This Time Is Different

A promising new round of peace talks with the FARC begins

Oct 20th 2012 | BOGOTÁ | from the print edition

FOR the past 50 years, every Colombian president has tried to bring the Marxist FARC guerrillas to heel. Some have used force, some have experimented with peace talks, and some have done both. But Juan Manuel Santos is perhaps the first to have a real chance of ending the conflict. This week delegates from the government and the FARC were due to begin formal negotiations in Oslo on a final deal.

The previous round of talks fell apart a decade ago. In response Álvaro Uribe, president in 2002-10, built up the army and unleashed it against the guerrillas. The offensive cut the FARC’s ranks by half, to about 9,000 fighters, and killed many of their senior leaders, including their commander.

Those losses, along with pressure from Cuba and Venezuela, helped bring the guerrillas back to the table. The FARC’s new leaders appear to be more pragmatic than their predecessors. And after leading the onslaught against the FARC as Mr Uribe’s defence minister, Mr Santos has made clear that he hopes to be remembered as the peace president.

With just five items on the agenda, the new round will be more focused than the previous one. The aim is restricted to ending the conflict. The two sides say they will keep fighting until the negotiations are successfully concluded. On October 14th a FARC bomb killed a man and his three-year-old son.

The FARC are often seen as mere criminals who have outgrown any genuine ideology. But the guerrillas still have a political agenda. The first topic under discussion will be their demands regarding peasants’ access to land. Mr Santos has delayed a bill on rural development so that any measures the talks agree to can be included.

A related issue is the conflict’s victims. Congress has already passed a law providing compensation to the people who have suffered most, and attempting to return 6m hectares (15m acres) of confiscated land. So talks on this point are likely to hinge on the legal treatment of FARC members. Public opinion opposes an amnesty: a recent poll found that 78% of respondents think the group’s leaders should be jailed. “None of the government negotiators at the table has suffered from the war, and they are going to end up handing out pardons in our name,” said Sigifredo López, a politician and former FARC hostage.

But the guerrillas are unlikely to accept a deal imposing long prison terms. Indeed, they will probably demand stronger guarantees than the government’s word alone. Mr Uribe promised not to lock up members of paramilitary groups in exchange for their demobilisation, only to extradite over a dozen to the United States later on.

One of the government’s priorities is the drug trade. The FARC earn most of their income from taxing coca growers who convert the plant’s leaves into paste, which is sold to traffickers. The guerrillas still control swathes of rural Colombia, and the government will require them to take an active role in getting farmers to plant other crops.

For the first time, the FARC have agreed to discuss disarmament and reinsertion into civilian life. But it is unclear whether the guerrillas are merely willing to hold their fire or to hand over their weapons entirely—which the government will almost certainly demand, since the FARC used the last ceasefire, in 1999, to regroup before returning to terrorism. Even if they do disarm, the constitution prevents convicted criminals from holding office. However, a pending amendment could open the door for FARC members who did not commit crimes against humanity.

Public officials have said they hope to have a deal by next September. That schedule will be hard to meet—particularly since a host of civil-society groups, such as trade unions and peasant and indigenous organisations, want a seat at the table. The talks could be extended further to include the second-biggest guerrilla group, the ELN.

But the political timetable leaves little room for delay. A presidential election, in which Mr Santos will probably seek a second term, is due in May 2014. And if the FARC are serious about getting into politics, they may want to field their own congressional candidates that same year.