Colombia’s new president, Gustavo Petro, was elected and took office promising a radical change in policies to combat drug trafficking and violence. Internally sensitive, the topic still has the possibility of impacting the country’s foreign policy.
In this sense, the United States plays a central role. In recent decades, Washington has been providing large amounts of aid aimed, among other things, at the purchase of weapons. For now, the leftist’s proposals seem to have American support, so much so that President Joe Biden took less than 48 hours to make a phone call greeting Petro and sent a delegation led by Samantha Power, head of the Agency for the inauguration, to the inauguration. International Development (USAID).
The scenario can be considered at risk, however, depending on the legislative election in the US, in November, in which the narrow Democratic majority is threatened. In July, Republican Senator Marco Rubio proposed that the FARC be considered a terrorist organization again — the group, which signed a peace agreement with the state in 2016, was removed from the list last year.
Petro has signaled the idea of ​​taking the focus off the repression of drug trafficking and focusing on agrarian development. Its “total peace” strategy also includes expanding the reparatory justice system and negotiating treaties with other guerrillas and paramilitaries, offering alternative sentences in exchange for demobilization.
For Cynthia Arnson, former director of the Latin American program at the Wilson Center (USA), the plan is risky, but if successful, it could serve as a laboratory for the region. she spoke to Sheet about other points in the program.
what mrs. Do you think about the change in focus of policies to combat drug trafficking proposed by Gustavo Petro? It is very clear that the idea is to take the pressure off the peasants who plant the coca leaf. the previous government [de Iván Duque] bet heavily on eradication by air, using chemical substances harmful to health, and was not successful, because the number of hectares dedicated to cultivation increased.
The central question is how to combine the rural development strategy with one of restoring security in the countryside, where violence has increased. For now, we know that the idea is not only to re-establish dialogue with the ELN [Exército de Libertação Nacional], but also with criminal organizations involved in drug trafficking, in an attempt to reach agreements for demobilization and handing over weapons. In the administration of Juan Manuel Santos, this idea already existed, applied with the FARC, but the policy was interrupted.
Do you think the idea of ​​the so-called “total peace” is viable? It is a controversial issue, because there are many examples of successful negotiations with groups with a political agenda, such as guerrillas. The application of exchanging benefits for demobilization with criminal groups is another topic — if they don’t have political claims, there isn’t much to negotiate. And the main motivator of violence in Colombia today are these groups, which dominate the smuggling of illicit drugs and illegal mining. It will be very complicated, though not impossible.
But the strategy of combating drugs using force against armed groups has not worked either. No, and there is a lot of criticism of this strategy. Several governments have bet heavily on this in recent decades in the region and there has been no success. On the contrary, we had hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans killed.
In this sense, I am sure that the Petro government can serve as a laboratory to produce an alternative strategy. I believe that your proposal may be successful in reducing violence, but it will most likely not be able to reduce drug trafficking or the power of drug traffickers. And, if that is the result, the criticism will be at a very high volume.
The idea of ​​”total peace” goes against the policy that the US has been advocating for Colombia in recent decades. Could this affect the relationship between the two countries? The US government has positively waved to change in Colombia and is very attentive to these new policies. However, the expectation is that, in the November elections, the Republicans will regain control of the House and perhaps the Senate. If that happens and we have a Republican-controlled Congress, it’s clear they will try to tie Biden’s hands — that could include restricting the transfer of economic assistance to Colombia.
Republicans want to see evidence that there will be a strong and effective policy to suppress coca cultivation, and that goes against Petro’s proposal.
One of the new government’s convictions is to eliminate the policy of extradition of drug traffickers, which brings about 300 criminals to the US every year. How do you see it? It’s a bold proposal. The central criticism of the extradition policy is that it prevents these criminals from passing through the Colombian system. Thus, they do not go so far as to confess their crimes against the civilian population and take with them a lot of information that could be useful to dismantle the networks in Colombia.
Once extradited, the information they can provide about attacks on communities, murder of social leaders, is lost. This weakens peace negotiations, the search for reparation and the truth. On the other hand, extradition has become a very important tool to prosecute criminal actors, because the Colombian judicial system is vulnerable to threats and intimidation and is very corrupt, therefore easily bought by the drug trafficking power.
x-ray | Cynthia Arnson
Researcher and former director of the Latin America program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. She has served as an organizer and editor of publications on the region and has held several consultancies for the US Congress. She is a member of the editorial board of Foreign Affairs Latinoamérica magazine.
