Military Review English Edition July-August 2016 | Page 43

COLOMBIA

(Photo by Luis Acosta, Agence France-Presse)

Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas listen during a class on the peace process between the Colombian government and their force 18 February 2016 at a camp in the Colombian mountains.

be given de facto (if not de jure) political and geographic
control over various areas and populations, particularly
over important rural regions in the southern part of
the country where it has long been active; and to have a
constitutional convention called with sectoral representation (ideally with FARC having reserved seats).
By satisfying these goals, FARC leaders think they will
have better chances to gain political power through
elections so as to change the nature of the state—the
goal being to turn Colombia into a socialist polity resembling th e Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. FARC
leadership has not abandoned its Marxist-Leninist
goals, only cloaked its ideology with language appropriate for the twenty-first century.1
In its effort to recast its struggle, FARC has claimed
throughout the talks that the inequities and brutality of the state compelled it to wage its insurgency. It
purports to speak for a broad social base and simply
denies the extent to which it has, for decades, espoused
assault on the innocent as its principal methodology for
MILITARY REVIEW  July-August 2016

waging war. There is no crime that it has not committed: from torture and murder, to laying extensive
(and normally unmarked) minefields throughout the
country, to kidnapping and rape, to drug trafficking
and extortion.2 All these crimes it refutes, insisting
instead that the facts of history be decided by various
truth commissions and international panels. Against all
polling and public expressions of support, the state is to
be made the enemy of the people.
Because of the long duration of the negotiations
and the excessively high hopes raised by the prospect
of peace, the government finds itself in the position
of being gradually made to give way. The backdrop
for peace talks is anything but auspicious, but most
analysts agree that some form of agreement will be
signed in 2016—a forecast that is reflexively celebrated
because of its seeming promise of Chamberlain-like
“peace in our time.” Needed is a deeper appreciation of
history, particularly concerning war-to-peace transitions, as the record in comparable settings (such as Sri
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