Uribe’s Re-election: Can the EU Help Colombia Develop a More Balanced Peace Strategy?

This report is also available in Spanish.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS

On 28 May 2006, President Álvaro Uribe won a second four-year term in a landslide. The first re-election of a sitting Colombian president in more than a century, combined with 12 March congressional elections which produced a pro-Uribe majority and saw the demise of the traditional Liberal-Conservative party system, heralds a profound change in the political landscape. While the outcomes could hardly have been better for Uribe, he now needs to get tough on impunity ­and diversify an anti-insurgency policy that has been almost exclusively military if he is to move Colombia towards the end of its 40-year armed conflict. The international community, and specifically the European Union (EU), can help by urging a new balance between the president’s favoured security policies and the social and economic measures that are needed to get at root causes.

Speedy government action in five core policy areas is required: reinserting into society more than 35,000 former paramilitaries, who present a high risk of turning into an uncontrollable crime problem, and rigorously implementing the Justice and Peace Law (JPL) so that their leaders do not escape with their crimes unpunished and their political influence intact; fully investigating new charges of links between the secret police (Security Administrative Department, DAS) and the paramilitaries; promoting and defending human rights and international humanitarian law more decisively; fighting drug trafficking; and overcoming the humanitarian crisis.

The Uribe administration should not overestimate its own political strength and its successes of the past four years. The president will be hard pressed to hold together a majority in Congress that is far from solid and lacks both programmatic depth and internal cohesion. There have been clear security advances but human rights violations, the demobilised paramilitaries’ political and economic power and criminal activities and the difficulties associated with their reinsertion, the insurgent Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia’s (FARC) remaining military capacity and the failure of anti-drug policy remain serious concerns. A second Uribe government must not only maintain its military strategy against the guerrillas but also give priority to designing a new and comprehensive, three-tier National Peace and Development Strategy that incorporates rural governance, regional/municipal development and restructured demobilisation programs, as well as a strong effort to pursue negotiations with the guerrillas.

His campaign statements and election-night victory speech suggest Uribe may not yet be prepared to make such policy departures. The international community, in particular the EU and its member states as well as the United Nations (UN) and the U.S., should urge him to do so and then make a major contribution to the design and implementation of the new strategy. The goal should be multilateral cooperation geared at achieving much greater synergy between government, civil society and donors.

Since 2000, the EU has focused on helping address the underlying causes of the conflict and building the foundations for peace “from below”. Although it has encountered difficulties, including sometimes hostile Uribe administration attitudes, its flagship peace laboratories program could become a catalyst for the design and implementation of a substantial part of the proposed National Peace and Development Strategy and the basis for strategic partnerships between the Colombian government, the EU and its member states, the U.S., the United Nations Development Programme and other UN agencies in the country. The most promising forum in which to work this out is the G-24 group that was formed several years ago to assist Colombia. If it is to perform this role, however, the group will need to be imbued with new political life and enhanced technical capacity.

RECOMMENDATIONS

To the Government of Colombia:

1.  Design and implement a new and comprehensive three-tier National Peace and Development Strategy that complements military responses to the armed conflict with political responses, including:

(a)  a Rural Governance and Regional/Municipal Development Strategy to reduce rural poverty and stimulate regional/municipal development that includes:

i.  starting immediately where security permits (and announced as becoming available elsewhere as soon as possible), greater rural infrastructure investment, alternative development, small farmer agricultural credit, marketing and technical aid, off-farm income and employment generation programs;

ii.  strengthened local and rural governance and community participation in decision-making and policy implementation processes; and

iii.  special attention to the needs and rights of vulnerable groups, including women, children, indigenous and Afro-Colombians and internally displaced persons (IDPs);

(b)  a restructured and redefined Demobilisation, Disarmament and Reintegration (DDR) Program with more rigorous verification that command and control structures and criminal linkages of demobilised members of armed groups are being dismantled; and

(c)  a Peace Negotiations Strategy that involves concluding peace and demobilisation talks with the National Liberation Army (ELN) and seeks to establish as soon as possible talks with the FARC on a hostages/prisoners swap as a first step towards peace negotiations.

2.  Apply Law 974 (2005) and its regulations regarding internal party discipline to achieve a more coherent and effective Congress.

3.  Respect all guarantees for the democratic opposition and the fundamental rights of citizens, in particular of vulnerable groups such as women, children, the indigenous and Afro-Colombians and including the constitutionally-sanctioned possibility for citizens to submit a legal claim for the protection of fundamental rights (tutela).

4.  Design and implement a national human rights plan.

5.  Immediately and rigorously apply the Justice and Peace Law (2005), increase law enforcement efforts against rearmed groups and organised criminals, and ensure victims their rights under Colombian and international law.

To the European Union and its Member States:

6.  Conduct a fast-track evaluation of the second peace laboratory by the end of 2006, in coordination with Acción Social, other international development agencies and civil society and take into account the lessons learned, with the participation of all stakeholders, in establishing the third laboratory in the second half of 2006.

7.  Encourage and cooperate with President Uribe, his high commissioner for peace, the minister of the interior and other relevant ministries, Acción Social, the National Planning Agency and representatives of vulnerable groups and civil society to design and implement a new and comprehensive three-tier National Peace and Development Strategy, including:

(a)  a Rural Governance and Regional/Municipal Development Strategy to reduce rural poverty and stimulate regional/municipal development that includes:

i.  starting immediately where security permits (and announced as becoming available elsewhere as soon as possible), greater rural infrastructure investment, alternative development, small farmer agricultural credit, marketing and technical aid, off-farm income and employment generation programs;

ii.  strengthened local and rural governance and community participation in decision-making and policy implementation processes; and

iii.  special attention to the needs and rights of vulnerable groups, including women, children, indigenous and Afro-Colombians and IDPs;

(b)  DDR Program with more rigorous verification that command and control structures and criminal linkages of demobilised members of armed groups are being dismantled; and

(c)  a Peace Negotiations Strategy that involves concluding peace and demobilisation talks with the ELN and seeks to establish as soon as possible talks with the FARC on a hostages/prisoners swap as a first step towards peace negotiations.

8.  Establish a coordination mechanism for European donors in Colombia to overcome fragmentation and aid duplication, and increase the efficiency of the regular meetings of the European Commission delegation and EU member state embassy staff.

9.  Stress in the European Commission’s Country Strategy Paper 2007-2013 for Colombia:

(a)  reinforced political dialogue with the government on the establishment of a comprehensive three-tier National Development and Peace Strategy;

(b)  improved coordination between the Commission and EU member states and UN agencies in Colombia;

(c)  increased aid to vulnerable groups, including women, children, IDPs and indigenous and Afro-Colombians;

(d)  support for the attorney general’s efforts to implement the JPL fully so as to dismantle illegal armed groups, hold their leaders accountable and protect the rights of victims;

(e)  contribution to the reinsertion of former combatants through peace laboratory projects subject to full compliance with the JPL and the design and implementation of a comprehensive three-tier National Peace and Development Strategy; and

(f)  support for a reinvigorated Organization of American States (OAS) verification mission and the UN human rights monitoring mission.

10.  Continue to facilitate negotiations between the government and the ELN and to contribute to the establishment of talks between the government and the FARC on a hostages/prisoners swap as a first step toward peace and demobilisation negotiations.

To the Members of the G-24:

11.  Act upon the March 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, in particular regarding harmonisation of donor activities in Colombia.

12.  Hold the London-Cartagena follow-up seminar in Bogotá in June 2006 as scheduled and use it to discuss the G-24’s role in contributing to the design and implementation of a comprehensive three-tier National Peace and Development Strategy and a new multilateral cooperation strategy with Colombia.

Bogotá/Brussels, 8 June 2006