What the FARC?

If you cared enough to check out this blog, or you simply scroll through the Facebook News Feed frequently enough that you accidentally clicked on my link, you are also probably aware that a couple of weeks ago Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos signed a peace deal with the FARC rebel forces. What even more people are aware of is that Colombian citizens, through a plebiscite or popular vote, rejected this deal. But what you might not know is what the hell FARC is, what a peace deal would mean specifically, why Colombians rejected it, and what all that means now. Well plug in your charger and brew some tariffed Colombian coffee, because you’re about to get educated.

When the FARC?

Protesting Gaitan's assassination in the Plaza de Bolivar,
where yours truly has been multiple times.

Back before anyone realized America wasn’t great anymore, say 1948, incredibly popular Liberal Party presidential candidate Jorge Gaitán was assassinated, triggering the Bogotazo, a series of violent protests and riots within the capitol that eventually plunged it and the country into what’s known as La Violencia, a ten year civil war claiming the lives of between 200,000 and 300,000 citizens. This civil war pitted the Liberal and Conservative parties against each other, something Americans can unfortunately relate to more and more these days.

Just normal Violencia happenings.

You see, Colombia was, and still is, a country with incredible inequality. Rural folks who had seen their lands sold off to pay for national debts were naturally pissed. And in a time of suppression against opposition to the elite, Gaitán represented the little dude, of which there were many in the country. After his assassination, shit hit the fan because the people had had enough. After the initial Bogotazo and Violencia, FARC – inspired by the Cuban revolutions of the 1950s and composed originally by mostly rural farmers and peasants – demanded rights and control over their land. The Colombian government at the time sent an army to break up the revolution, thus beginning the clash between rebels and the government.

Who the FARC?

FARC forces accepted both women and underage
soldiers, although they deny forcefully recruiting anyone.

Las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia was formally formed around ’64 after the encounter mentioned above and is an armed Communist group following Marxist-Leninist ideology. Their fight is against the Colombian government and armed forces. But like most armed conflicts, the casualties have been mostly civilian. Since its inception, the conflict between establishment and guerrillas has resulted in another 200,000+ deaths. They get their funding primarily from cocaine manufacturing and/or trafficking. But they have also resorted to kidnapping and extortion. Indeed, last year I stayed at a woman’s house through Airbnb who had once been kidnapped and held for six months because her father was a wealthy banker. The FARC have been nearly impossible to eliminate because they mainly stick to the rural jungle areas that official government forces are far less familiar with. Though with the help of U.S. tactics and weaponry (because we love to get involved) the beginning of the millennium saw many of FARC’s primary leaders taken out and their numbers reduced. The juicy history here is that Santos, the current president praised for coming to this agreement with FARC, was the minister of defense for some of that time, tasked with cracking down on them. Today, there are an estimated 6,000 active fighters, a far cry from their heyday of the late 1990s and early 2000s when they were stomping through jungles with 20,000.

How the FARC?

So how did this here peace deal come about? Well, actually, there have been multiple attempts in the past, but neither side was willing to budge too much. The most recent accord signed this September 26^th  was a product of four years of negotiations, concessions made by the Colombian government, and aging FARC leaders who probably feel the weight of time and money playing for the other team. But it was signed! 

President Santos (left) with Londoño (right)

Everyone was there in Havana; UN leaders, John Kerry, Santos, and FARC leaders like commander Rodrigo Londoño. Everyone wore white, smoked cigars, smiled, took photos. All it would take now was for the Colombian people to vote it into reality and the country could begin to put the past behind them. September 26^th was to be made a national holiday, as if we don’t have enough. That is, until last Sunday when the Colombian people ultimately voted NO.  

Why the FARC?

How did this happen? Everyone I knew was voting YES, all polls suggested a wide margin of victory for the YES vote, and celebrations were being prepared for both government and FARC leaders. I remember telling Nathan and Steven, the new BVC volunteers here in Bogota this year, that for sure the YES vote would win. It was basically a piece of paper that asked, “Do you want peace?” Yes or No. Who would vote against that rhetoric?

It might have had something to do with the former president, Alvaro Uribe, and his very public opposition to the deal, calling it too weak. Sound like a resentful former prez who couldn’t get the job done? Before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s actually look at this peace accord. First of all, the FARCin’ thing is nigh on 300 pages long. So neither you, nor I, nor most of the world will have read the whole deal. So I’ll summarize the main parts. Basically, had the deal gone through, the Colombian government would have pledged to invest heavily in the impoverished rural areas that gave rise to the FARC, improving roads, schools, clinics, other infrastructure necessities, etc. In return, FARC would have had 6 months to meet with UN officials to turn in their weapons. They also promised to get out of cocaine smuggling. They would have to help the army locate and destroy all the landmines that made the group so difficult and dangerous to look for. And finally, they had to apologize to their victims and confess their crimes before a tribunal.  

But that last part is why the NO vote won. You see, the FARC were seen as responsible not only for those hundreds of thousands killed, but also for all of the children without parents, families and communities displaced, towns destroyed or commandeered and otherwise controlled areas. The FARC’s end game might have been to take down the government, but by means of taking advantage of civilians everywhere. With that in mind, people paid attention to the part about them confessing their crimes. Why? Because, according to the deal, if these dudes confessed before a tribunal, they could then avoid being charged for said crimes, a potential reality that many were opposed to. After all they did, many wanted to see them behind bars, or worse.

But that brings us to what I think are the two saddest realities of the vote’s result, other than the obvious one about peace being rejected. First up is finding out how the vote shook out regionally. Let’s say you were affected by the FARC’s actions, had a family member killed, town destroyed, or something along those lines. You’d probably want the FARC leaders killed, jailed, etc., right? Well check out this graphic that shows how some of the most affected districts of the country voted. Some pretty strong YES’s there. Seems like a lot of people just want the fighting to stop. Obviously, not all the regions directly affected voted YES. But most of the most negatively impacted ones did, which I’m sure made the overall result even harder to swallow for them.

But what makes that even sadder is the voter turnout. As you can see, the NO vote won with 50.2% to the 49.8% of YES votes. Insanely slim margins! Many YES hopefuls were understandably left speechless. What I and many others find to be heartbreaking about that statistic is that only 37% of the valid voters showed up. You read that right. In a vote that is supposed to represent true democracy where every legal of age citizen gets a vote, even more legitimate than the U.S. presidential election (electoral college what?), over 63% of those voters didn’t show. Why? Probably a zillion reasons. You can go on and on about how maybe voting wasn't easily accessible in poorer rural areas, or how maybe most were already convinced that the YES vote would win by a wide margin. Whatever the reasons, the fact that so few people showed up to the polls is sad, and should hopefully speak to some Americans who are thinking of sitting this election out. I don’t want to attract attention away from the rest of this blog post, however average it most definitely is. But, results like this show that showing up does matter, something that should make you rethink staying home in November.

What the FARC?

So now, what’s going to happen? Do we return to war? Does the ceasefire get called off, everyone dusts off their howitzer and goes back to shooting, trafficking, and kidnapping? The truth is, no one seems to know. Prior to the vote, President Santos insisted that there was no plan B, that this deal had to be approved. Now that that’s shot, although both sides insist peace is still desired, there haven’t been talks of renegotiation, and few people I’m around talk about the vote, I assume partly out of disappointment. But also, because most seem to be holding their breath. President Santos recently stated that the ceasefire would be extended until the end of October. After that? Well, Happy Halloween.

Conveniently enough, I am merely hours away from leaving on a bus for Colombia's coffee region. Gonna be passin' through some rural areas on my way to where Pablo Escobar once ruled the cocaine business. Seems like the perfect time to embark on such an endeavor! 

J