Gwen Burnyeat is a junior research fellow at Merton College, Oxford, and the author of two books about Colombia.
IN one of the many videos circulating on social media of people celebrating the results of Colombia’s presidential election run-off on 19 June, a man bursts from a door onto a small concrete balcony: ‘The first Black vice-president! First Black vice-president, son of a bitch! Viva Colombia! Viva Francia! Thank you, God!’ Two teenage girls run to hug him, wiping away their...
The Colombian presidential election last month was won by Iván Duque of the Democratic Centre (DC) party with 54 per cent of the vote. Álvaro Uribe Vélez – the party’s leader, the former president of Colombia (2002-10) and currently a right-wing senator – couldn’t run himself because he has served the two terms permitted by the 1991 constitution,...
On 15 August, the last of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia’s munitions and weapons were removed by a UN mission from 26 temporary demobilisation camps, where 7000 guerrilleros have been living for seven months. This ends the first phase of the implementation of the Havana Accords, signed on 24 November 2016. The next stage is the reintegration of the Farc’s members into the social, economic and political life of the country. On 1 September the organisation will launch a new political party. Other medium and long-term measures include land reform, mine clearance and the replacement of coca with legal crops.
The new peace accord between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia was signed in Bogotá’s Colón Theatre on 24 November. It was a more sober ceremony than the extravagant signing of the first agreement in Cartagena on 26 September, a week before Colombians narrowly voted against it in a referendum. The second signing was a closed event, and only President Juan Manuel Santos and the Farc commander, Timochenko, gave speeches. A subdued group of Colombians in the main plaza in Bogotá watched it on a big screen. The right-wing TV channel RCN, meanwhile, held a panel featuring only figures opposed to the deal, for ‘balance’.
It took four years for the Colombian government and the Farc – the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – to reach the peace agreement signed earlier this year. President Juan Manuel Santos insisted that putting the deal to a referendum would give it legitimacy and silence the far-right party Centro Democrático, which is masterminded by the former president Álvaro...
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