FARC´s weapons apprehended by the Colombian authorities. Flickr. Some rights reserved.
This year ends with vitally important progress in the negotiation process between
the Colombian government and the FARC. On the one hand, the official
announcement of an agreement on
the victims is now a fact. On the other, Sergio Ibáñez,
a member of the FARC negotiating team in Havana, said recently that "as we are closing
the point on the victims, we have built the platform
for analyzing the question of the
end of the conflict".
These
are not minor developments, for in addition to the partial agreements
on comprehensive agricultural
development policy, political participation, and
the solving of the drug problem, we
are adding now what has been so far the hardest negotiating
point – the point on the victims,
which includes the transitional justice
framework – and we are giving a definite push to that
of the end of the conflict.
The third point (end of the conflict) of the "General
Agreement on the end of the conflict
and on building a stable and lasting peace", defined in 2012 by the Colombian government and the FARC, establishes the "laying down of arms." This issue began
to be formally addressed that
year through a joint technical subcommittee, composed of senior
serving military and police officers
and members of the guerrilla group. The creation of this subcommittee attracted some criticism.
Those who oppose the process argued
that it is illegal to have serving military
and police personnel sitting at the
negotiating table because this equates
them with the terrorists – and it
has also, incidentally, a demoralizing effect on the
troops. The government has stated
that it is only normal that these issues
be addressed by those who have actually
been waging war in the field and thus
have the technical and operational knowledge required at this stage
of the negotiation.
Another
point that has caused much heated discussion is the terminology to be used.
While some argue that "laying down arms" is the same as "disarming",
this semantic debate entails, in fact, many underlying meanings and carries
many emotions related to the history of the FARC. The guerrilla has insisted that
the arms will indeed be put down as long as there are sufficient guarantees that
it will be able to defend its ideals without having to use them – for arms, it
argues, are not "fetishes" but rather tools of resistance which,
peace coming, would become useless and therefore should be abandoned.
To
"lay down arms" indicates a voluntary act by the FARC and, at the
same time, an agreement which is the result of a process of political
negotiation. Quite the opposite, that is, to “disarming”, which connotes
submission and even surrenders – the truth being that the FARC have not been defeated
militarily by the Colombian government, and they have indeed presented themselves
in Havana as a negotiating partner, not a counterpart on which an absolute
winner is going to impose its will.
In any case, an important step in this debate on the laying
down of arms was taken on
September, 23, with the announcement of a partial
agreement on the issue of transitional
justice. In addition to unifying
the parties’ terminology with the agreed formula of "the
laying down of arms", it was also agreed to start the process within the two months following the signing of the final agreement – that is, by May 2016. Likewise,
the agreement stresses the importance of the laying down
of arms as a necessary condition for the guerrilla members to access legal benefits.
Some points to take into account
This
is not, by any means, the
first time that a debate goes on in Colombia,
nor is this the first process of
laying down arms[1] that has been undertaken. While previous processes
have used the term "disarming", Colombia
is now left, after a long apprenticeship, with plenty of experience, to which should be added some international
ones too, which have much to offer[2]. Some reflections are thus well
worth bringing up here.
One has to do with the design of a
protocol for the laying down of arms which, as a result
of the negotiations between the
government and the FARC, should establish its chronogram
and schedules, procedures,
budgets, activities, monitoring, verification, and the definition of an institutional legal framework for the Disarmament, Demobilization and
Reintegration (DDR) process and the handling of the weapons.
In
this regard,
the experience of previous processes in Colombia,
the clues derived from international experiences, the guidelines enclosed in the
DDR integrated standards, the Stockholm Initiative
and the Cartagena Contribution, together
with the creativity and imagination
that these transitional and exceptional measures allow, are some of the
pieces to take into account to
ensure that the technical, operational,
legal and security aspects are
duly secured.
The drawing up of a roadmap from the start
will generate trust, transparency
and effectiveness, and avoid confusion
and communication shortcomings. For example, the peace processes in Congo, Northern Ireland, Nepal and Sierra Leone ran
into serious technical and operational trouble
due to lack of funds and straightforward
provisions to carry out the
disarmament – prompting unrest, delays and disruptions.
Another point to be considered is the verification, monitoring and support of the disarmament process. Ideally, such a process should be carried
out by a neutral third party, so as to ensure impartiality and
help mitigate the feeling of humiliation and mistrust
between the parties. Canadian expert
Cornelis Steeken has
indicated that the verification team can be either international or national, or an
NGO, but what really matters in the end is its
independence from the opposing sides and
that its work should include the daily monitoring
of the containers, if this is the adopted mechanism, to check
whether the weapons and ammunition
are whole.
In order to ensure its effectiveness, the mandate and
scope of this intervention -including the duties,
obligations, restrictions, coverage and budget – must
be established from
the very beginning. For example, the support of the disarmament process of the Autodefensas
Unidas de Colombia (United
Self-Defense Forces of Colombia – AUC) between 2003 and 2006, even though established by an
agreement between the Misión de Apoyo al Proceso de Paz de la Organización de los Estados
Americanos (the Organization of American States’
Mission to Support the Peace Process in Colombia – MAPP/OEA) and the Colombian government, was not reviewed
or agreed to – it was a discretionary decision that was fine-tuned on
the go, leaving serious doubts as to the roles of the
different parties and the verification work.
The protocol must be flexible enough to prevent
not only mistrust between the parties
in case of non-compliance, but also suspicions regarding the
process on the part of civil society. This is exactly
what happened in El Salvador, where the delivery terms
for the weapons was restrictively defined; this generated
such high levels of distrust that the agreements were on the verge of reaching a breaking point.
It should also be recalled that the last issue the delegations at the 1995 Dayton
Accords for peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina discussed was the pace of arms reduction
by the conflicting parties.
Disarmament must initially focus on
the arms in possession of the
guerrillas. In Mozambique,
for example, the disarmament of rebel groups – with UN
involvement – was complemented in the following
years by a process of collecting weapons from civilians
by the church. There was, that is,
a broad arms control or voluntary[3] disarmament
process of the civilian population. It should be added that all weapons must be handed over, including those damaged or handmade. In
Sierra Leone, many
of the defective weapons were returned to former combatants, thus raising the risk of being
reused.
Another important aspect has to do with the borders that Colombia shares with its neighbors. To prevent the transfer of weapons into neighboring countries, given
the presence of the FARC in the border areas,
it is crucial to set up bilateral mechanisms for discussion on the subject with the governments of Venezuela, Peru, Panama,
Ecuador and Brazil . This should help mitigate the risk of
weapons reaching the black market. In
Mozambique and South Africa, a joint disarmament initiative was designed to prevent arm-surplus traffic at the border. Two opposite cases are those of El Salvador and Mali, where
lack of dialogue with neighboring
governments facilitated the illicit
arms trade in the border area
and the setting-up of underground arm caches in these
countries.
The laying down of arms, moreover, happens in different contexts. When defining the assembly areas, one should take into account the armed
groups that are still active in the country – apart from the FARC -, such as the Ejército de
Liberación Nacional (National Liberation Army – ELN), the Ejército
Popular de Liberación (People’s Liberation Army – EPL),
criminal gangs and other illegal
organizations operating in urban
and rural areas. These groups can carry out actions against the process, endangering the safety of the demobilized
troops, of those who carry out and
verify, and the surrendered weapons
too.
Information about the weapons should be readily available. At the planning stage of the disarmament
process, it is important that the requirements for
collecting information on weapons should be
clearly defined in order to allow their effective tracking
for final disposal. Information should also be collected
on serial numbers, the arms makers,
and any distinctive physical marks on
the weapons, as well as other available data that
must be fed into an information registration system.
Finally, the country and the
world must know what happens
in the course of this process. It is
thus necessary to design and implement an accountability
mechanism covering the laying down and the destruction of arms. This
should include a methodology for the
processing, delivery and publication of periodical reports certifying
and validating the processes at the local, national and international
level. This is crucial, especially if the surrender of weapons
ceremonies are conducted, as in Northern Ireland, in a
reserved and confidential way – a model
which the FARC
has insisted in following.
Indeed, the confidentiality of the
process aroused mistrust and tension between the parties and prevented observers from knowing how it was carried out in detail. This was the case because the international
body that advised the disarmament process, headed by US Senator George Mitchell,
recommended that the arms seizure should not look
like a victory, or a defeat, of the parties involved, and that the process be undertaken in a
private manner. This entailed, for instance,
that the final destination of the
weapons be not known and the process, which was intended
to last two years, extended as a result to seven years.
The
scene of the laying down of arms by the FARC will therefore be a sensitive one and
should be managed by national and international experts. Civil society in
different regions of Colombia has an important role to play: a role of
oversight, observation, monitoring and demand of information on what is
happening on a daily basis. This will certainly be a great challenge: the pure
and simple execution of some of the clauses of the General Agreement, which is surely
not perfect but which can be successfully carried out on the basis of some of
the provisions mentioned above. The bodies in charge of the verification and
monitoring will also be responsible for the effectiveness and efficiency of the
laying down of arms, avoiding delays and thus the suspicion of a society that
is still divided regarding the process, and of a political opposition
determined to exert strong control and surveillance.
Ultimately,
it will also be the responsibility of both the government and the FARC to
ensure that this is a transparent process, open to society, for the arms that
will be laid down and destroyed will be the image of the new, no-arms politics
that thousands of men and women in Colombia are wishing for.
The ideas contained in this article are taken from "The disarmament of the FARC: keys and proposals for a viable, successful and transparent
process", produced by the Ideas
for Peace Foundation (Colombia) and the Igarapé Institute (Brazil).
Available here: http://cdn.ideaspaz.org/media/website/document/5605ff09ec154.pdf
1
Between 8,000 and 20,000 members of
the liberal guerrillas were demobilized in 1953; 900 M-19 members were demobilized in 1989;
approximately 3,600 members of the
Revolutionary Workers Party, the People's Liberation Army, Quintín
Lame and the Socialist
Renovation Current Army were demobilized between 1990 and 1994; and up to 32,000 members of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia were demobilized between 2003 and 2006. To this should be added
the hundreds of thousands of
demobilized fighters who have individually given themselves in
to the Colombian authorities over the last 30 years.
2 The FIP and Igarapé have researched 18 DDR processes.
45% of them have taken
place in Africa, where they gathered
the largest number of weapons (about 294,000) between
1989 and 2008. In almost all
processes, third parties have participated the monitoring and disarmament verification work: the UN (12), the European Union (2), the OAS (2), NATO (2) and friendly
countries (3). Most of
these processes included material incentives for handing
in weapons (80%) and almost half (45%) chose to destroy them.
3 During the Public Safety
Dialogues organized by the Fundación Ideas para la Paz (Foundation
Ideas for Peace – IFP) and the Igarapé
Institute in April 2015, General (r) Oscar Naranjo
said that the post-conflict
is the right time to deploy additional
arm-control measures for the civilian population, aimed at reducing
the availability of weapons in the country.