Colombia's 'no' on peace shocks the world – and itself

A razor-thin majority rejected a peace deal to end the longest war in the Americas. The road ahead now looks uncertain as the government and the FARC meet.

|
Fernando Vergara/AP
A man reads a newspaper with the headline that reads in Spanish: "Colombia said No" in Bogota, Colombia, Monday, Oct. 3, 2016. Voters rejected a peace deal with leftist rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC, by a razor-thin margin in a national referendum Sunday.

What began as a drab, rainy voting day in Bogotá soon turned into a night that will likely define a generation as Colombians rejected an historic peace deal to end the longest war in the Americas.

The vote was razor-thin: 50.2 percent opposed the deal, while 49.8 percent supported it. Four years in the making, the peace deal between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (better known by its Spanish acronym FARC) was widely expected to pass. When it didn’t, “No” voters took to the streets to party while “Yes” voters expressed grief and disbelief.

It wasn’t only the voters who were shocked. President Juan Manuel Santos, who has staked his political reputation on a peace deal with the FARC, looked visibly broken as he addressed the nation after the historic vote.

“I will continue seeking peace until the last minute of my term because that is the way to leave a better country to our children,” he said in a televised statement from the presidential palace on Sunday night.

But the roadmap now looks very uncertain. Both the government and FARC negotiators had previously admitted there was no “Plan B” in case of a No win. Instead of plunging back into war, both sides are likely to try to come up with a new agreement that eases the concerns of many Colombians, who felt its terms were too lenient on the guerrillas. A half a century of war that has left 220,000 dead and nearly 7 million displaced.

Humberto de la Calle, the government’s chief negotiator, traveled to Havana Monday, where negotiations had been taking place with the FARC over four years. Members of the FARC leadership are also there. The hope is that the two sides will be able to renegotiate quickly, though analysts worry that is optimistic.

“What’s more likely is that [former President Álvaro] Uribe’s camp will push for a surrender deal with the FARC, which they may struggle to accept,” says Adam Isacson, senior associate for regional security policy at the Washington Office on Latin America, a research and advocacy nonprofit in Washington.

Looking to bridge the divide between the Yes and No camps, President Santos called a meeting for Tuesday morning with representatives from all Colombia’s political parties, including Mr. Uribe’s hard-line Democratic Center.

The rebels echoed Santos. “The FARC reiterates its disposition to use only words as a weapon to build toward the future,” Rodrigo Londoño, the FARC leader better known by his nom de guerre, Timochenko, said in a speech from Cuba.

A yawning social gap

Despite those pledges, the uncertainty and anger continues to grip Colombians who thought a Yes vote was a certainty. 

“It’s easy for Timochenko to say they won’t go back to war, but what about all the rebels in the ranks who now think over half the country hates them?” asked Nicolas Cuellar, a systems engineer from Bogota.

In Hippie’s Park, a vibrant, young social spot, optimistic Yes supporters waving white flags representing peace began to break down in tears as the results came in, projected on a large screen. Journalists cried as they interviewed distraught attendees. Couples embraced in tearful despair.

“Honestly I feel completely frustrated with my country,” said Juan Felipe Gomez, a chef from Ibague, a town in the mountainous Tolima Province – the birthplace of the FARC. “And I am guilty myself. I’m not registered to vote here, and every vote counts.”

The difference between the Yes and No votes was around 50,000.

Many in attendance struggled to make sense of events as they unfolded. “Today is a deeply sad day for us,” said Miller Cavanzo, a sociologist watching the vote count in Hippie’s Park, as tears trickled down her face. “Realistically, nobody understands what is going to happen, we don’t have any idea.”

Dancing in the street

But six blocks away, outside  the Bogota office of the opposition Democratic Center, the mood was far different.

“Today is a massive triumph for Colombia and I feel proud and happy to be a Colombian,” said Carlos Rosales, a law student. As he spoke, a convoy of taxis and cars plastered with No campaign posters honked horns and boomed out Colombian folk music.

Uribe had led the No campaign, taking issue with the deal’s promises of special courts and provisions that would allow rebels who confess to their crimes to avoid jail. He also repeated on the campaign trail that the FARC is “the world’s biggest cocaine cartel,” given that the rebels have long relied on the drug trade to fund their insurgency. 

“There can be no peace with impunity,” Mr. Rosales said, echoing one of Uribe’s campaign beats. “The FARC are terrorists who have murdered, kidnapped, and extorted people; obviously they have to go to jail.”

As Rosales spoke, struggling to contain his wide grin and wearing the type of Panama hat often sported by Uribe, passersby interrupted and yelled at him, reflecting the rift in society Sunday’s result is likely to cause.

“Yesterday at our No march, people drove by us and gave us the finger,” said one No supporter (who did not want to be named), draped in a Colombian flag. “They don’t understand this is a great moment for our country.”

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Colombia's 'no' on peace shocks the world – and itself
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2016/1003/Colombia-s-no-on-peace-shocks-the-world-and-itself
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe