[Politics] The challenges of negotiating with defectors under the law for full peace

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re-negotiate with alias Iván Márquez. That was the door that the Congress of the Republic opened this week when it approved the extension and modification of Law 418, the main legal framework to achieve "total peace" proposed by President Gustavo Petro.

(Read: What is missing for the total peace law to be sanctioned by Petro?)

Law 418 is essential for the Government as it gives it the power to carry out negotiations with illegal groups of political origin, as well as to approach other criminal structures for their submission.

Although said law has not yet been sanctioned, and conciliation is lacking, both in the Senate and in the House of Representatives they denied several proposals that sought to close the door to deserters of peace, those who betrayed the Havana agreements and returned to arms. . But the debate focused on 'Iván Márquez' and the 'Second Marquetalia'.

The same Humberto de la Calle, who sat for years with 'Márquez' to demobilize the extinct FARC and is now a senator, insisted that the only way with the deserter is the rapprochement for his submission. And he argued that it was a wrong message for the signatories who have complied and for the dialogues with the ELN, which are about to begin.

(Also: Gustavo Petro would listen to Salvatore Mancuso's proposal to be peace manager)

“Giving the privilege to the one who betrayed the agreement, to his group and to himself, a second chance, it seems to me that it is not convenient. It gives a wrong message to Colombian society and contradicts clear constitutional norms," said the senator, for whom "opening the door to renegotiate with deserters like 'Iván Márquez' is promoting the culture of repechage."

In the Senate there was an atmosphere to support De la Calle, but the Minister of the Interior, Alfonso Prada, and Roy Barreras, president of Congress, moved their chips and the former chief negotiator was defeated, so the door was opened to a negotiation with that criminal group. For the government, not talking to the deserters would imply continuing the war.

Congress has already closed that debate, for now, but the discussion moved to public opinion and the main question is whether 'Márquez' can be trusted again, who should even have been in the Legislative if he had not committed a crime again, more beyond whether there was entrapment for him and 'Jesús Santrich', as indicated by Vice President Francia Márquez herself in an interview today with EL TIEMPO.

But we will have to wait to see how the rapprochements progress, which have already begun under the leadership of the High Commissioner for Peace, Danilo Rueda, to find out what status will be given to the 'Second Marquetalia' and what kind of benefits its members could receive so that they can rejoin to society.

pragmatism and peace
The former Presidential Adviser for Defense and Security and Master in Defense and National Security, Armando Borrero, calls for a prior process of examining the conduct of these groups. "One no longer knows if those of the 'Second Marquetalia' are really a political organization. I have doubts that they have political purposes. I think they have only become traffickers”, he analyzes.

On the specific issue of 'Iván Márquez', Borrero considers that his problem is that he was already covered by the conditions of the Havana agreement and then abandoned them. On this issue, the former minister agrees with De la Calle that there should be no "repechage." But, he says, if you are going to negotiate with him, it should be on a new plane with different conditions from the previous ones.

"The State can negotiate with criminals, although it is not supposed to do so, but it can make contacts if the idea is that they submit to justice," he remarks.

Starting from the basis that the peace processes carried out in the country in the last 50 years have not resolved the problem of the armed conflict, the political analyst Víctor de Currea-Lugo considers that it is necessary to understand 'total peace' “not only as a negotiation with the main guerrillas –a mistake that was made by prioritizing only the FARC–, but with all the armed expressions that have power, territorial control and a command with which to negotiate”.

But establishing agreements with these factions may present greater difficulties than those faced in previous peace processes. In the specific case of dissidence, for example, its members "are usually the most doctrinaire and ideological," explains Alejandro Bohórquez-Keeney, a political expert and professor at the Externado University.

These characteristics make them more reluctant and difficult to negotiate, according to Bohórquez-Keeney. For the professor, it is clear that the meaning of a negotiation is to do it with the counterpart, but he does not see easy ways to convince them to give up areas that they have controlled for years in economic and military terms.

https://www.eltiempo.com/politica/gobierno/paz-total-los-retos-de-negociar-con-los-desertores-del-acuerdo-de-paz-713659