Belfast, Northern Eire – Juan Manuel Santos, who served as Colombia’s president between 2010 and 2018, was and stays a key determine within the nation’s ongoing battle decision course of.
He was awarded the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize for, the committee mentioned, his “resolute efforts to bring the country’s more than 50-year-long civil war to an end, a war that has cost the lives of at least 220,000 Colombians and displaced close to six million people”.
Santos oversaw the 2016 peace settlement between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the federal government, concluding the armed battle.
Al Jazeera interviewed Santos on the One Younger World 2023 summit final month in Belfast, to talk about the teachings realized in Colombia from Northern Eire’s peace course of and the place transitional justice efforts stand respectively within the two territories.
Al Jazeera: What significance does the Northern Eire peace course of have for the battle decision efforts you’ve got spearheaded in Colombia?
Juan Manuel Santos: The peace course of right here was in a manner an inspiration for us. It was a battle that had lasted for therefore a few years and eventually ended.
I copied different elements of the Northern Eire peace settlement – for instance, the back-channelling and the confidentiality at the start. With the assistance of worldwide advisers who weren’t engaged within the day-to-day of Colombian politics, I mentioned, “This is what we must do.” And that blueprint was extraordinarily, extraordinarily helpful.
However we additionally realized what to not do. For instance, the Northern Eire peace settlement didn’t give significance to implementation. And I believe we realized that we should always – that’s why we included implementation as a selected level within the Colombian peace course of.
One other factor that was not achieved right here, which we did do in Colombia, was placing victims on the centre of negotiations. If you happen to do that – their rights to justice, their rights to the reality, their rights to justice and non-repetition – that helps tremendously the method of therapeutic the injuries of conflict that has been happening for therefore lengthy.
At present, you see generals of the Colombian army dealing with victims and admitting that they dedicated conflict crimes and crimes in opposition to humanity – that they killed their sons, with none cause. And to see that! Individuals thought that might by no means occur, however it’s taking place proper now.
A part of the tensions which might be nonetheless current right here in Northern Eire, 25 years after, is since you didn’t do what we did in Colombia. We’re going by this very tough course of for the time being of attempting to heal the injuries created by so a few years of conflict. It’s not a straightforward activity, nevertheless it’s a obligatory one if you would like a sustainable peace in the long term.
Al Jazeera: This has been introduced into sharp focus right here by the British authorities’s new Northern Eire Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Invoice. How have you ever seen developments round it?
Santos: That’s one of many penalties of not having a transitional justice system just like the one we now have in Colombia. We constructed that so as exactly to keep away from the issues you’re having right here, 25 years later, with the British authorities.
It has been attempting to move a regulation that can give [an effective] amnesty to the folks chargeable for conflict crimes – for many individuals that is, after all, unacceptable. If you happen to had had a transitional justice [structure or framework ], these kind of issues wouldn’t seem 25 years later.
The Colombian peace course of is the one peace course of on this planet the place the 2 [warring] events agreed to create a particular tribunal and to undergo it. Normally, it’s a tribunal that’s imposed from the surface – by the United Nations, or no matter [body] – however by no means had two events created their very own course of [transitional justice mechanism] and submitted to it on this manner.
The worldwide group is much less and fewer vulnerable to accepting amnesties for conflict criminals and crimes in opposition to humanity – this will seem to make peace offers more durable to use, nevertheless it is sensible if you come to try to heal the injuries, a basic a part of any peace course of.
Al Jazeera: The place is the Colombian peace course of poised now?
Santos: Sadly, my successor [Ivan Duque Marquez] – who was in opposition to the peace course of – dragged his ft within the implementation of the peace course of. This was very damaging and had there been an earlier implementation with the FARC, the much-needed technique of therapeutic our society’s wounds would have gotten underneath manner a lot quicker.
The president of this new authorities [Gustavo Petro] has promised that he’ll implement the peace course of, and I hope he does. As a result of his thought of constructing what he calls “total peace” needs to be achieved utilizing the peace course of that was signed with the FARC as a obligatory situation. With out doing that, his efforts will fail.
So what I hope – and what I’m asking for – is to speed up the implementation of the peace course of that was signed a number of years in the past. As a result of that might give him the legitimacy and the credibility to construct on that course of.
If he thinks he can construct a brand new peace course of with out implementing what has already been [agreed and] signed, then he’ll fail.
The Colombian peace course of was most likely essentially the most formidable peace course of ever signed, and it’s been described [externally] in these phrases. We didn’t solely deal with the DDR – demobilisation, disarmament and reintegration – however we additionally addressed the causes of the battle. We went a lot additional to barter, for instance, agrarian reform that this authorities is attempting to place in place and that the final authorities placed on maintain. We went a lot additional to attempt to discover a resolution to the drug-trafficking downside – which the final authorities additionally placed on maintain and we’re nonetheless struggling the implications of that. We even had an ethnic chapter, a gender chapter – which has not been applied absolutely but.
If you happen to do all of that, it’s a marvellous programme for any authorities. So, if the Petro administration merely does [all of] that, he can be thought-about a very good president after they end. But when he, in a manner, concentrates on his [idea of] “total peace” on the expense of what has been [agreed and] signed [already], then he can be in bother.
This interview was frivolously edited for brevity and readability.