Ten Years of the Colombian Peace Accords

Latin America Correspondent Jon Bonfiglio speaks to Henry Bonsu for Times Radio. 

Transcript

Henry Bonsu 0:00

Latin America now, where it's been ten years since Colombia's government signed a landmark peace accord with the FARC Rebel Group. It was an agreement that uh sought to end one of the longest-running armed insurgencies in the Western Hemisphere. The vote to bring peace, however, exposed deep divisions inside Colombia. So where do things stand now as we get deeper into 2026? Let's speak to Latin America correspondent Jon Bonfiglio. Jon, welcome to the programme. I think the last time we spoke about Colombia was when President Trump was threatening his president and then had a conversation with him, said he was a great guy, and invited him uh to the White House.

Jon Bonfiglio 0:36

Yes, that definitely took place. Um and actually, I mean, I that it's not to say that the two issues are related, but of course, actually, one of the accusations that Donald Trump keeps throwing at Gustavo Petro, Colombian President Gustavo Petro, is that he is overseeing a massive increase in the production of cocaine, which of course comes from the coca plant in Colombia. And that isn't entirely unrelated from the peace process because it's actually been in some ways the the power vacuum that was generated by some flawed aspects of the peace process and the end of the FARC across vast swathes in Colombia, which has meant that organized crime has moved in and has suddenly grown the production of coca and cocaine as a result of those gaps in the peace process.

Henry Bonsu 1:22

Right. And and just remind people who the FARC were and why they were able to mount an insurgency, a war indeed, for so long. Best part of what, 50 years or so?

Jon Bonfiglio 1:33

Yeah, I mean, the longest militant uh sorry, the oldest militant group in the Western Hemisphere. Yeah, so contextually, the armed conflict in Colombia basically uh was, is to some extent still a multi-actor civil war that goes back to the middle of the last century and has been, of course, devastating for Colombia for those generations. It was a conflict which emerged from land disputes, political exclusion, and endemic inequality. And so as a result of the FARC that Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia come in at the it there. They come at it from a sort of a Marxist left-wing uh perspective. And all of that was fueled, of course, uh, how wouldn't it be, by the drugs trade? Um as of this year, it's led to in excess of 10 million victims, of which a quarter of a million are deaths, killings, alongside a displacement of an estimated 8 million people, which is one of the highest internal displacements ever registered. And there's no one in the country, fundamentally, who's not been affected in some way. So it's it's the uh into this space that not just a VAC, because there's also right-wing paramilitaries and also the National Liberation Um Army of Colombia that is still active, into this space, um, these paramilitary groups take over huge sections of territory across uh across Colombia, and they sort of declare um proposed revolution, if you like, uh, in the future. They're not gonna uh they're not gonna stop their militant actions, which involve uh kidnapping, which involve violence, which involve assassinations, until there is a sort of a re-establishing of political principles, and they grow in force over that period of time again, alongside these other groups, um, until you reach a point at which you've got all the again, these multi-state actors, you've got all these different opposing forces that are just generating chaos right across the country.

Henry Bonsu 3:17

Right, right across the country. So, I mean, I've got uh friends, uh, some of whom um you know have spent time in Colombia, one or two live in Colombia, and they say, well, Henry, don't believe the hype, you know, uh for me on a day-to-day basis, I don't think about FARC, I don't think about these paramilitary groups, I don't think about this violence. You can live a fairly decent, peaceful life i i i in Colombia, and you've got elections uh looming on the 31st of May. What kind of environment will those elections be held in, do you think?

Jon Bonfiglio 3:45

So I think you've you have to sort of draw a line or a distinction between sort of cities and urban areas that the that the government, the national government and regional governments have some kind of control over, almost sort of islands of state um government uh control, and then rural areas where uh the the government where the state forces just do not have the strength, the funding, or the power to be able to get right into those um into those furthest reaches and where there's a great deal of sort of local autonomy. So it's into those spaces that these sort of militant and now increasingly crime groups um step in. And and that continues to be true, I think, for the upcoming election, because the um again, the urban spaces are fairly well catered for and fairly well uh policed, but it's in those furthest reaches where uh not only do these ongoing struggles uh continue to take place, but also where the sort of the reach of government infrastructure as regards these elections that are coming up in the next few months are harder to engage uh to engage in and drive forward.

Henry Bonsu 4:45

And what do you make, um, Jon, of these reports that emerge this week that by the end of this year the US government is hoping to um um effect regime change in Cuba?

Jon Bonfiglio 4:57

Yeah, that that's what we understand. Of course, you know that the landscape uh continues to shift on on an almost day-to-day basis as regards what's being said, um, what comes out of the White House. I think the the timeline which is being suggested for Cuba is because of uh even beyond Venezuela, the the end of uh the Cuban Communist Party, the fall of Cuba, would be seen as the as the biggest victory for the Trump administration. And of course, you have US midterms coming up in November, and potentially uh Congress could, if things go the way of the Democrats, could um provide or rein in Trump's more militant um sort of uh uh military tendencies. So I suspect that that's why uh there's this sort of this um this endpoint that's been suddenly uh delivered by the White House as regards a target for regime change in Cuba.

Henry Bonsu 5:49

All right, Jon, thank you very much. It's always a pleasure to have you educate us on what's happening in that part of the world. Latin America correspondent Jon Bonfiglio.

Jon Bonfiglio 6:09

Hi everyone, so that was a piece, of course, on Colombia and the 10-year anniversary of the peace process um with between the the government of Colombia and the FARC. I just wanted to add a few things into that um as as well. Um I mean, arguably, Colombia, not even arguably, I mean it is still at a crossroads. Internationally, the peace process is seen as not only a success, but also as providing a sort of global model for conflicts internationally. Whereas in Colombia itself, it is sort of regarded as having fallen short of expectations. I guess an advance on the status quo needs, uh, the likes of rural land reform, renegotiated, political representation for dissident groups, and guarantees of protection for disarming, uh, which are a major barrier because, as things stand, disarming means vulnerability. Um and related to that, of course, the peace process is far from perfect, but it is undoubtedly an improvement on what came before. Of course, it's difficult to argue that to somebody who's just recently lost a family member or has had something um personally take place in their immediate vicinity, but statistically it is uh it's uh night and day as to what there was uh before. Uh, partly the reason that the process has been difficult is because, of course, not all militant groups signed up. There remain splinter groups of the FARC, uh, the ELN, as mentioned in the interview, in the talk with Henry Bonsu there, the National Liberation Army, also refused to participate. And also, there are multi, multiple right-wing paramilitary groups that remain active. And uh, as these FARC soldiers lay down their weapons, these groups began assassination drives to date. Remarkably, over 500 ex-fighter peace accord signatories have been killed. And perhaps uh most significant uh of all, and again, as sort of intimated in the conversation with Henry Bonsu, the Colombian government has been unable to step into the power vacuum left by the disbanding of the FARC, and who has stepped in well, uh organized uh organized crime. The other thing I'll add is that um after the historic agreement in 2016, uh 2016, uh Colombian president uh then Colombian president Juan Manuel uh Santos was uh awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts. Consider that. Uh perhaps outdated concept, the peace prize, the Nobel Peace Prize being awarded for efforts to bring about actual peace.