A Hope for Colombia

From the U.S. perspective, Colombia’s biggest problem is the drug racket. Down south, the picture is different. The main concern of the vast majority of Colombians is not los narcos but a guerrilla war that has been sapping the country for more than 40 years. In all those decades, no Colombian government has been able to resolve the conflict between the army and four separate guerrilla groups, a fundamental struggle between rich and poor in a country marked by wide economic inequality.

Some Colombian sectors, admitting the intractability of the war, are looking beyond the borders for solutions. At issue is the possibility of an appeal to the international community to mediate the conflict, along the lines of the successful pattern that brought an end to long-running civil wars in Guatemala and El Salvador, a pacification program with each side giving way for the sake of the whole.

Surely this is an idea worth trying in the Colombian quagmire. If an institution like the United Nations can put together a group of mediators trusted by all, a glimpse of peace might appear on the Colombian horizon.

President Ernesto Samper, despite a recent shower of political gimmicks, clearly lacks a credible peace strategy and has proven himself incapable of ending the war. Under his administration, violence has racked the cities, towns and countryside. Many Colombians lost hope in the president when it became clear that narcotics money was pouring into his campaign headquarters.

Ending the civil strife could mean, among other things, destruction of the “bodyguard partnership” between guerrillas and the narcos and an end to Colombia’s epidemic of kidnappings for ransom, another of the guerrillas’ preferred fund-raising methods.

What’s needed is the sound advice of people who have succeeded in putting down civil wars. International mediators dispatched by the United Nations could begin setting up a framework for peace talks. Target dates should be set to discuss an agenda of issues like land reform, human rights, eradication of all paramilitary groups, a restructuring of the army and the return of guerrillas to the democratic process. A difficult task, but one that has saved Guatemala and San Salvador from continued fratricide. For the sake of Colombia, it should be tried.