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In a recent speech, Colombia’s President Santos described a peaceful, coca-free nation, but few of his countrymen believe that if a peace deal is signed, the lucrative cocaine trade will end
Can you imagine a Colombia without conflict, without coca?
That’s the rhetorical question Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos put to citizens during a recent televised address to the nation.
“That Colombia, that marvelous Colombia is possible, and it’s the goal we are heading towards,” Santos went on to say.
His upbeat speech on Wednesday followed the announcement that the government and Colombia’s largest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), had reached a partial - but significant - accord that paves the way for the FARC to enter Colombian politics and hold political office.
The partial agreement, which is part of ongoing peace talks between the two sides in Havana, will take effect only if and when the rebels lay down their weapons once a peace deal to end the country's conflict is reached.
There’s no doubt that after 50 years of war, which has claimed more than 220,000 lives, most Colombians would like to imagine - as Santos suggests - a country free of war and coca, the raw ingredient of cocaine.
Yet a coca-free Colombia appears to be a distant utopia.
Cocaine production has declined in recent years, but the Andean nation still remains one of the world’s biggest cocaine producers.
According to 2010 United States Department of Justice figures based on an analysis of samples, 95.5 percent of the cocaine seized in the U.S. originates in Colombia.
Few Colombians believe that if a peace deal is signed, the lucrative cocaine export market, along with growing internal consumption of cocaine and marijuana in Colombia and across Latin America, will end and drug smuggling routes will be dismantled.
And even if the FARC do lay down their weapons and relinquish their stake in the cocaine business that would still leave multiple illegal armed groups in Colombia involved in the drug trade.
Colombia’s transnational organised crime networks, known by their Spanish acronym "Bacrim" or criminal bands, are widely seen as a growing threat in Colombia, and they control a significant share of the country’s drug production and distribution.
GUERILLAS TURNED POLITICIANS
And what about “a Colombia without conflict”, as Santos said?
While many Colombians support the Havana peace process to end the conflict, they aren’t willing to make big concessions to the FARC, according to a recent opinion poll.
The FARC aspires to become a political party if a peace deal is signed and the armed conflict ends.
Yet more than 70 percent of Colombians surveyed in the poll said they don’t want to see the FARC hold political office. And about 50 percent of Colombians said they wouldn’t be willing to accept the results of a local election if it was won by a former guerrilla member.
At first glance, such attitudes appear at odds with Colombia’s past.
There are numerous examples of former guerrillas who have given up their weapons and have gone on to hold political office in Colombia, becoming senators and provincial governors.
Perhaps the most obvious example is Bogota’s current Mayor Gustavo Petro - a former member of the M-19 guerrilla group, which became a legal party after reaching a peace agreement with government in 1989.
And beyond Colombia, there are countries including El Salvador, Nicaragua and Uruguay, where former leftist insurgent movements have morphed into political parties and have been elected to power.
Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega, for example, is a former Marxist guerrilla leader. Then there’s Uruguay’s President Jose Mujica, a former guerrilla, who took office in 2010.
JAIL FIRST, THEN ELECTIONS
So why are many Colombians against the idea of the FARC exchanging their AK-47 rifles for votes?
As the recent opinion poll showed, many Colombians are not willing to accept FARC leaders being given seats in congress or senate, without first receiving jail terms and then passing through the electoral process. And whether that will happen or not remains to be seen.
The agreement reached in Havana earlier this week did not tackle the thorny issue of exactly who from the FARC, including rebel commanders, may have a political future.
The FARC enjoys little support among Colombians, especially those living in the cities. Many accuse the guerrillas of kidnapping and killing tens of thousands of innocent civilians and sowing terror over the decades.
The FARC started out back in 1964 as a Marxist agrarian movement to defend the rights of landless and poor peasants against the landowning elite.
But for many Colombians, the FARC lost their ideological beliefs and roots a long time ago. In the 1990s, the group turned to the cocaine trade, kidnapping and extortion to fill its war coffers. The FARC is listed as a drug-running terrorist organisation by the European Union and the U.S.
However, such views could change. If the FARC decides to renounce violence, acknowledge its war victims and its role in human rights abuses, along with the group’s estimated 8,000 fighters laying down their weapons as part of a possible peace deal, Colombians could see the rebels in a more positive light.
And if all that happens, the response to part of the president’s question – “can you imagine a Colombia without conflict” - could become “yes”.
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