This fall will mark three years since the Colombian Peace Accord between the government of Juan Manuel Santos and the FARC guerrilla group was ceremoniously signed in Havana, Cuba. It was unique for a variety of reasons: it ended the world’s longest-running civil war, it was signed with the world’s oldest guerrilla group (the FARC), and—what few know—is that it is also the first peace process that explicitly includes economic actors in the truth and accountability mechanisms to help the country transition to peace.
Mediation Perspectivesis a periodic blog entry that’s provided by the CSS’ Mediation Support Teamand occasional guest authors. Each entry is designed to highlight the utility of mediation approaches in dealing with violent political conflicts. To keep up to date with the Mediation Support Team, you can sign up to their newsletter here.
The challenge of how to deal with armed groups after a conflict ends is one of the many problems facing mediators and negotiators working toward a peace agreement. Such arrangements are critical because mistrust between armed opponents, the challenge of restoring state authority, and the hazards of peace process derailment are not easily overcome. Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) programs, which attempt to shepherd former combatants into peacetime civilian roles, are one approach. However, DDR rarely provides channels for former combatants to enter the government’s security forces. Instead, this is the focus of the subject of this blog, military integration initiatives.
When Colombians streamed to the polls four months ago to vote in a plebiscite to accept or reject a peace agreement with the country’s leading guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), opinion polls predicted a resounding victory for the accord. Many citizens and internationals expected that the world’s second longest continuous armed conflict and one of its oldest Marxist insurgencies would soon become an historical relic.
In Havana, the FARC leadership and its negotiating team sat with journalists to watch the votes come in. Once the result was announced – the accord was rejected by less than one-half of 1 per cent – the guerrilla group retired to a private meeting at which its leaders decided the loss was only a temporary setback. “The FARC-EP maintains its will to find peace”, declared FARC leader Timochenko that same day, “and reiterates its willingness to use words as the only weapon to build a [new] future”.
Mediation Perspectivesis a periodic blog entry provided by the CSS’ Mediation Support Teamand occasional guest authors*. Each entry is designed to highlight the utility of mediation approaches in dealing with violent political conflicts. To keep up to date with the with the Mediation Support Team, you can sign up to their newsletter here.
After almost four years of tough negotiations in Cuba, the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) signed a peace agreement in Cartagena on 26 September 2016 to overcome five decades of armed conflict. While celebrated “as a model for future peace negotiations around the world”, later that week Colombians rejected the accords in a referendum by a 50.2% to 49.8% margin, a difference of just 54,000 votes.
Various articles have been written on the negotiation and mediation process, and the referendum as such. This article will focus on the internal developments within Colombia’s society, with a focus on what did not go well prior to the referendum and on positive post-referendum developments.
The United States is reportedly attempting to gather all of Libya’s rival governments to participate in a “reconciliation meeting” in Saudi Arabia in the near future. The initiative responds to the great uncertainty surrounding the United Nations-brokered Libyan Political Agreement, which aimed to unify rival factions in the country’s ongoing civil conflict. The new effort could boost domestic and international support for the agreement, which is critical to avoiding derailment.
The challenge to the 2015 agreement spiked on October 14 this year, when a rump of members of the Tripoli-based parliament during the war, the General National Congress, led by former prime minister Khalifa al-Ghwell and backed by allied militias, seized the premises of the new State Council set up to advise the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA).
Al-Ghwell declared his intention to take back executive authority from the GNA and called on Abdullah al-Thinni, former prime minister of the internationally recognized Bayda and Tobruk-based government, to form their own government of national unity. While al-Ghwell’s proposal has thus far been rejected by his former rival al-Thinni, it did demonstrate the GNA’s lack of broad-based domestic support.
