With all of the violence, conflicts and wars that have sadly become all too common in the world around us, when peace breaks out, it’s a most welcome development. That’s why we should all take a moment and savour the recent events in Colombia, where the government and the country’s biggest rebel group have reached a historic deal to end five decades of conflict and insurrection — a struggle that has been one of the world’s bloodiest, most persistent and longest-running armed actions.
In some 50 years of fighting, more than 220,000 mostly Colombians have died while a further five million have been driven from their homes as the nation’s military battled ideologically emboldened rebels from FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. FARC had been inspired by Cold War political theories that viewed the Bogota government as too closely aligned with the imperialist policies of the United States and it sought to install a Marxist regime in Columbia. For its part, the US successfully undermined FARC by labelling it a “narco-terrorist” and several of the group’s top leadership were indicted and imprisoned in the US for their role in cocaine-trafficking.
The deal will be put to a referendum across Colombia on October 2. It commits the government in Bogota to carry out land reforms, overhaul its narcotics strategy and to improve facilities and infrastructure in areas of the nation that had been neglected during the five decades of conflict. It’s been 13 months since FARC last fired a shot and this accord now paves the way for peace. The danger, however, is that Colombia’s opposition may use the referendum as a plebiscite on the government’s popularity. And that will be a mistake.
