By Ana Isabel Rodríguez Iglesias*

A sign indicating one of the Transitional Local Zones for Normalization, where many FARC members have relocated and surrendered arms. / UK Mission to the UN / Lorey Campese / Flickr / Creative Commons

Implementation of the Final Peace Agreement in Colombia is showing important progress – particularly regarding the demobilization and disarmament of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) – but the government has been slow delivering services and facilities in the demobilization zones, ensuring fair application of the amnesty law, and providing credible security guarantees.  Some 6,900 FARC members have relocated to the 20 Transitional Local Zones for Normalization and six Transitional Local Points for Normalization, surrendering 7,132 arms to the UN verification mission – more per demobilized member than in any other Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) process in the world.  In addition to expressing concerns about government services, FARC leaders are increasingly anxious for the security of demobilized members as well as residents of zones they previously occupied.

• The expansion of organized illegal armed groups, including successors of the paramilitaries, and the emergence of new illegal groups made up of FARC dissidents (estimated to be 5-10 percent of FARC members) and guerrillas from the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) threaten security in large expanses of the countryside. Those groups are filling the void left by the FARC and gaining control over drug trafficking routes previously dominated by the guerrillas as well as illegal mining operations.  A steadily increasing number of human rights defenders and social leaders – 186 in 2016-17 – have been killed while making property claims under authorized restitution processes, socializing the peace agreements, and confronting mega-extractive projects.
• The National Substitution Program of Illicit Crops is also in question. By June, nearly 80,000 families in 13 departments signed agreements to voluntarily eradicate coca fields in return for assistance starting new projects.  When agreements are not reached, however, the security forces enter affected areas by force, deepening residents’ apprehensions about the voluntary nature of the agreements.  (In a U.S. Senate hearing last week, U.S. State Department officials said the Trump Administration is not supporting the crop substitution program because the FARC, which has influence in the areas, remains designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization under several U.S. laws.)

No doubt the decline in homicides and kidnappings – a reduction of 50 percent since 2002 – represents significant progress.  The government has created a Special Unit to dismantle irregular groups engaged in violence, as stipulated by Point 3.4.4 of the Final Agreement, but its continued denial that the attacks on social leaders and human rights defenders are part of a systematic practice (as the Ombudsman has asserted) or are politically motivated has hurt the credibility of its commitment to full implementation.  Likewise, weak support for the crop substitution program – coupled with the lack of long-term state presence to provide security and social services – will complicate the achievement of lasting peace in areas from which the FARC has withdrawn.  Multiple reports by Fundación Ideas para la Paz indicate that the FARC has encouraged families to embrace the plan, but U.S. allegations that the former guerrilla organization illicitly manipulates peasants for political advantage does not help to normalize the post-FARC reality in Colombia.  In the same vein, the Trump Administration’s criticism of people protesting forced coca eradication and its suggestion that police should confront protesters threaten to keep the process off balance.  For demobilized FARC, for residents of formerly FARC-held territory, and even for peasants who resisted the guerrillas’ war, successful implementation of the peace accord requires ensuring their personal safety and giving them a fair chance at achieving economic security.

August 7, 2017

* Ana Isabel Rodríguez Iglesias is a Ph.D. candidate in International Politics and Conflict Studies at the University of Coimbra (Portugal) and CLALS Fellow.