Ex-Colombian president urges peace push with FARC

Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella should fully implement the peace accord signed with Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas a decade ago to help unite a divided country, former Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos said.

Santos — who led the Latin American country from 2010 to 2018 — negotiated the peace deal with the FARC and won the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.

“The elections have greatly polarized the country,” Santos told reporters during a visit to Oslo to mark the 10-year anniversary of the signing of the pact, which diplomats from Norway and Cuba helped broker.

Former Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos speaks at an event at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo on Sept. 2.

Photo: Reuters

“This [the full implementation of the deal] could be a way for the country to find common ground and at the same time be the solution to many of the problems Colombia faces today,” he said, citing poverty among farmers, drug trafficking and security in conflict areas.

Santos is an influential figure in Colombian politics and a well-known international campaigner for peace-related causes.

Colombia’s conflict — originally begun over land rights and other social issues — has dragged on for more than six decades, as guerrilla groups, paramilitary squads and drug traffickers have fought the government and each other.

Although funding for armed groups has traditionally come largely from drug trafficking, illegal mining of gold is now a major source of their income.

The wide-ranging deal with FARC was built into the country’s constitution, but the ways many of its provisions are rolled out — everything from support for demobilized rebels to land reform to benefit poor farmers — are subject to government changes in strategy and focus.

Santos’ successors — who have not always supported the entire accord — have struggled to fully enact it amid fiscal constraints, the COVID-19 pandemic and other political concerns.

De La Espriella, a lawyer who has legally represented people with ties to paramilitary groups, criticized aspects of the deal during his election campaign, especially the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, the transitional justice court tasked with investigating crimes committed during the conflict.

He said he would dismantle the court, which he characterized as ineffective and expensive.

However, in his inauguration speech, De La Espriella said that he would respect the special court’s place in Colombia’s judicial system, but that there would be rigorous oversight over the tribunal.

Santos said that his successors, Ivan Duque and Gustavo Petro, did not fully implement the peace accord — which was designed to be rolled out over 15 years — and that Petro’s “total peace” policy, where he sought deals with additional armed groups, delayed implementation of the FARC deal.

Petro “concentrated on what he called ‘total peace,’ that is, trying to negotiate with criminal groups dispersed throughout the country, at the expense of the deal with the FARC,” Santos said.

“That’s why I hope [De La Espriella] understands that implementing the peace accord is perhaps one of the best programs of government that he could put into action.”