Ahead of taking office on 7 August, far-right president-elect Abelardo De la Espriella has announced some of the government offices he is going to close. Many are vital to the peace process, broader areas of peacebuilding and the protection of human rights. It is further indication of his plans to reverse the progress made in Colombia in recent years and return the country to the repressiveness and militarism of years gone by.
De la Espriella has said that he will immediately eliminate core components of the peace agreement such as the JEP transitional justice court that investigates and punishes crimes committed during the armed conflict. He alleges that the court is part of a ‘perverse system of impunity.’ This led former President Santos to respond that the JEP is part of a holistic system of transitional justice that, while imperfect, ‘is admired the world over’ and provides a ‘clear and structured’ road towards building a different country, calling on the incoming government to ‘take up again the road of implementation.’
However, De la Espriella has said he will close the Implementation Unit for the Final Agreement, which coordinates the agreement’s rolling out by the state. The Unit’s functions will be transferred to a National Security Commission. De la Espriella also plans to close the Office of the High Commissioner for Peace, a key role that oversees the government’s peacebuilding strategy, as well as the Offices for National Reconciliation, Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law. ‘There will be no more false promises of peace under my government,’ he said. There will, it seems, be scant regard for human rights.
Furthermore, De la Espriella has launched a verbal attack on former FARC commander and peace negotiator Rodrigo Londoño, aka ‘Timochenko’. ‘This bandit Timochenko deserves to be imprisoned for life. I am going to work towards this,’ he stated. Former FARC members are under the jurisdiction of the JEP, with senior commanders, including Timochenko, having accepted responsibility for overseeing and ordering hostage-taking and other crimes.
Under the peace agreement, the commanders of both sides were provided a separate legal framework in return for working to promote peace, non-repetition, truth, reconciliation and restitution. The JEP’s sentences therefore reflect this. If De la Espriella seeks to extradite or imprison former FARC commanders, it will violate the terms of the peace agreement. It will also strengthen those in the remaining armed groups who are cynical about the Colombian state’s capacity to abide by any agreements that it makes.
Gloria Cuartas, the current head of the Implementation Unit, asked the Attorney General’s Office to investigate De la Espriella for increasing the risk to the life and security of signatories to the peace agreement. She has also requested the JEP and the National Protection Unit (UNP), the state entity tasked with providing security to people under threat, update the ‘risk matrix’ for Londoño, as De la Espriella’s statements potentially put him at risk. This case indicates that there may be more legal cases coming, as De la Espriella’s reforms aim at the heart of the constitutionally mandated peace agreement.
The new government will also take over nine separate peace dialogues with different armed groups, which it will almost certainly end immediately, regardless of progress made. The likely result is escalated armed confrontation as these groups watch the door to disarmament and legal guarantees slam shut.
Military solutions to Colombia’s long conflict have been pursued for decades, but the 2016 peace agreement can be seen as a recognition they had gone as far as they could. When peace talks began in 2011, the FARC were recovering from the blows received earlier and their area of operations was expanding. Today, De la Espriella plans to massively escalate Uribe’s ‘democratic security doctrine’ in Colombia, though the construction of mega-prisons, military escalation and an authoritarian policing strategy. As in the past, these proposals will carry a significant cost in social and human rights. Under Uribe’s 2002-2010 government, the civilian population and the social movements that opposed his policies were targeted and many thousands killed. If De la Espriella pursues the same policy, we may see a return to this.
De la Espriella is trying at all costs to associate himself with the military, which is evident in his unprecedented demand to hold the inauguration on a military base in southern Colombia. According to the constitution, the inauguration must be held in front of the full Congress and must take place in Bogota. De la Espriella is therefore demanding that Congress vote to change this. Meanwhile, President Petro, who remains the serving president and commander in chief until De la Espriella takes his oath, has said that he will not approve the use of a military base for the inauguration.
Currently, communication between the outgoing and incoming governments is extremely limited, after De la Espriella threatened Petro with extradition, while the latter has called the election result into question and alleged vote rigging. De la Espriella’s teams did not turn up to the transition meetings held by the ministries and other state institutions to prepare the transfer of power, an unprecedented violation of protocol, and an indication of the nature of the break they see themselves as representing.
The threat to peace will affect thousands of former FARC guerrillas, almost 500 of whom have been killed since 2016, as well as their more than eight thousand children born since 2016. There are well-founded fears that more killings may now come, particularly if the highest state authorities begin to stigmatise them. Just as in the past, the militarisation of the conflict will have serious implications for social activists, trade unionists and human rights defenders.