Kaitlan Parker
PSCI 230
Dr. Stojek
December 2, 2016
Colombians Reject Peace Deal with FARC
In August of 2016 the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia (FARC) came to an agreement on a peace deal. This peace deal would end a 52-yearold war between Colombia and the rebel group. On October 2, 2016 Colombians voted on the
peace deal and rejected it by 50.22% of 6,430,708 votes. Throughout the 4 years leading to this
agreement Cuba and Norway who have both acted as guarantors. In addition; the United Nations
Secretary Ban Ki-moon, Secretary of State John Kerry and 15 presidents attended the signing of
the peace deal in support. The failure of this peace deal will damage progress to a peaceful
democratic Colombian state that the United States has supported.
During the last 52 years that the FARC has been active they have been blamed with
220,000 deaths and the displacement of 7 million other people. Some Colombians have rejected
the peace deal because they believe it to be too lenient on the FARC. Discussions have begun in
regards to a revision but that revision may not come soon enough. The FARC has declared a
cease fire until December 31 but a new deal is not expected to be reached by then.
It is of the upmost important to the United States that that the Colombian people and
FARC come to an agreement. Since 1999 the United States has invested 10 million dollars into
Colombia through the Plan Colombia package for economic and security development. In the
rejected peace deal the United States had agreed, though not explicitly stated, to not extradite 60
FARC guerillas. These guerillas who are wanted by the United States included those who have
killed or kidnapped American citizens. The United States needs to consider making revisions to
our contributions to this agreement as the new peace talks begin.
For the United States self-interest, the peace deal needs to be agreed upon. The first
priority is to get justice for our American citizens who were kidnapped and killed. Therefore, the
60 FARC guerillas should be extradited to the United States. This will get justice for American
citizens and appear less lenient to those Colombians who believe the initial agreement was too
lenient. Furthermore, the United States will advise Colombia to keep its initial agreement and not
incarcerate any new FARC criminals in their prisons. In the best interest of the United States we
would withhold all financial aid through Plan Colombia until an agreement is reached. This
would help put pressure on Colombians to speed up the process of reaching a new deal.
The more altruistic option is to focus on Colombian citizens and leave the United States
self-interests out of it. Peace would be ideal for the Colombians so approving the peace deal
would still be the goal. The United States would not extradite the 60 FARC members because the
United States getting justice is not a priority for the Colombian people. Instead the United States
would advise the Colombian government to pursue incarcerating 25% of the FARC criminals in
order to give the Colombian citizens some level of justice. Prior to incarcerating the 25% there
would need to be a better estimate of how many FARC criminals that would be and the
practicality of doing wo would also need to be examined.
Another option is to make a compromise between the two above options. The goal as in
the first two options is to get a revised peace deal passed. In order to combine both plans the
United States would incarcerate 30 of the FARC members in order to get justice for the United
States citizens. The United States would advise the Colombian government to incarcerate 15% of
the FARC criminals in their country to give some justice to the Colombians. In addition, the
United States would cut funding for 2017 by a one-time 50% if a deal is not reached by
December 31, 2016. This plan would give justice to both the United States citizens and the
Colombian citizens while not punishing the FARC so harshly that they would not agree to the
new terms.
I suggest that the United States proceeds with option number one because it helps
Colombia while still assuring our state-interests. This option would provide the United States
citizens which is best for our citizen’s moral. In addition, this also would provide some peace of
mind to Colombians who felt the FARC was being let off too easy for their crimes. Pulling
funding will also help to speed up the process which is important because the FARC has only
declared a cease fire until December 31.
Reflection:
This writing assignment gave me a lot of respect for the complexity of being a top-level
decision maker. The issue that I struggled with was how to make everyone happy so that they
could agree. I wanted to design a plan that helped other countries but also didn’t compromise the
values of Americans. I think that sometimes citizens are quick to disapprove of a policy without
realizing that there has to be compromise. Not everyone is going to be 100% happy with the
policy but it is important to note that is not the point. The point is that everyone needs to be able
to reach an agreement that has the most positive benefits for everyone. If policy makers only
focused on pleasing one side of an issue they would never be able to reach an agreement. As well
I think the areas of self-interest and altruistic can be a grey matter. In this situation particularly it
wasn’t always clear what would be out of self-interest and what was altruistic. Sometimes certain
aspects of my proposal I felt could be argued to fit into either category.
Works Citied
Chen, K., & Gallon, N. (2016, October 5). Colombians reject peace deal with the FARC.
Retrieved
November 22, 2016, from http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/02/americas/colombia-farcpeace-deal-vote/
Colombia Fact Sheet. (2016, August 31). Retrieved November 22, 2016, from
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/35754.htm
Hernandez, A. (2016, August 24). Colombia finalizes peace deal with FARC rebels, ending halfcentury war | VICE News. Retrieved November 22, 2016, from
https://news.vice.com/article/colombia-to-finalize-peace-deal-ending-half-century-warwith-farc-rebels
Tuckman, J. (2016, October 2). Colombian voters just rejected the country's historic peace deal
| VICE News. Retrieved November 22, 2016, from
https://news.vice.com/article/colombia-farc-peace-agreement-referendum-plebiscitevote
Quintana, A. (2016, November 22). The Colombian–FARC Peace Deal: Why It Failed, and How
the U.S. Can Support a Responsible Renegotiation. Retrieved December 01, 2016, from
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2016/10/the-colombianfarc-peace-deal-why-itfailed-and-how-the-us-can-support-a-responsible-renegotiation