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Walberto Kennedy
While the armed conflict with the FARC-EP ended in 2016, the Ejrcito de Liberacin Nacional (ELN) persisted as an active guerrilla group with a presence in both Colombia and Venezuela. Hence, one early achievement of the Total Peace project was the resumption of negotiations between the government and the ELN in Venezuela and Mexico. Guarantor countries like Venezuela, Cuba, and Norway, along with the UN Verification Mission, supported these talks. However, the negotiations took place amid armed clashes between the military and guerrillas, raising concerns about violations of international humanitarian law, ambushes on security forces, and other challenges.
On December 31, 2022, the Colombian government declared a ceasefire against the ELN and the Clan del Golfo, a criminal organization, through Decree 2657. The decree suggested that the ELN agreed to the ceasefire, and the Clan del Golfo had reached a truce with the government. However, guerrilla commanders denied this, leading the government to suspend the decree on January 4, 2023, and resume military operations against the ELN. These efforts resulted in a crisis of trust between the public and the Petro administration. The attempt to negotiate with all criminal structures at the same time and their subsequent fallout was heavily criticized. Criticisms were based on the argument that the State cannot suspend its constitutional duty to combat drug trafficking and criminal structures, nor undermine the rule of law in favor of justice.
Despite the blurred lines, it was significant to see that the Gulf Clan was demanding a negotiation with a political status similar to that of the ELN. This would allow the group greater room to maneuver, benefit from transitional justice, and enjoy concessions similar to those of former members of the FARC-EP. However, the proposal seems to have disappeared from the official government agenda, at least for now.
It is also crucial to maintain military initiatives in armed territories because it pushes armed groups to negotiate while building legitimacy among citizens. This was demonstrated, for example, in the mechanisms that led the former FARC-EP to negotiate; it has been proven that the military offensive drove the strategic will of the guerrillas to negotiate with the State. The government can create subregional security strategies that enable the recovery of geography and citizen legitimacy by the State while allowing for dialogue. The State can combine the idea of providing incentives for dialogue with military and intelligence offensives. These incentives must be based on legal benefits like reduced sentences. Overall, these measures would mean pushing criminal organizations towards demobilization, or else the State would take care of their neutralization.
Despite the difficulties in building an agenda with irregular armed groups, opportunities for negotiations with some of them persist. For instance, there is ongoing dialogue with the ELN in Mexico and there is also a willingness to engage the Segunda Marquetalia and the Estado mayor (FARC dissidents). With the ELN negotiations, the government of Gustavo Petro should work to develop a roadmap to disarm the group by defining incentives for them to lay down their weapons and abandon illegal markets. Failure to do so would result in the ELN engaging in dialogue, but not negotiating their ultimate end. For FARC-EP dissidents, however, past failures present an additional hurdle.
To address this, Petro could design mechanisms to eliminate criminal governance in the territories, as well as formulate territorial peace projects based on the specificities of each region. These mechanisms should take into account the basic needs of the population such as security, justice, and public services. The government of Gustavo Petro must rigorously work on defining effective strategies and policies to achieve peace and security in Colombia.
Csar Nio is an associate professor and researcher in international relations at the Universidad de la Salle (Colombia). His research areas include international security, conflict, terrorism, violence, peace, and organized crime. He has a PhD in International Law from the Universidad Alfonso X el Sabio (Spain), and is currently a PhD student in International Peace, Conflict and Development Studies at the Universitat Jaume I (Spain).Image Credit: Pixabay
Armed Peace: A situation where two or more countries are not fighting, but they are still prepared for war. It means that they have weapons and soldiers ready in case they need to fight.
For example, during the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union were in an armed peace. They did not engage in direct military conflict, but both countries had nuclear weapons and were prepared for the possibility of war.
Another example of armed peace is the current situation between North and South Korea. Although the two countries technically signed a peace agreement in 1953, they are still heavily armed and have a tense relationship.
I thank the Government of Mexico for hosting this very important meeting of today. I tremendously appreciate its long-standing support for the goals of the United Nations, including each of the themes of this conference: peace; development; and disarmament.
I would like to thank the Ministry and local government officials, without whose support this conference might not have been as successful today. It was here in this city where the Treaty of Tlatelolco was signed. It created the first nuclear-weapon-free zone in a populated region.
This Conference is intended to provide an opportunity for individuals and non-governmental groups from around the world to learn from each other and to teach us all about how we can achieve the great goals of peace, development and disarmament.
The world is over-armed and peace is under-funded. Military spending continues to raise everyday. Just one generation after the end of the cold war, it is now well above US $1 trillion. More weapons are being produced. They are flooding markets around the world. They are destabilizing societies. They feed the flames of civil wars and terror. Here in Latin America, gun violence is the number one cause of civilian casualties.
The end of the cold war has led the world to expect a massive peace dividend. Yet, there are over 20,000 nuclear weapons around the world. Many of them are still on hair-trigger alert, threatening our own survival.
Coupled with ever-growing ballistic missile proliferation and increasing threats from terrorists, nuclear weapons constitute existential threats to humankind. We have negotiated a treaty to outlaw all nuclear tests -- the CTBT, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, has not entered into force. Even in the twenty-first century, we have witnessed nuclear tests.
We have worked tirelessly for a global ban on the production of fissile materials for use in nuclear explosives, yet obstacles continue to hinder negotiations. The Conference on Disarmament broke the gridlock on its programme of work for the first time in 12 years, yet it failed to advance because of procedural disagreements.
Many countries have agreed to ban anti-personnel landmines and cluster munitions, yet some major players choose to remain outside of these commitments. An international Programme of Action has been agreed to stem the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons, yet it too faces many challenges in achieving its goals. And we lack multilateral legal norms concerning missiles.
Despite these daunting challenges, there is hope on the horizon. Thanks in large measure to your unrelenting advocacy, we are facing a new moment of opportunity and I thank you, thank you for that. Disarmament is back on the global agenda.
The Presidents of the Russian Federation and the United States of America have joined in seeking to reduce their nuclear arsenals and delivery vehicles. I welcomed the 6 July joint understanding of these two world leaders and I expect they will have comprehensive talks before the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) expires in December.
I urged non-NPT States to freeze their own weapon capabilities and make their own disarmament commitments. And I proposed, more important, to the [Security] Council that it convene a summit on nuclear disarmament.
I am pleased that the Security Council is going to convene a summit meeting on 24 September to be chaired by United States President Barack Obama to discuss nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament.
That is why I call for the NPT State Parties to pursue negotiations in good faith on nuclear disarmament, either through a new convention or through a series of mutually reinforcing instruments backed by a credible system of verification.
I support the proposal of the United Kingdom to discuss nuclear disarmament and confidence-building measures, including verification, among the recognized nuclear-weapon-States. The United Nations is willing to provide any assistance in that endeavour.
As former Chairman of the CTBTO (Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization) Preparatory Commission, I encourage you to reach out to those countries that have not yet acceded to the CTBT and urge them to do so without further delay.
While most of these countries have revealed some details about their weapons programmes, we still do not know precisely how many nuclear weapons exist worldwide. The United Nations Secretariat could serve as a repository for such data.
As a first step, I propose that the Security Council, through an appropriate mechanism, consider how to increase transparency and openness on nuclear weapons programmes of the recognized nuclear-weapons States.
Taken together, I call this my plan to stop the bomb. I am glad that there have been various initiatives echoing the substance of my proposals. I also urge you to help rally the world around these action areas. You can make it happen.
We have a number of important milestones ahead. This includes the International Day of Peace on 21 September, which is dedicated to our WMD campaign. WMD means Weapons of Mass Destruction, WMD stands for We Must Disarm.
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