Colombia's shock makes Brexit anguish seem trivial
Imagine your country has been at war with itself for more than 50 years.
Some 220,000 people have been killed, six million displaced, thousands of women raped, children turned into soldiers.
Then your government and its enemies thrash out a deal, offering peace, an end to the slaughter. It’s put to the public vote and then, it is rejected.
That is what just happened in Colombia. The peace deal’s supporters are in shock. What they are going through makes the anguish of Remainers in Britain’s Brexit referendum look trivial in comparison.
The proposed peace deal between FARC and the Colombian government had been welcomed around the world.
“At a time when conflict seems to be on the rise across the globe, Colombia has just provided us with a glimmer of hope,” wrote Antonio Sampaio with the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London.
Colombians reject peace deal to end FARC rebel war
At the release of IISS’s Annual Review of World Affairs last week, analysts’ global summary could be summed up as “the world is going to hell in a handcart”.
Russia on the rampage in Ukraine and Syria, the Middle East on fire, uncertainty in America. Colombia was a welcome exception. Not any more.
Polls had predicted majority approval of the deal. But reservations about it clearly ran deeper than pollsters could detect. Only 40% of Colombians turned out to vote and the deal was rejected by a wafer thin majority: 50.2% to 49.8%.
The agreement had problems. Critics say it was far too lenient on FARC.
Lengthy jail terms for atrocities would be avoided if its members confessed. And some would be given political representation – in other words they’ll have killed their way to political office.
FARC long ago mutated from an agrarian militant Marxist/Maoist uprising to a narco terrorist network. Many Colombians have remained deeply sceptical it would simply give in and give up its guns.
They were also worried by what might be left behind. Colombia has other terrorist organisations and other narcotic gangster networks.
FARC’s retirement would leave a vacuum they could easily fill and fight over. Vicious turf wars might simply have replaced five decades of civil war. Mexico, for instance, has no civil war but a massive narco conflict equally as devastating.
For whatever reason, not enough Colombians were convinced enough to turn out to vote and support the peace deal.
So what next?
Both Colombia’s government and FARC have vowed to respect the ceasefire they announced during negotiations. Talking will go on. But opponents of the deal say it was too lenient and did not punish those responsible for atrocities with long jail sentences.
It is hard to see FARC accepting a new deal that jails many of its members for lengthy times behind bars.
Colombia"s shock makes Brexit anguish seem trivial
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