Colombia's peace treaty, from a historical perspective

For most part of its history, Colombia has endured an endless political and economic conflict. Early on it was evident that no one knew what to do with the new born country. Some of the founding fathers wanted a federal model, others a republican one, some wanted a constitution similar to the one France has, some wanted to copy the United States constitution. Unable to decide, civil war ignited, and from that point on being at war with ourselves became a tragic aspect of our cultural identity.

Every generation, since the republic was born, some two hundred and two years ago, has had some political conflict shadowing its life. To the numerous civil wars that preceded the final draft of the constitution that ruled the country from 1886 to 1991 and ultimately defined the two mayor political parties, liberals and conservatives, one important conflict can be identify as the one who defined Colombian political conflicts: the thousand day’s war. With this political war Colombia finished the XIX century and began the XX century. Its wounds have managed to remain open, as if they were roots from a colossal tree.

It was at this war where the concepts of guerrillas first emerged as a way to attack the government forces, whether it was a conservative or liberal one.  War became the only tool to show disagreement and discontent, but also a way to survive political prosecution.

By the forties the political tensions between the two traditional parties were at their historical high, to the point where almost every Colombian family, especially the ones that come from rural areas has a horror story regarding those tragic years. Millions of people had to leave, and still do, their homes and towns to save their life. They all lost somebody to this war without trenches. All you need to die in those days was to wear a blue shirt on a liberal town or a red tie on a conservative one.   

The turning point for the worse for this perpetual political violence can be trace back to the hour. It was midday on April 8th 1948. Jorge Eliecer Gaitán was the liberal party official presidential candidate and most likely the next president of the country. As he was leaving his office building in downtown Bogotá to have lunch with some of his closest friends, a disturbed and possibly manipulated individual shot him several times. As he had predicted few days before, when the threats against his life were at their pick, his death burned the country for over fifty years.

Downtown Bogotá became a battle field. Many of its republican buildings became ashes and thousands of its inhabitants perished. Colombia would not be the same after el Bogotazo, as this sad event came to be known.

The sixties and seventies were not only a time of hippies and promises of peace and love, were also a time of revolt. Inspired by the Cuban revolution of 1958 many Colombian youths from different socio economical and educational backgrounds began to explore communism and socialism as means to change the political context of the country. Many sons and daughters of the middle and even upper class joined the ranks of the scatter guerilla groups that were born at The Violence period or created new movements to fight against the state regardless of the political inclination of the government. It did not matter whether the government was liberal or conservative as it did before. For the guerillas, both parties represented the same ideals and therefore were considered the same evil.

At the same time these new politically motivated movements began to grow and eventually become clandestine, a new generation of criminals stared to arise as narcotics became fashionable and highly profitable.  The dawn of a new kind of war showed Colombia a different face of violence.    

On one hand, Colombia’s political status quo was determined not to allow communism or socialism to permeate in any way the country and so another chapter of politically motivated violence erupted by the eighties. On the other, drug lords began to grow increasingly notorious and violent. How can we forget the horrific work of the infamous Escobar?

 From small groups of liberal country man fighting at different regions of the country in a diversity of scattered battles on the frame of an endless political civil war, the guerillas by the end of the twentieth century were becoming massive organized armies, well-articulated in guerrilla warfare. Soon enough these organizations lost their political perspective and socialist ideals and became something else. Kidnaping, extortion, mine fields, recruitment by force of children, narcotics and so on became ways to feed the insatiable war apparatus.

At the same time, an important number of cattle farmers grew tired of paying extortions and being killed or kidnap by the guerillas, as well as the lack of protection from the government, and created a cure, that turn out to be worse than the disease, paramilitary armies.

By the nineties Colombia was immerse in a devastating cycle of violence. Terrorist attacks at malls and airplanes, military and governmental buildings, selective assassinations of politicians, journalist, judges, ministers, presidential candidates, policemen, were Escobar’s strategy to force the government to accept his terms and void the extradition treaty with the United States. While Escobar’s war was focused on most mayor cities, especially Bogotá and Medellín, the guerilla and the paramilitary armies destroyed the countryside, while the government looked the other way, and in some cases provided logistical information to help the paramilitaries.

While the violence from Escobar ended when he got shot at the roof top of his hideout, the horrific violence unleashed by both irregular armies continued to inflict enormous amounts of suffering and displacement at Colombia’s countryside. Hundreds of villages and small towns were destroyed, burn to the ground or abandoned. Hundreds of thousands of acres were usurped by the paramilitary from their rightful owners. Hundreds of thousands if not millions of victims seek justice, employment, health coverage. For them, minimum civil and human rights are seen as a commodity.

Despite the overwhelming and heart breaking amount of information regarding recent Colombian history, where the number of victims of different kinds of violence rises above millions, despite all the evidence that indicates that not only the guerillas, paramilitaries and drug cartels have contributed to increase these numbers, but also that members of the army and police have been involved in criminal acts against civilians, most Colombians do no care. Most Colombians rather ignore the conflict and its implications in who we are as a nation, than to embrace the tools to make it stop. 

When the government made it official that it was going to pursue peace dialogues with the FARC guerilla, the country was mostly indifferent, pessimistic or skeptical, when not enraged with a position that some right wing enthusiast considered to be naïve, when not a sign of weakness.

More than a year has gone by and the dialogues keep on going despite the general perception that they will fail at any given minute. A hope that it is disturbing and contradictory, as if ceasing the endless and heartless violence that has defined us for the last two centuries was not something worth dreaming about.          

Juan Ladrón de Guevara Parra