economic growth, Colombia’s poverty rate is still higher than the Latin American average, and its inequality rate is the second highest in the region, and one of the highest in the world. 24 Recent figures show that 44.7% of Colombia’s rural population lives below the poverty line. United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) 2011 figures show that 1.15% of Colombia’s population owned 52% of the country’s land. 25 This inequality, in turn, has convinced, or forced, many peasants to join the FARC or work on their plantations. In the late 1990s the Colombian government was near collapse. According to a poll published in July 1999, a majority of Colombians thought the FARC might someday take power by force. 26 In areas where the state was weak or absent, the void had been filled by armed actors. Some observers estimated that as much as 40% of Colombian 9
Page 1 and 2: THE COLOMBIAN PEACE AGREEMENT HOW W
Page 3 and 4: The aim of this research is to prov
Page 5 and 6: Introduction On August 24 th 2016,
Page 7: INFORME GENERAL Centro Nacional de
Page 11 and 12: and vacations were based tarnished
Page 13 and 14: ended in April 2006: more than 31,0
Page 15 and 16: countability process. These organiz
Page 17 and 18: post-conflict democracy - set out t
Page 19 and 20: maintain such measures as long as t
Page 21 and 22: such provisions since its inception
Page 23 and 24: 23 June 2016: President Santos and
Page 25 and 26: Carolina, in the jungle of Putumayo
Page 27 and 28: solution that they deem too lenient
Page 29 and 30: Even if an agreement on the FARC de
Page 31 and 32: The real political winner is Uribe,
Page 33 and 34: which the ex-guerrillas were schedu
Page 35 and 36: over child combatants to family-wel
Page 37 and 38: Endnotes 1 World Bank estimates say
Page 39 and 40: 41 Jon Lee Anderson, “At last, a
Page 41 and 42: 82 Informe anual del Alto Comisiona
Page 43 and 44: 119 WOLA Statement: “Peace is Sti
Page 45 and 46: 147 Nicholas Casey, “Colombia’s

The Colombian Peace Agreement (EN)

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