Skip to footer

Colombia - FARC peace talks: 4 things you need to know

Colombia has ample experience holding peace talks – though over the past 50 years, it’s seen little peace. But in early September, President Juan Manuel Santos announced peace talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. Here are four things you need to know about the landmark peace process.

What will the peace talks involve?

In a nationally televised address, Mr. Santos revealed the five-point negotiating agenda the two sides agreed to in preliminary talks. Those talks have been ongoing since the start of the year and concluded Aug. 26 with an agreement to begin formal talks. Cuba and Norway are acting as “guarantors,” or facilitators, and Venezuela and Chile will act as witnesses. 

"Any responsible leader knows he can't ... pass up a possibility like this to end the conflict," Santos said in a speech from the presidential palace, where he was flanked by his full cabinet and the military top brass.

The main points of discussion in the peace process – which will begin in Oslo Oct. 8 and continue in Havana – include rural development, the recognition of victims, political participation, and the sticky issue of drug trafficking, the FARC’s main source of revenue.

Also on the agenda for the first time: putting an end to the conflict.

“Never before had the FARC allowed the issue of them laying down their weapons to be placed on the agenda of peace talks,” says political analyst Leon Valencia, director of the Nuevo Arco Iris think tank and a former member of the smaller National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrilla group.

The Colombian government announced members of its delegation for the talks, led by former Vice President Humberto de la Calle. The five-person team is made up of former heads of the armed forces and police, the peace commissioner, and a business leader. The FARC is in the process of announcing its representatives, but has already named two members: Ivan Marquez, who has negotiated in past peace talks and is a member of the guerrilla group’s six-person ruling secretariat; and Jose Santrich, a lower level FARC leader.

3 of 4
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.