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Latin American Program in the News: In Colombia, Peace Talks Advance Despite Crises

Cindy Arnson

This article on the Colombian peace process quotes Latin American Program Director, Cynthia J. Arnson.

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The nine months of official talks between President Juan Manuel Santos’s government and the FARC have advanced further than any of the three previous negotiations that Colombian governments had held with the rebels.

But there are crises.

On Friday, the FARC said it would “pause” negotiations after criticizing Santos for having presented a bill to Congress that would permit a referendum for Colombians to vote on any peace accords. Hours later, the group said it would return to talks Monday.

But Santos still ordered half of his negotiating team back to Bogota for consultations, saying, “In this process, the one who declares pauses and puts conditions is not the FARC.”

Although government officials said the entire team would be back in Havana on Monday to resume talks, such squabbles have given ammunition to opponents of the talks and soured millions of Colombians on the possibility that peace will ever come to this country of 47 million people. On Saturday, news that a guerrilla ambush in the country’s eastern plains had killed 13 soldiers further outraged Colombians.

A poll published in July showed that 54 percent of Colombians surveyed were pessimistic about the talks, up from 41 percent in September 2012.

“I think there is a repudiation of the whole notion that people in the FARC should be treated other than war criminals,” said Cynthia Arnson, an expert on Latin American peace processes at Washington’s Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

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For the full article in the Washington Post, click here.

About the Author

Cindy Arnson

Cynthia J. Arnson

Distinguished Fellow, Latin America Program
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Latin America Program

The Wilson Center’s prestigious Latin America Program provides non-partisan expertise to a broad community of decision makers in the United States and Latin America on critical policy issues facing the Hemisphere. The Program provides insightful and actionable research for policymakers, private sector leaders, journalists, and public intellectuals in the United States and Latin America. To bridge the gap between scholarship and policy action, it fosters new inquiry, sponsors high-level public and private meetings among multiple stakeholders, and explores policy options to improve outcomes for citizens throughout the Americas. Drawing on the Wilson Center’s strength as the nation’s key non-partisan policy forum, the Program serves as a trusted source of analysis and a vital point of contact between the worlds of scholarship and action.  Read more