Colombia's FARC Deal: A Model for Conflict Resolution

Rastinews — FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia)

Colombia is among the cases with the least in common with the process under way in Turkey. The main reason: FARC was never an identity-based movement. It made no demands rooted in autonomy, federalism or ethnic identity. The group emerged purely on ideological and class grounds.

Founded in 1964, FARC organized to defend the rights of Colombia's poor and landless peasants, overturn the existing social order and carry out a socialist revolution. Its founding owed as much to Cold War-era ideology as to the crackdown on leftist movements in Colombia. The Cuban Revolution and the rise of revolutionary movements across Latin America also shaped its emergence.

Colombia has long been a country steeped in violence. Drug cartels, fighting both each other and the state, have destabilized the country for decades.

From the outset, FARC prioritized organization and ideological work, stepping up armed activity as it grew stronger. By the 1990s, it had gained enough strength to exercise de facto control over parts of the country.

During this period, the Colombian state struggled badly against both the drug cartels and armed groups. Weakened state institutions, ties between some politicians and illegal networks, and a loss of control by the security forces all created fertile ground for FARC's growth.

As the group began drawing revenue from drug trafficking, its military capacity grew substantially. Analysts say this shift accelerated after the death of Jacobo Arenas, one of FARC's founding ideologues, in 1990.

By the early 2000s, FARC had become one of the most serious security threats facing the Colombian state. Álvaro Uribe, elected president in that period, adopted a hardline policy in response.

Under Uribe, not just regular security forces but paramilitary groups were deployed effectively against FARC. Some state actions crossed legal boundaries, and serious human rights violations, extrajudicial killings and illegal operations came to light.

Drug cartels also played a direct or indirect role in the fight against FARC during this period, and the group suffered major losses. Even so, it was never fully eliminated and continued its armed activity.

Where Uribe had taken a security-first approach, Juan Manuel Santos, elected president in 2010, charted a different course.

Although he had served in Uribe's governments, Santos concluded that military means alone could not resolve the conflict and launched a new process. Contacts that began in secret later turned into formal negotiations.

The talks, which began in 2012, were hosted in Havana, Cuba. They marked the formal start of the most comprehensive peace negotiations in Colombian history.

The Santos government judged that a process confined to talks between the government and FARC would not be enough. Senior military commanders were brought into the process, along with input from various civil society organizations and grassroots groups.

The aim was to reduce institutional resistance down the line and to bolster the process's social legitimacy.

The Santos government also sought support from regional states, making international backing a key element of the process.

No binding preconditions were set while the talks continued; both sides simply waited for negotiations to conclude. Though this approach was expected to ease the process, the talks dragged on for roughly four years, and a comprehensive peace deal was not reached until 2016.

The agreement was signed at a formal ceremony attended by both sides. The peace deal rested on six main pillars:

a. Land reform,

b. Political participation,

c. Redress for victims of the civil war,

d. Combating the drug trade,

e. Disarmament and an end to the conflict,

f. Monitoring implementation of the agreement.

A close look at the agreement's content shows an approach aimed squarely at the roots of the conflict.

Land reform had been one of FARC's core demands since its founding, and it played a major role in winning over the group's members.

The political participation clause opened the way for FARC to engage in legitimate politics, with the aim of transforming the group into a political party.

The victims' redress provisions were meant to restore the rights of those harmed during the civil war.

Combating drug trafficking featured in the agreement as a priority for both the state and FARC. Finally, the disarmament and implementation provisions covered the reintegration of former fighters into society and oversight of the process.

But the process did not end with the signing. Partly due to an opposition campaign led by former President Álvaro Uribe, the agreement was put to a referendum and narrowly rejected in a low-turnout vote.

Even so, the Santos government and FARC held to the deal. After some revisions, it was pushed through parliament and took effect.

In the first six months of implementation, more than 13,000 FARC members laid down their weapons. The group subsequently began operating as a political party.

In the 2018 elections, however, FARC's vote share stayed remarkably low. The party fell well short of the popular support it had hoped for.

The United Nations monitored the implementation of the peace process and the disarmament phases. A UN observer mission tracked developments in the country for years and produced reports on how the agreement was being carried out.

Implementation moved quickly at first but later suffered from shifts in politics. The process slowed after Iván Duque, the candidate of the political movement led by Uribe, won the presidency. His government never suspended the agreement outright, but its reluctance on many fronts left implementation faltering.

One major consequence of these setbacks was that some former FARC members took up arms again. In 2019, a group led by Iván Márquez — who had sat on FARC's delegation during the peace talks — returned to armed struggle, a move widely seen as one of the process's most serious ruptures.

The group argued that the agreement's provisions had not been properly implemented and that promises made to them had gone unfulfilled.

In the end, Colombia stands as one of the most notable cases in which direct negotiations between a state and an armed group produced a comprehensive peace agreement.

But signing the agreement was not enough on its own to produce a lasting solution. Problems in implementing its provisions, limited public support and changes in political power all diminished the process's impact.

Although large numbers of former fighters were reintegrated into society, many of the reforms envisioned in the agreement were never fully carried out. The Colombian experience thus stands as a telling example that it is implementation, not signature, that ultimately decides a peace agreement's fate.

One striking feature of the FARC case is that the negotiations were conducted directly between the parties to the conflict.

This experience demonstrates that, in prolonged armed conflicts, relying on military methods alone is not enough — the pursuit of a political solution is also necessary. Yet it also shows something else: even the most comprehensive peace agreements can fail to deliver the expected results if social legitimacy is never secured and the terms of the agreement go unimplemented.