Colombia: interrupted lives

A decisive breakthrough in Colombia's longstanding hostage crisis requires an imaginative new mediation process, argues former United States ambassador to Bogotá, Myles Frechette.

21 - 01 - 2008

The fate of the almost 800 Colombian citizens held by the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia / Farc) in areas of the country which the paramilitary group controls is a particularly intractable aspect of an enduring internal conflict. The release on 10 January 2008 of two of the hostages (Clara Rojas and Consuelo Gonzalez) - after a fractious mediation process in which Venezuela's president, Hugo Chávez, played a controversial role - is welcome, but also a dramatic reminder to their fellow Colombians of the persistent suffering of hundreds more captives reduced to mere survival without life or hope.

If this pattern of release is repeated in each case - involving a very small number of hostages being freed unilaterally by the Farc, and only after a tortuous negotiation - it will be many years before all the hostages are returned to their families and lives. The photograph of Ingrid Betancourt, the former presidential candidate now held for six years by the Farc, is enough to indicate the terrible strain of such an experience. It is time for the Colombian government to adopt an innovative strategy for liberating these citizens. What might it look like?

Myles Frechette is a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies CSIS), Washington. He was the United States ambassador to Colombia from 1994-97. This article was first published in Spanish in the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo on 20 January 2008

A human-centred process

The heart of the strategy would be the idea of a humanitarian exchange involving the release of all persons held by the Farc. This would be the result of mediation by a non-Colombian respected by both sides and a member neither of a government or of an international organisation. This negotiator could be a distinguished European, Latin American, or United States citizen; he or she would have to be trusted by the Bogotá government and the guerrillas alike in order to be able to achieve a mutually acceptable solution. Hugo Chávez's partisanship in openly promoting the Farc and denouncing Colombia's government render him unsuitable to be this figure. However, not all candidates for this role are ingenuous or believe that the Farc are idealistic patriots.

A humanitarian exchange is not a peace negotiation between the Farc and the Colombian government. Peace negotiations will not happen until both sides conclude they cannot "win" militarily. Make no mistake; that will take years. Further, the differences between both sides are not only political. The Farc is a criminal enterprise financed by drug-trafficking that flourishes on strong demand in the United States, Europe and Latin America. Many sacrifices lie ahead for the Colombian people before there is peace. A humanitarian exchange, however, might be possible much sooner.

Also in openDemocracy on Colombia's politics and internal violence:

Isabel Hilton, "Álvaro Uribe's gift: Colombia's mafia goes legit"(25 October 2005)

Sue Branford, "Colombia's other war" (14 November 2005)

Ana Carrigan, "Colombia's elections: the regional exception" (10 March 2006)Ana Carrigan, "Colombia's testing times" (29 March 2006)

Juan Gabriel Tokatlian, "Colombia needs a Contadora: a democratic proposal" (29 May 2006)

Adam Isacson, "The United States and Colombia: the next plan" (12 March 2007)

Jenny Pearce, "The crisis of Colombia's state" (14 May 2007)

Ana Carrigan, "Pawns of war: the Colombian hostage crisis" (15 November 2007)

The Farc pays little attention to international pressure. The Colombian government, however, is under great pressure, internally and externally, to negotiate for the hostages. Colombians may feel this is unfair. Yet international opinion always expects more from democracies than it does from terrorists or criminals. International opinion would also condemn Colombian military action that prompts the Farc to kill the hostages.

A request for help from a non-Colombian to solve Colombian problems implies not only some erosion of sovereignty but also that the solution proposed will probably be unpalatable to some Colombians. But are there alternatives?

In the 1990s, polls showed that Colombian citizens had little confidence that crime in all its forms (including corruption, kidnapping, mass killings, and highway robbery) would end. But as a result of international assistance - beginning with Plan Colombia under former (1998-2002) president Andrés Pastrana and continuing with President Álvaro Uribe's policy of "democratic security" - Colombians now dare to believe that some of their nation's problems are resolvable.

No guarantee, but no alternative

The positive reaction to the latest releases by the Farc demonstrates that Colombians want their loved ones liberated no matter who facilitates their freedom. But as their expectations have risen, they also now sense that a prisoner exchange negotiated between the Farc and the Colombian government is unlikely. The gulf between the Farc and the Colombian government - a mixture of rancour, ideological differences and distrust - is simply insuperable. Unilateral releases can take place but are likely to be small and sporadic. Worse, they leave the fate of hundreds of human beings subject only to Farc initiatives. This guarantees that the hostages and their families will continue to suffer - deprived of their families, their place in society and exposed to disease.

Many believe that the Farc's willingness to negotiate a humanitarian exchange with the Colombian government is simply a manoeuvre to improve the group's international image or to fool the government into long and fruitless negotiations (such as those with ex-president Pastrana). But the Colombian armed forces have pressured the Farc and restricted its freedom of movement and communication. Could it be that, because of these restrictions, the Farc finds that taking care of several hundred prisoners is more of a problem than an advantage? Could it be that the movement, now supported by drug-trafficking, no longer needs the ransom paid by families of the hostages? If so, the Farc might agree to a negotiated exchange. Colombians won't know until their government makes a serious attempt to use a foreign negotiator. There are no guarantees, but neither are there viable alternatives.

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Silvana Paternostro, My Colombian War (Henry Holt, 2007)

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blessdkrumheit said:

Tue, 2008-01-22 03:41

GPFrank
Those called terrorists we used to call racketeers. I believe the term racketeer better
reflects the situation. In other words FARC is a pseudo-government in the sense of the Mafia. But FARC is being fed by the lopsided drug policy in the U.S. The penalties for cocaine use
are what makes cocaine so expensive and profitable. There was a time in this country cocaine was just one of the multitude of nostrums, admittedly dangerous. But Instead of harsh prison, using should be a misdemeanor, like driving under th influence (which in so many cases is deadlier than cocaine). Emphasis should be on treatment and education in regard to addiction. There ought to be an international conference on control of the drug rackets and drug culture.

willow28 said:

Tue, 2008-01-22 09:56

I agree with the previous poster's comments about government's approach to drug addiction.
Here in the UK, before 1970, when drug addiction was treated as a Health & Safety issue rather than a Law & Order one, the number of addicts was measured in thousands rather than millions.
Treating addicts as sick (which, after all, is what they are) rather than criminals will remove the 'outlaw' cachet which attracts rebellious youngsters to dangerous drugs in the first place.

Maginificent 7 said:

Tue, 2008-01-22 15:43

Well if the Colombian government does opt for (yet another) foreign negotiator let us hope it is not Mr Frechette.

This is a very poor article, - one of a stream of recent outpourings that seek to reinvent recent Colombian history and contemporary facts - which fails to engage with the drivers of the conflict or meaningful strategies for its resolution (ending massive US financial support to the Colombian armed forces / current US led counter-narcotics strategy etc).

Chavez is hardly ‘promoting’ FARC – he is emphasizing what many people feel – that the war on terror and ridiculous list of (US defined) terrorist organisations is an impediment to dialogue and negotiation between groups in conflict. I do not need to begin listing the US hypocrisy here – just throw in a few acronyms and names of ‘terrorist’ groups that the US has worked with – all usually drug traffickers (the Contras, the Northern Alliance, the KMT, the AUC).

And why was Chavez wrong to denounce the Colombian government? The Colombians and US governments expend considerable energy denouncing Chavez? What is it about Uribe and the Colombian state that puts them beyond criticism – and why is Mr Frechette so concerned about Colombian sovereignty and not that of Iraq, Afghanistan or Cuba?

Yes indeed the Colombian government is under pressure – but largely because many of its members have been discovered to have links to the real criminals in the Colombian drug trade – the AUC. Funny how the AUC’s responsibility for trafficking, murder and violence (80% of the paramilitary murders) has been neglected in this piece. The FARC have traditionally been relatively minor players in the traffick of cocaine to the US – the world’s largest cocaine consuming nation.

And finally – the idea that Plan Colombia has been a success is risible. It has served to exacerbate security sector impunity, created a military imbalance in the Andes, displaced drug cultivation and trafficking from traditional production areas, led to no reduction in Colombia’s cocaine production potential or the price of cocaine on the streets (see latest UNODC reports).

So yes Mr Frechette, Colombia needs imaginative new mediation – but not the cynical, circumscribed and ideologically driven approach you articulate here, which is as arcane as the conflict itself.

Uni-korn said:

Tue, 2008-01-22 19:11

I completely concur with all of the remarks of "Maginificent 7", and would further observe that he/she seems to have a much more fact based view of the politics of Columbia and the region than this so-called State Department expert. Myles Frechette appears typical of the closed minded ideologues we have frequenting our national government and the self-proclaimed experts that people the propaganda mills that masquerade as "think tanks". Virtually everything about this gaggle of political charlatans is oxymoronic, especially their depiction as statesmen/women and diplomats.
Are we, the supporters of 'OpenDemocracy', to believe that it is an unintended omission that FARC is made up mostly of indigenous Colombian people who are fighting colonialist oppression and corruption. There can be no doubt that, despite the desperate measures their circumstances force them to employ, they are not the faction in this dispute that has "chosen" the route of terrorism as a means to achieve their ends; they are the victims of government sponsored terrorism in every form imaginable, and it is well past the time that our government should focus on ending the support of corrupt colonialist governments, and cast its lot with the leaders of the region that seek liberty and equality for all the people.