Colombia's FARC problem is returning...uh oh...

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Colombia’s Peace Deal Promised a New Era. So Why Are These Rebels Rearming?
nytimes.com
Colombia’s Peace Deal Promised a New Era. So Why Are These Rebels Rearming?
11-14 minutes
Promises Made


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A new Colombian rebel learning the ropes last August.CreditCreditFederico Rios Escobar for The New York Times
When things go wrong, those in power often promise to make it right. But do they? This is the first in a series in which The Times is going back to the scene of major news events to see if those promises were kept.

After Colombia’s government signed a peace deal with the country’s main rebel group, ending decades of war and upheaval, both sides said it heralded a new era. But two and a half years after the militants agreed to lay down their arms, many of the promises made are not being honored, and the prospect of a true, lasting peace now seems far from certain.

This is what we found:

• As many as 3,000 militants have resumed fighting, threatening the very foundation of the accord.
  

• Many of the millions of Colombians who once lived in rebel-held territory still await the promised arrival of roads, schools and electricity. The government’s pledge to help rural areas was a big reason the rebels stood down.

• 
  
• Since the peace deal was signed, at least 500 activists and community leaders have been killed, and more than 210,000 people displaced from their homes amid the continuing violence. That undercuts a core selling point of the deal: that it would bring safety and stability.
  
  
• Colombia’s new president, Iván Duque, a conservative who took office in August, has expressed skepticism of the accords and wants to change a commitment that was fundamental to the rebels agreeing to lay down their weapons.

The Path to Peace
Colombia’s five-decade civil war took at least 220,000 lives and devastated large swaths of the countryside. In rebel-held areas, government services disappeared and the infrastructure crumbled. Many turned to the drug economy to survive.

All sides were accused of atrocities — kidnappings, rapes and summary executions — that bred deep-seated animosities across the country and even within families. In a war so deeply personal, finding a way out posed an enormous challenge.

So when the government and the largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC, reached a peace agreement in September 2016 after years of negotiation, much of the world applauded. Juan Manuel Santos, then Colombia’s president, won the Nobel Peace Prize.


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President Juan Manuel Santos, front left, with other officials and rebel leaders at a 2017 ceremony where it was announced that the FARC had handed over weapons.CreditThe New York Times
But peace deals of this scope are never easy to implement, and Colombians knew a long, daunting path was ahead of them.

The deal the two sides reached was ambitious and complex — with 578 separate stipulations — but it can be boiled down to a few core promises.

A primary goal of the FARC insurgency was improving the lives of rural Colombians. The deal calls for “universal” education in rural areas for preschool through secondary school; guaranteed access to drinking water; and heavy subsidies for development programs in former rebel territories.

The rebels, in turn, would cease all hostilities, turn in their weapons to the United Nations and return to civilian life. The FARC would be allowed to compete in elections and was guaranteed 10 seats in Congress.

[The head of Colombia’s army has ordered increased attacks on criminals and rebel groups.]

What We Found

Raised Hopes, and Dashed Ones
Much of the war was fought in the countryside.

The peace agreement raised hopes that the rural deprivation that fueled the conflict might finally ease. But two years after the accord was signed, a visit to the town of Juan José made clear that little has changed.

The community of 8,000 has not received even the most basic services it was promised. With no running water, residents are still forced to rely on untreated wells. No schools have been built in the surrounding villages, despite government pledges, and many children have never seen the inside of a classroom.


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Displaced Colombians watching a movie at a camp in Juan José last month.CreditFederico Rios Escobar for The New York Times
While the police are now in Juan José, neither they nor the military have made it to the nearby villages, and new armed groups have moved in to fill the vacuum left by the FARC.

Emilio Archila, an adviser to the government, said many of the biggest development promises in the agreement — such as delivering water and electricity — would take more than a decade to accomplish, given the damage the countryside suffered from the conflict. “Anyone who thinks we could solve these issues in two years doesn’t understand the magnitude of the problem,” he said.

But Adam Isacson, an analyst at the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights group, said the government had failed to act. “The government had a window of opportunity to establish the state in lands the rebels gave up, but it didn’t take that chance,” he said. “Now there are many groups fighting for the same territory.”

Money is a major obstacle to meeting all the promises.

When the peace deal was signed, the estimate was that it would cost about $45 billion to fulfill all the promises over a period of at least 15 years. At the time, the government enjoyed revenue from a state oil company whose output was going for almost $100 a barrel. Now, prices are a third lower.

What We Found

For Farmers, Coca Is Still King
Much of the FARC’s funding came through the drug trade. But peace did little to make farmers rethink their business model: Last year, the amount of land used for coca leaf production reached an all-time high.

Part of the problem is that the appeal of the lucrative cocaine business is as strong to the armed groups that have swept into rural areas as it once was to the FARC.

But the government also bears much of the blame.

A farmer washing chopped coca leaf in La Hormiga, Colombia, in 2017.CreditJuan Arredondo for The New York Times
The crop-substitution program agreed to in the peace deal promised cash payments to those who uprooted their coca plants and replaced them with legal crops.

But in Juan José, residents say the payments to farmers ceased for a time after President Duque took charge. They eventually resumed at the end of the year, but the officials who were supposed to introduce the alternative crops never arrived.

So many farmers have gone back to planting coca.

What We Found

A Pushback Against Leniency
A central pillar of the accords was a promise to seek the truth of what happened during the conflict, with the goal of national reconciliation. The deal established the so-called Special Jurisdiction for Peace — tribunals to hear accounts of crimes and abuses.

Ten thousand former rebels and 2,000 members of the armed forces pledged to testify under a broad blanket of immunity: Blame could be assigned, but no jail time would be handed out, except for a few select crimes.

That part of the peace deal, however, was a tough sell for many Colombians. In October 2016, when they were given a chance to weigh in on the accord, they shocked many by voting against it in a referendum.

Mr. Santos sidestepped voters with a revised deal that he sent straight to Congress.

Colombians celebrated in September 2016 when the peace deal was reached.CreditFederico Rios Escobar for The New York Times
Now, Mr. Duque has requested an overhaul of the tribunals, calling them too lenient. Some worry he hopes to dismantle them entirely.

But the no-jail pledge was critical to getting the FARC to sign the deal. Reneging on it might well be seen as a bait and switch.

And that could be a deal breaker.

“The ability to get a lighter sentence and participate in politics is what convinced the FARC to get into politics to begin with,” said Mr. Isacson, the human rights analyst.

What We Found

Steps Forward, but Only a Few
Some of the promises made in the peace accords have been kept. More than 6,804 FARC fighters did initially disarm, and more than 8,994 weapons were surrendered. By 2017, the FARC had completely demobilized, except for a small dissident group.

About 23 percent of the 578 provisions in the deal have been fully carried out, according to a recent study by the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, which is monitoring the accords.

But the study projected that despite the “steady progress,” only one-third of the commitments made in the deal would be met in the agreed-upon time frame. The rest, it said, were either in a “state of minimal implementation” or had not yet even been touched.

“It’s undeniable that the government hasn’t made good on its promises, whether it’s reintegrating former fighters, agrarian development or political reforms,” said Julián Gallo Cubillos, a former FARC commander who is now a Colombian senator. “There’s been a general neglect.”

Mr. Santos shaking hands with Rodrigo Londoño, the top leader of the rebels, after signing a revised peace pact in November 2016.CreditFernando Vergara/Associated Press
One of the biggest failures has come on the security front, which government officials and rebels alike assured skeptical Colombians would be the largest dividend of the peace deal.

In many areas where the FARC has disarmed, the government has yet to arrive in force, breaking a key promise of the accords.

The resulting lawlessness and disorder in rural areas have proved deadly for Colombian activists, 252 of whom were killed last year, up from 191 in 2017, according to Colombia’s Institute of Studies for Peace and Development.

The FARC said this month that 130 of its former fighters had been killed since the signing of the peace deal. The ex-rebels have repeatedly complained that demobilizing has left them defenseless against the paramilitary gangs still roaming the countryside.

This has led to a major setback for peace: Experts estimate that as many as 3,000 militants have taken up arms again — a figure equal to more than 40 percent of those who initially demobilized. It includes new recruits.

Things have also not gone well on the political front. FARC leaders did form a party to participate in elections, but they soon learned that military victories can be easier than political ones. Unpopular for their history of kidnappings and killings, they were attacked with stones on the campaign trail, dropped out of a presidential bid and did not win a single elected seat.

The optimism that peace was around the corner thanks to the deal Mr. Santos signed has faded among people like Andrés Chica, a farmer who lives near Juan José but now fears heading into town.

“What he sold us was a dream,” said Mr. Chica.

The Takeaway: Peace deals are hard. Peace is harder.

Nicholas Casey has been the Andes bureau chief since January 2016. He covers most of the countries in South America including Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and the Guyanas. Previously, he worked at The Wall Street Journal.

@caseysjournal

A version of this article appears in print on May 18, 2019, on Page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Colombian Deal Promised Peace. Why Are These Rebels Rearming?. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

 

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Colombia Army’s New Kill Orders Send Chills Down Ranks


Colombia Army’s New Kill Orders Send Chills Down Ranks
12-15 minutes


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A Colombian soldier watching over the border with Ecuador in Nariño, Colombia, last year.CreditCreditFredy Builes/Reuters
BOGOTÁ, Colombia — The head of Colombia’s army, frustrated by the nation’s faltering efforts to secure peace, has ordered his troops to double the number of criminals and militants they kill, capture or force to surrender in battle — and possibly accept higher civilian casualties in the process, according to written orders and interviews with senior officers.

At the start of the year, Colombian generals and colonels were assembled and told to sign a written pledge to step up attacks. Daily internal presentations now show the number of days that brigades have gone without combat, and commanders are berated when they don’t carry out assaults frequently enough, the officers said.

One order causing particular worry instructs soldiers not to “demand perfection” in carrying out deadly attacks, even if significant questions remain about the targets they are striking. Some officers say that order has instructed them to lower their standards for protecting innocent civilians from getting killed, and that it has already led to suspicious or unnecessary deaths.

The military tried a similar strategy to defeat Colombia’s rebel and paramilitary groups in the mid-2000s, before a landmark peace deal was signed to end decades of conflict.

But the tactics caused a national outrage when it emerged that soldiers, aiming to meet their quotas, engaged in widespread killings and disappearances of civilians.

Now, another incarnation of the policy is being pushed by the new government against the country’s remaining criminal, guerrilla and paramilitary groups, according to orders reviewed by The New York Times and three senior officers who spoke about them.

[Read more about why the peace deal is fraying.]

The new orders have sent a chill down the ranks of the army. Colombia’s military remains under investigation for the series of illegal killings in the mid-2000s, known as “false positives.”

Soldiers repeatedly killed peasants and claimed they were guerrilla fighters, sometimes even dressing them in fatigues and planting weapons near their bodies. The tactics stemmed from superiors demanding increased body counts, prosecutors say.

Two of the officers said in lengthy interviews that Colombian soldiers were under intense pressure yet again — and that a pattern of suspicious killings and cover-ups had begun to emerge this year.

In a meeting recounted by one of the officers, a general ordered commanders to “do anything” to boost their results, even if it meant “allying ourselves” with armed criminal groups to get information on targets, a divide-and-conquer strategy.

Beyond that, officers said, soldiers who increase their combat kills are being offered incentives, like extra vacation, in a pattern they fear is strikingly similar to the unlawful killings of the mid-2000s.

“We have gone back to what we were doing before,” said one of the officers, who all spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals by their superiors.


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Major Gen. Nicacio Martínez Espinel, commander of the Colombian army, holding weapons seized from rebels killed in combat.CreditFelipe Caicedo/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Major Gen. Nicacio Martínez Espinel, the top commander of Colombia’s army, acknowledged issuing the new orders and having officers set concrete goals for killing, capturing or forcing criminal groups and militants to surrender.

He said he had issued the written order that instructed top commanders to “double the results” because of the threat that Colombia continues to face from guerrilla, paramilitary and criminal organizations.

“The criminal threat rose,” he said. “If we continued at the pace that we were going at, we would not have completed our objectives.”

Still, the general disputed how officers have interpreted his instructions.

“The orders are that you are operationally effective,” he said. “Some told me they wanted a 10 percent increase, good, you do 10 percent. Some told me they wanted a 50 percent increase, but with no dead. Some said, ‘I want a 100 percent increase.’ There are some who have kept their word, and others that haven’t been able to.”

He also acknowledged that the orders tell commanders to conduct operations when they are still uncertain about their targets.

However, General Martínez argued that the instructions referred only to planning missions, not to carrying them out.

“Respect for human rights is the most important thing,” he said. “Everything has taken place within the letter of the law.”

But the order itself says, “You must launch operations with 60 to 70 percent credibility or exactitude” — leaving enough room for error that the policy has already led to questionable killings, two of the officers said.

The new orders signal an increase in military campaigns against guerrilla and paramilitary groups in Colombia, which reached a peace deal with the nation’s largest rebel group — the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC — just two years ago.

Peace has been elusive. Many former guerrillas have returned to fighting, while other criminal and paramilitary groups have expanded their control over parts of the country.

One rebel group that never signed a peace deal carried out a deadly car bombing in the capital in January.

Colombia is also under pressure from the Trump administration to show progress in cracking down on drug trafficking, a battle that has shown little progress despite $10 billion in American aid.


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Colombian President Iván Duque giving a speech in Bogotá, Colombia, on Monday.CreditLeonardo Munoz/EPA, via Shutterstock
As the pressure mounted, President Iván Duque, a conservative who campaigned against the peace deal because he thought it was too soft on the rebels, replaced the country’s top army commanders in December.

Mr. Duque’s government appointed nine officers linked to killings in the mid-2000s, including some who now hold top positions directing military offensives throughout Colombia, according to documents published by Human Rights Watch. One of the commanders linked to the killings, according to the rights group, is General Martínez, who at the time held a mid-ranking position.

General Martínez says he did not participate in any of the unlawful killings and that he is not under investigation by Colombia’s attorney general’s office.

The unlawful killings are a particularly contentious chapter in Colombia’s recent history. From 2002 to 2008, as many as 5,000 civilians or guerrillas were killed outside of combat, according to the United Nations. At least 1,176 members of the security forces have been convicted of crimes related to the illegal deaths, according to the government.

Two of the officers who spoke to The Times said they had served during the killings and risen in rank through subsequent periods of reckoning and reform.

But a major shift took place, they say, when General Martínez called a meeting of his top officers in January, a month after assuming command of the army.

The meeting included the country’s top 50 generals and colonels, who met in a hangar in the mountains outside of Bogotá. Many were eager to hear whether there would be a new direction under the new leadership.

After a break, the commanders returned to tables where they found a form waiting for each one of them, the officers said. The form had the title “Goal Setting 2019” at the top and a place for each commander to sign at the bottom.

The form asked commanders to list the “arithmetic sum of surrenders, captures and deaths” of various armed groups for the previous year in one column, and then provide a goal for the following year.

Some of the commanders seemed confused — until they were instructed to double their numbers this year, the officers said.

Soon afterward, the same order appeared from General Martínez, this time in writing.

“The goal is to double the operational results at all levels of command,” read the orders, which included his signature.

Three days after the meeting near Bogotá, a group of military intelligence officers and regional commanders were convened in the city of Cúcuta, on the border with Venezuela, the officers said.


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Colombian soldiers patrolling the surroundings of the Francisco de Paula Santander International Bridge in Cúcuta, Colombia, in February, after protests in the region over Venezuela’s president temporarily shutting the border with Colombia that prevented humanitarian aid from entering.CreditLuis Robayo/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
At the meeting, the officers said they were told, “We have to do anything now,” including using illegal paramilitary groups provide information on rival armed groups “in order to get results.”

The suggestion of working with one armed group to defeat another created a hush among the people there, said one of the officers.

On Feb. 19, a new document titled “50 Command Orders” emerged. One order demanded “opportune and massive strikes” against the enemy.

But the instructions on the threshold required for ordering deadly attacks were the largest shift from previous policy, the officers said.

In the past, they argued, military operations needed to be carried out with at least 85 percent of certainty of the target, after a series of meetings between commanders and intelligence agents to approve a strike. The new order called for a lower standard.

Soon after, the officers said they began identifying suspicious killings or arrests.

One of the officers cited the killing of what an army report called the death on Feb. 23 of a member of the paramilitary group Clan del Golfo. The report said that three members of the group had fought an army platoon, and that the fight ended in one death and two arrests. A pistol and revolver were found with the men.

The report was provided to The Times by the officer. He found it unlikely that three lightly armed criminals would combat an entire platoon of 41 men.

Perhaps the most disputed killing since General Martínez took command occurred around April 22, when the body of Dimar Torres, a former guerrilla who had disarmed under the peace deal, was found outside a village near the Venezuelan border.

Cellphone video circulated by villagers showed Mr. Torres’s body shot through the head. Villagers could be heard screaming epithets against paramilitary groups.

It turned out Mr. Torres was killed by the army. Colombia’s defense minister, Guillermo Botero, at first defended the shooting by saying Mr. Torres had been killed during a struggle over a weapon with a soldier. But days later, the general in charge of the region offered a public apology.

José del Carmen Abril, a peasant leader in the village, said townspeople had found soldiers near Mr. Torres’s body trying to “dig a grave to make him disappear” that night. Cellphone video showed soldiers near a half-dug grave.

The officers said they had also been told that the soldiers were trying to hide Mr. Torres’s body. While the case has become a national controversy, the officers said that other killings were likely to go unnoticed.

They produced a copy of a slide from a February presentation with the title “Days Without Combat.” It listed brigades and task forces, tallying how long each had gone without doing battle. The instructions were clear, they said: Increase kills, captures and surrenders.

A version of this article appears in print on May 19, 2019, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Colombia Orders Army to Step Up Combat Killings. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

 

[Piffiztheanswer]

Prices on a brick bout to drop... streets gon be flooded wit dat whyte gyal

 

[GnauzBookOfRhymes]

SMH at thinking this was ever going to last. This was nothing but a breather for the rebels. At the end of the day they are in the drug trade, and nothing will be as profitable as being in that business.

 

[storyteller]

Subbing to thread so I can peep this later.

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

 

[88m3]

"Colombia Army’s New Kill Orders Send Chills Down Ranks"



Sounds like the issue is a bit bigger than FARC

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

:ALERTRED:




Colombia's FARC dissidents say will launch new offensive - Reuters

 

[FAH1223]

Duque and his right wing allies now in power were opposed to Santos doing the peace deal. It’s no surprise this is happening.

 

[WaveMolecules]

I hate FARC with a passion.

 

[FAH1223]

 

[razassin]

I will tell you why a faction of the rebels are going back to war... And there is nothing heroic about it...

When the Colombia government signed the peace treaty with FARC; it meant the guerrilla group would be pardoned for all their PAST crimes, however, they would have to stop doing all illegal activities such drug trafficking, killing, stealing, etc...

BUT this pardon would not cover the rebels from any crimes they might commit in the future after the peace treaty was signed...

FARC became a political party, they were given seats in congress and the colombian tax payers would pay all 3000-6000 FARC members salaries for the next five years (while they were re-integrated into society)...

Everything was going ok until the US caught Ivan Marquez' (IVAN MARQUEZ IS THE ONE CALLING FOR ALL REBELS TO GO BACK TO WAR) nephew (who was also a FARC member) selling coke after the peace treaty had been signed...

Ivan Marquez nephew decided to collaborate with the US Government to get his sentence reduced and he is currently awaiting trial in the US...

US evidence shows that not only Ivan Marquez nephew was stil involved in drug trafficking but also some of the top ranking FARC offcials such as Jesus Santrich (who was given a seat in congress by the way) were also still involved in this even after the peace had already been signed...

Because the current Colombian government would not stop the high ranking members involved in this fiasco from being extradited to the US, the same guys who know they are being snitched on by Marquez' nephew decided to flee and escape the peace process and went back into the ''jungle'' (They are in Venezuela where they have an ally in Maduro)...

Not all FARC members will be going back to war since their leader, Timochenko, has not been involved in this drama and is taking a distance from the dissidents....

However, the new group being lead by Ivan Marquez, Jesus Santrich, El Paisa and Romaña is making an alliance with another colombian guerrilla group called ELN and of course they have all the support from the venezuelan government...

These guys decided to go back to war because they know the US will accuse them of drug trafficking, by having Ivan Marquez' nephew as the lead witness against them, and will ask for all of them to be extradited...

They pretty much have decided that they rather die fighting than die in a US prison...

 

[ADevilYouKhow]

^ That makes sense. Thanks