Colombia’s Peace in Tatters

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Notes

1 Some analysts in Colombia speak of a dispute between the elites regarding the pact. In short, the regional elites, whose interests are more those related to landowners (protection of private property, agricultural and livestock exploitation) were opposed to the traditional national elites (headed by Santos), whose interests are more those related to immersion in the global economy and foreign investment.

2 Data shows that in the rural zones — that constitute 25% of the population (12.31m people) — 37.6% in 2016 were poor according to the multidimensional concept — i.e. 4.65m people.

3 Although Santos can be defined as a leader who seems to represent liberal ideas, it would be risky to affirm that he was responsible for demanding or managing to include components of social justice in the peace agreement content. It is an open question for future investigations, i.e. to verify whether this was the case, or whether it was a triumph — or the influence of — the FARC whose trace remained in the Accord.

4 They are: funding for your campaign; guarantees of campaign using public communications; and security measures for party members.

5 By the beginning of March 2018 the Colombian vice-president Óscar Naranjo announced that the government had opened investigations into the murders of 56 people linked to the FARC, of whom 42 are ex-combatants, and 14 are relatives and people associated with the political party formed by the demobilised guerrillas (Garcia Hernandez 2018).

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Fabrício H. Chagas-Bastos

FABRÍCIO H. CHAGAS-BASTOS is a Research Associate with the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Melbourne. His research interests focus on inequality, poverty and social identity (recognition and status), merging International Relations with Social Psychology, seeking to understand the role of Latin America and the Global South within the 21st-century international order. During 2016–2017 he was a Lecturer in International Studies at the Universidad de los Andes (Colombia), and an international observer in Bogotá during the 2016 referendum