Resurrecting Colombia’s Peace Deal

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/04/opinion/resurrecting-colombias-peace-deal.html

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By narrowly rejecting an agreement between the government of Colombia and the nation’s largest guerrilla group, Colombian voters have thrown a four-year-long peace process into turmoil.

There may still be a chance of renegotiating the terms of the deal to end the brutal 52-year insurgency, but the political hurdles are high and the window of opportunity is narrow. Hope now largely rests in the exhaustion of both sides. Neither the government nor the rebels — the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC — are eager to continue a war that has killed more than 200,000 people and displaced millions over the past five decades.

The peace agreement, though imperfect, established a comprehensive road map for addressing the causes of the conflict and laid the groundwork for a process of reconciliation and a modicum of justice for victims of the war.

While the deal was hailed abroad, many Colombians thought the government of President Juan Manuel Santos had offered too many concessions to a weakened insurgency that is widely loathed. Some questioned whether the FARC would simply morph into small criminal organizations that would continue to play a role in the drug trade and extortion rackets.

Mr. Santos, who appeared shocked at the referendum result on Sunday, said the cease-fire with the FARC, which has held for more than a year, would remain in place. He said he would convene all political groups, including the opponents of the deal, to discuss how to move forward. “I will continue to seek peace until the last minute of my time in office,” he said in a televised address, “because that is the path to leaving a better nation for our children.” In a statement, the FARC said, “We know that our challenge as a political movement is even bigger and will require more strength in order to build a stable and durable peace.” Under the deal’s terms, the group had agreed to abandon its camps and hand over its weapons to the United Nations.

The challenges to getting the process back on track are formidable. Mr. Santos’s predecessor, Álvaro Uribe, the chief critic of the deal, argued that it offered amnesty to war criminals. The deal would grant amnesty to most rank-and-file fighters while fighters who admitted to grave crimes before a special tribunal would be required to perform community service and be subject to restrictions of movement for a number of years. They would not, however, face jail time.

Critics also objected to the guarantee of legislative seats to FARC leaders in the 2018 election for a four-year term as a way to help them make the transition from armed group to political party.

Those were reasonable concerns and they were subject to considerable public debate. While the opponents won, they have not put forward a viable alternative. Colombians who voted against the deal were not endorsing a return to armed conflict, which virtually no one in the political establishment supports, but rather a deal with fewer concessions to the guerrilla group.

This effort by both the government and the FARC is the closest Colombia has ever come to ending the war. No one — not the voters, their political leaders, including the opposition, or the FARC — can afford to throw this opportunity away. That means finding a compromise to preserve the cease-fire and move toward disarmament of the insurgency. Accomplishing that through dialogue would set a laudable example for the region and the world.