Signing of the peace agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC. September 2016. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

The success of the negotiations owes a lot to the
determination of all those at and around the negotiating table. Yet before the
negotiations were underway, the stage had to be set and the parts put in place.Speaking with the IFIT Brain Trust, they shared 10
conditions that helped create this window of opportunity, without which we
might be looking at a far less substantial peace in Colombia. 

1. It was the right time

In and around the time of the death of the FARC's
Commander-in-chief, Alfonso Cano, in 2011, and the target of a sustained military
offensive, there were fundamental shifts in the FARC leadership. The
intelligence gathered indicated that the organisation favoured reforming into a
political entity, rather than continuing as an armed movement. On the government’s side, the war was costing
the country too much and so the time was ripe to try a new, and hopefully
definitive, peace process.

2. A change of government

The previous government had approached conflict differently:
they had seen it as a war against terrorism without recognizing the existence
of an armed conflict within the country. That implied that the Government
didn’t recognize the state victims and wasn’t willing to negotiate peace. When President
Álvaro Uribe left office in August 2010, the new government could rethink its
approach to the conflict. The political determination and leadership of the new
president, Juan Manuel Santos, was a game changer.

3. Preparation of the ‘legal scene’

There was an important international condition to consider.
The international legal framework, namely the International Criminal Court’s
1998 Rome Agreement, was established. However, the question remained as to how
the Colombian case would fit within it. President Santos asked his technical
team, "If Alfonso Cano calls me today to start negotiations, what can I
actually do in terms of international and national law?" The
government began researching the legal space and subsequently started the
process of passing the necessary constitutional amendments. One such amendment,
undertaken in 2012 when the exploratory phase was ongoing in Havana, was to lay
the foundations for a possible peace negotiation.

4. Detailed methodology

Delivering a negotiation process is as much about the
technical aspects as it is about the political. The method, the themes, and the
way the agenda is put together are all extremely important. Having a detailed methodology prepared was therefore
key to initiating talks with the FARC.

5. No ceasefire

There was no ceasefire put in place. This was an important albeit
potentially unusual step to prevent the peace process from the unpredictable
realities of war. It was certainly costly in terms of public opinion, but it
meant that the negotiations in Havana were not dependent on maintaining a
fragile ceasefire back in Colombia, where the slightest action or sabotage could
derail talks. For example, the theory was put into practice when, early in the
negotiations, an action by one of the guerrilla units caused the deaths of 11
soldiers in the Cauca region. This provoked a response from the government,
which re-started air raids, killing around 60 FARC fighters in a guerrilla camp
in Guapi, a small city by the Pacific coast. However, instead of derailing the
negotiation, those at the negotiating table in Havana were able to detach
themselves from difficulties in Colombia and focus on the objective of making
progress.

6. Direct conversations without mediation

Direct
negotiation was an essential part of the talks making it a distinctly domestic
process without the perceived interference from an international mediator. When on 3 March 2014, two Colombian delegates
travelled to a FARC camp close to the Venezuelan border without a security
escort to initiate dialogue, this was not only a significant symbol of trust,
but also a sign of things to come. Through that meeting, Havana was identified
as the location for negotiations. International actors played more of a
facilitator role – rather than a mediator role – but their contribution proved
decisive at critical points throughout the negotiations. It was very important
to determine their role from the beginning of the negotiations.

 7. Confidentiality

The toughest negotiations happened away from the
microphones. Behind closed doors, around the three-by-three and four-by-four tables,
there were no guarantors present. While the negotiations over the draft
agreements were intense, individuals’ personalities also tended to be more open
to negotiation. Public
attention on a negotiation frequently provides extra pressure, emotion, and
unwillingness to compromise on each side. For this reason, it was
essential to have a confidentiality framework set up from the start. However,
this was an aspect that the public did not like as they felt that the
government, rather than representing them, were "negotiating behind their
backs".

8.
"Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed"

This principle was at the heart of the negotiations. It is
best understood through the analogy of cooking a soup: as the two delegations
passed through the negotiations, they had to agree on what ingredients would go
into the soup. The end result was that the parties would either like the whole
thing or nothing at all. The principle, which is widely adopted in
international negotiation agreements, had important implications for the
Colombia case. First, it preserved the agreement in its entirety, and prevented
both the negotiation process and final agreement from fracturing. There would
be no partial agreement, nor could anything from the agreement be taken out of
context. Second, it ensured no party could focus on its own interests at the
expense of others. And third, it guaranteed a rush towards the end of the
negotiating process to tie up loose ends.

9. Civil Society participation

Approximately 68,000 proposals for the negotiations were
submitted by organisations and individuals, all of which were reviewed and
considered. Of those, 27,000 came from victims. Incorporating
such wide input helped the negotiations to strike the 'pulse' of the
stakeholders. That said, there was no doubt that those submitting proposals
were not completely representative of the wide range of Colombia’s voices.
Nevertheless, this invitation for civil society to participate ensured that the
voices of victims were at the table which brought legitimacy to the
process.

10. Comprehensiveness & simultaneity

Both sides of the table needed to adopt a collaborative
mind-set before going into the negotiations. There was no room for a one-sided
effort to be accepted or rejected by the other side. For example, the FARC were not able to say, "the government
can do its part, produce an agreement, and if we like the offer, we'll
disarm". Instead, the parties would enter into and ultimately come
out of the process together.

* * *

The
importance of the set up should not be
overlooked or underestimated. A combination of lessons from past peace
processes in Colombia, international experience, innovation, and favourable circumstances
ensured that the right conditions were at hand. Thus, Colombia was presented
with a window of opportunity to pursue the disarmament of the FARC, and
continue down a path towards peace in the country as a whole. The negotiating
teams and their leaders took full advantage of this opportunity and were able
to embark on what would become a four-year-long negotiation process.

The devil is so often in the detail, and perhaps without one
of these conditions in place, we would be looking at a very different Colombia
today.

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