Will the disarmament of the FARC lead to new conflict in Colombia?

cal divisions and has led to an engrained sen-se of distrust and loathing amongst its people, yet the biggest threat to civil harmony lies in the emergence of new factions fighting for territories and control over illegal gold mines, cocaine trade and other criminal enterprises previously under the jurisdiction of the FARC.

When guerrilla troops left areas such as tho-se near Argelia, southern Colombia, in January 2017, a wave of competing gangs and militia groups descended on the region. Despite pro-mises by President Juan Manuel Santos that 65,000 armed troops would be sent to occupy and secure such regions with an additional 960 new police agents assigned to rural areas, the criminal groups have moved faster, violently occupying by de facto rule. Since the start of the year a reported 1,000 people have been displaced by the Urabeños in the western re-gion of Chocó whilst Colombia’s Human Rights ombudsman, Carlos Negret, has reported the deaths of 156 activists in the past 14 months. In response, unidentified citizens are forming private vigilante groups to counter the oppres-sion of these new forces whilst in the major ci-ties there has been a reported rise in criminal activity whilst the production and distribution of cocaine continues to rise.

As President Santos proclaimed the peace accord between the Colombian government and the FARC as ‘the best news for Colombia in fifty years,’ putting an end to a brutal chap-ter in Colombian history, new conflicts are al-ready emerging. President Santos has already identified this and seeks to address the ELN and other significant groups with similar trea-ties but with new criminal groups operating with no clear political or ideological aims, fears continue to persist. As Timochenko, lea-der of the FARC alluded to, the peace accord merely marks the end of ‘our armed struggle’; for many in Colombia, the fighting continues under a new guise.

T The Revolutionary Armed For-ces of Colombia (FARC) fought the Colombian government for 52 years before last year’s histo-ric peace treaty put an end to a conflict that has severed families,

displaced millions from their homes and left more than 230,000 dead. Last week the largest guerrilla force in Colombian history officially ceased to be an armed group, handing over 7,132 weapons and revealing the locations of numerous secret arm caches to United Nations officials. Yet as the FARC officially move out of occupied regions and towns across the coun-try, new rebel groups alongside established guerrilla forces, such as the ELN and AGC, are vying for control in these new areas of influen-ce and posing a new threat to this delicate pro-mise of peace in Colombia.

Negotiations between the two sides towards a peace process began in September 2012 be-fore a final agreement was settled upon in Au-gust 2016. Although the original peace accord was rejected by voters in a referendum in Oc-tober 2016, with 50.2% of voters against the agreement, a revised deal was passed through Congress and went into effect on 1st December 2016. The terms of the treaty outlined the de-mobilisation of the FARC, justice for victims of the conflict as well as new guarantees for FARC participation in politics. Yet for many, the ac-cord offers no real sense of justice to those that have died or lost loved ones as a result of fifty years of bloodshed whilst offering amnesty to fighters many believe to have got off too lightly and legitimising the previous actions of the FARC.

The integration of former FARC soldiers and representatives into Colombian society is itself a delicate operation and has the risk of posing a fundamental threat to the country’s relative civil peace. A war of such magnitude has inevitably created pervading socio-politi-

Tom Carr

Left: A National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrilla cleans her gun near the banks of the San Juan river. Photogra-ph: Luis Robayo/AFP/Getty ImagesRight: ELN Guerillas patrol the San Juan river. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images.Right (2): The Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos and the FARC rebel leader, Rodrigo Londoño, attend the final act of disarmament in Mese-tas. Photograph: Raul Arboleda/AFP/Getty Images.