Colombia's peace process advances despite fast-track ruling, U.S. interference.
| Autor | Gaudin, Andres |
Amid growing difficulties, the government of President Juan Manuel Santos and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC) continue taking steps they committed to in the historic peace accord signed in 2016 after nearly four years of negotiations (NotiSur, April 28, 2017). The agreement came after more than a half century of bloody war that killed hundreds of thousands, left many others maimed and mutilated, and displaced millions.
Sectors on the extreme right, however, are using everything at their disposal to derail the peace process. Their leader, former President Alvaro Uribe (2002-2010), already announced that if his party, Centro Democratico (Democratic Center), wins the country's 2018 elections, it will void everything that was agreed upon.
The justice system--from the high-level Corte Constitucional (Constitutional Court) to first-instance judges--has also challenged the peace process, undermining its credibility and putting it at serious risk politically. "[The judiciary] has dealt a heavy blow to public confidence in Santos and the guerrillas," the weekly newsmagazine Semana argued recently, citing various sources. "They didn't hesitate to use the Corte Constitucional to overturn the fast track, a key element of the accord," said lawmaker Angela Robledo. "It was the biggest blow yet to the process, as evidenced by poll numbers showing that 65.2% of Colombians distrust the peace efforts."
The fast track, established via a 2016 legislative act, is a mechanism that allowed expedited approval of laws and constitutional reforms needed for the implementation of the peace process. The radical right hopes that without it, the Santos government and the FARC will be unable to move forward.
Last month's decision by the Corte Constitucional to overturn the fast track had an immediate impact by delaying one of the key components of the peace accord: the handing over of weapons by the FARC to UN representatives. But on June 7, the guerrillas did finally begin disarming, which Santos said, was something that "would have been unimaginable just five years ago." Two weeks later, on June 20, the FARC surrendered the last of its weapons, demobilizing once and for all, and thus ceasing to exist as an armed force.
The group is now looking forward to entering formal politics. Earlier in the year, on April 4, the former rebels began debating what they call the "61 Theses of April," a series of documents...
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