About Colombians’ war and peace, and other peace processes in the XX – XXI centuries.

For Colombia’s political history, the last couple of weeks were simultaneously the most promising, frustrating, intense, unpredictable, and confusing. Between September 26th and October 7th, 2016, a peace agreement was signed, voted and rejected; there was a risk of ending the ceasefire; the peace process was supported by massive rallies; there was no plan B ready, not even by leaders opposing the agreement; and, if all this does not sound confusing enough, the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Colombia’s president, Juan Manuel Santos.

This is not the entire story, however. As with any other peace process, this is a matter of a long and complex political history.

School affected by war in rural Colombia. Photo by Jesus Abad Colorado. Source: BBC Mundo

School affected by war in rural Colombia. Photo by Jesus Abad Colorado. Source: BBC Mundo

Unlike Colombia’s conflict being framed in terms of mere terrorism, which assumes there are “bad guys” who should be defeated by the “good guys”, the country’s political violence has developed between conservatives and liberal guerrillas since very early on in its republican history.

More recently, after the 1948 event known as El Bogotazo, confrontations between liberals and conservatives scaled in cruelty and intensity to the point that the 1950s are known, even today, as the time of La Violencia. As a result of the huge social inequities, marginalized territories, and the inherited issues of the 50s combining with the socialist revolutionary environment in Latin America, several political rebel groups emerged in the 1960s and 70s. From those came the three largest guerrilla groups:  M-19, which disarmed in 1990 after a process that resulted in the 1991 constitutional reform; the ELN (Ejército de Liberación Nacional), which has approached peace negotiations still in progress; and FARC-EP (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – Ejército del Pueblo), the largest rebel group in the country, and the protagonist of events these past two weeks. A fourth large paramilitary group, the AUC (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia), emerged in the 1980s not as a political movement, but to defend private properties where the national army could not guarantee safety. The AUC went through a disarming process in 2006, which has been highly questioned due to both its lack of transparency and because of evidence of State’s support in some paramilitary attacks (more references about this topic here).

One more thing—drugs. Drug-dealing and other illegal economies permeated almost every one of these nonofficial armed groups, which added the “easy money” factor to an already complicated picture. Read more about Colombia’s political history in the work of David Bushnell, Jorge Orlando Melo, Marco Palacios, Alfredo Molando and Paul Oquist, among others. There are more than 400 entries at the library catalog about political violence in Colombia . Also, you can find additional resources about connections between drug-dealing and war in Colombia here.

This most recent and internationally visible peace process with FARC was a 4-year negotiation of a 52-year long conflict, with previous attempts to reach a peace agreement occurring in 1982, 1991, 1992 and 1999-2002. Other conflicts in the last 32 years which were resolved through peace processes have lasted between 4 and 21 years long.

. List of conflicts solved by peace process between 1984 and 2005. Source: School of Peace, Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona

List of conflicts solved by peace process between 1984 and 2005. Source: School of Peace, Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona

On August 24th the negotiation team from the Colombian government, rebel leaders and international observers announced in La Havana-Cuba that an agreement had been reached. The same day, the Colombian President announced a bilateral ceasefire. The agreement would be signed and brought to citizen vote, so an intense campaign period for and against the agreement began. With significant presence and support from international observers, the peace agreement was officially signed on September 26th by Colombia’s President, Juan Manuel Santos, and FARC leader Rodrigo Londoño –“Timochenko” after four years of negotiations. One week later, on October 2nd, the vote took place. In spite of all poll predictions and the overall national and international optimism, the “No” campaign at 50.21% won out over the “Yes” campaign by the very small margin of 0.43%. Such a close race combined with almost 60% of potential voters not voting revealed a deep polarization, not between people wanting peace and people wanting war, but over what is the best way to achieve a collectively desired peace.

Results from the vote on October 2 to support or reject the peace agreement. Source: Colombia's National Registrar

Results from the vote on October 2 to support or reject the peace agreement. Source: Colombia’s National Registrar

Uncertainty and frustration came next. Leaders of the “No” campaign did not have a plan B for the process and showed to be a very heterogeneous group. The deadline was announced as October 31st. Faced with going back to open confrontation, citizens across the country brandishing mottos like “Don’t leave the table” and “Vigil for Peace” turned out for massive rallies to keep negotiations alive. These rallies included voters both for and against the agreement, as well as those who did not vote, and such strong public support pushed all parties to remain in dialogues. The Nobel Prize awarded (for some, too early) to President Juan Manuel Santos, adds an extra push to guarantee that a more robust and politically legitimate agreement is achieved.

Citizen support to the Peace Process, October 4th 2016, Bogota, Colombia. Source: El Tiempo

Citizen support to the Peace Process, October 5th 2016, Bogota, Colombia.
Source: El Tiempo

Huge challenges remain ahead. The most urgent one is that all parties—the government, FARC leaders and the heterogeneous (somewhat erratic) opposition—manage to re-negotiate some points of the agreement, which are seen as “immovable” for both sides of the table. As observed in other international processes and complex political peace negotiations, the political will to compromise and commit to an agreement is critical. Compromise and agreement are required not only from combatants and politicians, but from every single citizen. Scholars point to such cases as South Africa and Rwanda as examples of compromise by parties through a special transitional justice system. Regarding this need for compromise, the School of Peace from Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona (AUB) show how in all of the 11 processes listed above, groups that fought during the armed conflict occupied influential political positions as a result of the peace process. In fact, one of the issues that generated fierce rejection from the opposition to the agreement is that it guaranteed political participation to FARC leaders.

Even if agreement is reached, an even larger challenge remains:  Everyone—government, rebels, and civilians—fulfilling their promises. This, analysts say, is a key factor in preventing new armed confrontations from emerging, and scholars argue that in Sri Lanka, Liberia and Nepal the failure to fulfill agreements generated new waves of violence.

In any case, other international peace processes reveal that civil wars are rarely terminated by the victory of one of the parties. In the 2016 yearbook of peace processes developed by UAB’s School of Peace, of the 61 conflicts that ended over the last 35 years, 77% did so through a peace agreement, and 16.4% through military victory of one of the parties. However, there are still 56 active armed conflicts distributed across the world, which, in  the 2016 yearbook, includes Colombia. Other countries with active wars are India, Senegal, Mozambique, Ukraine, Philippines, and Thailand (south).

Conflicts and Peace Building, 2015 map by School of Peace, UAB

Conflicts and Peace Building, 2015 map by School of Peace, UAB

Read more about armed conflicts and peace in Pakistan and African countries through the work of Adam Curle and Birgit Brock-Utne. Other important scholars on peace building and conflict resolution are Gene SharpJohan Galling, Betty Reardon, Roger Fisher and John Paul Lederach.

The yearbook asserts that “The culture of negotiation is now a reality”. As both a Colombian citizen and one of many people across the globe who wish to have a better world someday, I wholeheartedly hope that the culture of negotiation can be a reality in Colombia. Two Colombian films which offer a beautiful and intense experience of the complexity of the county’s political violence—and are available to the U of I community through Kanopy Streaming—are Los Colores de la Montaña by Carlos Cesar Arbelaez (2010) and La Sirga, by William Vega (2012).

Explore more about political violence and peace processes in other Latin American countries such as El Salvador and Guatemala. Also, explore the documentaries and films about Latin American history through Kanopy Streaming. This database includes films about political history, covering topics such as the Cuban Revolution and ‘El Che Guevara’, Nicaragua during the ‘Sandinista’ period, the consequences of violence in Guatemala, Peru in the aftermath of political violence, and the disappeared people during the Argentinian military regime, among many other documentaries and films.

If you want to delve more deeply into research about political history around the world, visit our International and Area Studies Library. Our subject specialists in Latin America, Africa, Middle East and North Africa, South Asia, Central Europe, Central Asia, and Global Studies/Political Science can always guide you with more specific research advice. See you there!

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Ready for Rio? Part 2: 2016 Olympics Update

Rio 2016 Official Promotional Video

Screenshot: Rio 2016 Official Promotional Video

With the wintry weather starting to fade here in Illinois – we hope! –  the 2016 Summer Olympic Games feel like they’re just around the corner. The Olympics will take place from August 5th to August 21st, 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Much has been said, debated, and certainly achieved in relation to the preparation for the 2016 Summer Olympics. Just over a year ago, we took a look at the situation on this blog and with this post, Part 2, we hope to check back in with the progress.

For starters, I invite you to keep in mind what our Latin American and Caribbean Studies Librarian, Antonio Sotomayor, has said about the connection between sports and politics when interviewed about his recent book on Puerto Rico’s participation in past Olympic Games: “Sports is never done in a vacuum.”

The first thing to consider, then, is that neither sports nor public opinion – and even less so public opinion represented in the media – are interest-free enterprises. With this thought in mind, let’s go through some of the most visible updates regarding the upcoming 2016 Olympiad.

Photo credit: Aerial view of the Christ the Redeemer statue atop Corcovado Hill and the Mario Filho (Maracana) stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on December 3, 2013. AFP - Getty Images file. NBC News

Photo credit: Aerial view of the Christ the Redeemer statue atop Corcovado Hill and the Mario Filho (Maracana) stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, December 3, 2013. AFP – Getty Images file.
NBC News

Since the announcement of Rio de Janeiro as the host city of the 2016 Games back in 2009, diverse reactions have been expressed in the sphere of public opinion. What’s more, after the simultaneously successful and controversial FIFA World Cup held in Brazil in 2014, the expectations appear to be both more achievable and more ambitious.

Public spending for these two sporting mega-events – as these kinds of massive, international, and commercial competitions are called – is a  great topic of debate. The unease of some towards these monumental events is related, in part, to the feeling that not all profits will stay in Brazil. Although local businesses and tourism may also benefit from the large number of visitors traveling to Brazil for the Olympics, criticism remains about public expenditures and the limited redistribution of profits made by private corporations. Impact evaluations of the 2014 World Cup have already been conducted and proved that the positive effect of this event on the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) has been minimal. In fact, some say that these mega-events, while indeed entertaining for the masses, tend to be “zero sum games.”  Besides public investments, building infrastructure, and “embellishing” cities, impoverished populations have been displaced for the construction of venues and public spaces. Some even claim that “social cleansing” has taken place, as reported in a 2016 article by Al Jazeera.

Water pollution and the explosion of mosquito-generated diseases are other great challenges that Brazilian organizers are currently facing. The cleaning of Rio’s Guanabara Bay, which will host the sailing competitions at the Olympics, was a main promise made by the city upon its announcement as host but does not appear to have been brought to fruition. Major news outlets in the United States (as seen in the New York Times, ThinkProgress, and the New Yorker) and the U.K. (the Guardian) argue that Guanabara Bay in Rio is still highly polluted with bacteria and solid waste, which would pose major risks to athletes’ health and interfere with the development of sailing competitions. To add to this large list of challenges, you have probably heard about the Zika virus, a mosquito-transmitted disease that has seen a major outbreak in the past few months. The disease has already proved to affect the health of unborn babies when acquired by pregnant women, contributing, most likely, to a highly debilitating condition known as microcephaly. Along with Zika, the diseases chikungunya and dengue are some of the other uninvited guests currently in Brazil.

Although all of this looks like a very dark picture for a successful Olympics in terms of event organization and economic and political benefits for the region, other more positive positions have been taken on the matter. For starters, Rio 2016 is the first Olympiad celebrated in South America and only the second in Latin America (the first was Mexico 1968). And, if for some portion of Brazilians the Olympics are a public expenditure that is not a priority – or even necessary – and that also involves questionable political actions, for others it is an issue of pride and of the global positioning that Brazil has recently gained as a rising world economy. In September 2015, the Argentinian press published an article revealing that 73% of Brazilian citizens support the Olympics.

What are other countries saying about the Olympics? Media outlets from Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and even France seem somewhat less skeptical about Rio’s potential success. Among the Brazilian press and other international outlets that publish in Brazil (BBC Brazil, for example), many articles have been published which, while expressing awareness about the huge challenge that a mega-even like the Olympics constitutes for the country’s economy and political decisions, seem to be more moderate about the possible scenarios than what is presented in other international media. BBC Brazil has published articles about how the Brazilian Committee is making do in the midst of the current Brazilian economic recession, as can be read in this piece from September 2015 and this one from October 2015. Likewise, Brazilian organizers have declared that the budget for the 2016 opening ceremony would be less than half of what was spent in London 2012, as reported by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).

Regarding fears about infrastructure, Rio de Janeiro’s daily newspaper O Globo published in its online edition a map of the current state of construction of the Olympic venues. This is the issue that has created the most panic among international public opinion. Rio’s mayor, Eduardo Paes, has also been responding to criticism and skepticism by answering as many questions as possible, as reported here in the Guardian from August 2015.

Regarding Zika, the International Olympic Committee President, Thomas Bach, has stated that he is fully confident that the Zika outbreak will be controlled appropriately and that it will not interfere in the development of the Olympiad. In this statement he supports Dilma Rousseff’s declarations assuring the international community and athletes that Zika will not present a major threat this summer.

EFE. Published in Taringa, Argentinian Media.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. EFE. Published in Taringa, Argentinian Media.

Amidst all of these conflicting opinions and complex challenges, both Rio de Janeiro’s and Brazil’s governments have decided to push back and continue working towards being a great host for the summer Olympics. Although August is still several months away, Rio is already inaugurating new venues and hosting pre-Olympic events to test and fine-tune these new venues. From early February through May 22, events will take place with around 272 athletes from 49 countries.

As we can see, the Olympics are much more than fun, fitness, discipline, competition, and entertainment. Business and hardcore politics are also embedded in the Games’ roots, both as a competition and as an international committee.

But at this point we must ask ourselves some tough questions: Are we more concerned with the venues being ready than with the displaced families that the venues have created? Do we see in the risk of Zika for tourists and athletes a larger overall threat than the alleged “social cleansing” taking place in order to have a more sightly Rio for the Olympics? How is Zika related to other world-wide environmental phenomena? Are the economic investments in building new venues and for the opening ceremony reasonable choices or a waste of money?

If you ask me, I would say that on one hand, the panic over the organization of the Rio Olympics may be based on the fact that the process has not been as smooth as the international community is used to – for example, when the games are celebrated in richer countries. So, perhaps this is a good opportunity to revise what we think of as “world-class” standards and comparisons and to accept that sometimes spending billions of dollars on new sporting venues is less than reasonable. Furthermore, perhaps we should think twice before feeling disappointed about relatively “modest” opening ceremonies.

On the other hand, it is also important that we keep in mind questions about how international corporations and organizations such as the International Olympic Committee and FIFA may impose their interests above those of host countries in regards to the distribution of profits. This is why Avery Brundage, former IOC president, took a very strong stance on the Olympic movement ideally being about amateur as opposed to corporatized and politically sponsored sports. The University of Illinois Archives holds an extended collection of Brundage’s papers. There you can track his fight against the commercialization of sports and also discover the political moves embedded in the both the IOC and the sporting events themselves.

For even more information and insight, below is a selection of books available at the University Library that we have selected as part of the current exhibit on Rio 2016 at the Main Library. And here is a comprehensive LibGuide on Brazil, and a Libguide on Sports, that we have developed to support your research on these topics. Also: Don’t miss our Chai Wai on Rio 2016 on Tuesday, March 8th from 3 to 4:30pm at the International & Area Studies Library (321 Main Library). All are welcome!

Zirin, Dave. Brazil’s Dance with the Devil: The World Cup, the Olympics, and the Fight for Democracy. Chicago, Illinois: Haymarket Books, 2014

Cover of: Brazil’s dance with the devil : the World Cup, the Olympics, and the fight for democracy
(see below)

Please contact our Latin America and Caribbean Studies Librarian, Antonio Sotomayor, for even more information.

Chai Wai Poster

March 8, 2016 “Chai Wai” poster (IAS Library)

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