Colombia: Counter/revolution in present tense

Sunday, October 2, 2016 arrived. Voting stations opened in the morning and they closed in the afternoon.

In less than one hour, it was confirmed that a small section of the Colombian population had voted No to ending the Colombian conflict through the peace agreement that had been painstakingly negotiated in Havana between September 2012 and August 2016.

The margin was minimal: only 53,894 more votes for No than Yes. Abstention was high, around 62 percent — in a country where 34,899,945 people were able to vote, only around 12.8 million did. In electoral terms, however, the outcome was clear. No won. The peace agreement cannot be implemented.

Today, the country is paralyzed. The government has extended the ceasefire until 31 October and has started negotiations with the No side. FARC leaders remain committed to the search for peace, but there are rumors that they have asked their troops (around 5,700 women and men) to start preparing a retreat to safer places. Colombians are severely polarized around the No/Yes results.

In the midst of all of this, a counter-revolution is emerging.

Small no, big no

With their vote, the No side rejected not only the end of hostilities between the Colombian army and FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) on the basis of the agreement. They also rejected a complex document of almost 300 pages, negotiated with the support of third party countries, the “international community” and international institutions, from the Security Council of the United Nations to the World Bank (for whatever that’s worth).

Its length and the time it took to prepare the agreements reflects the intricacies of the Colombian conflict, the sheer scale of the stakes involved, and the deep-rooted nature of the issues under negotiation. It is not just about ending a long conflict. It is, most of all, about trying to address some of the structural elements underpinning this apparently intractable war: land redistribution, political representation, security for new and dissenting voices, transitional justice mechanisms through which to speak truth, in order to determine what happened.

As I mentioned here, Colombia has endured 60 years — an entire lifetime — of civil war in the immediate past, two centuries in the longer republican past, and five centuries in the extended past of European colonialism.

The country seems to agree — or at least a good proportion of it — that the conflict has a colonial origin, and that the cycle of violence and domination set in motion by the Spanish conquest was compounded during Colombia’s half-baked republican history, with its long bipartisan wars, entrenched poverty, and aggressive elites. The echoes of the conquest and our tumultuous post-colonial history are materialized, today, in astronomical levels of economic inequality, land concentration, socio-spatial segregation (within cities and across the country), unemployment, internal displacement (the number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Colombia oscillates between 6 and 8 million), and criminality. The latter is, of course, associated in particular with the production and trade in narcotics — a trade which, many Colombians also agree, has become the only viable industry in a deindustrialized nation still reeling from at least 25 years of structural adjustment and “free”-trade “discipline.” The tangibility of all of these problems is intense. Reality speaks loud in Colombia.

Lights in contrast (Bogotá, 2009). Luis Eslava

With their no, the No side confirmed, willingly or not, that along with their refusal to end the war through the peace agreements, they were also opposing the beginning of a process of land redistribution, transitional mechanisms of justice, truth-telling about what took place during the war, new political formations, a space in the Congress for ex-guerrilla fighters, the lowest interest rates ever proposed by the World Bank to the country, UN Security Council support for the peace process (which would have had important repercussions for the discussion of transitional mechanisms at the International Criminal Court), a joint fight against irregular criminal groups and a ban on violence as a mechanism of political negotiation.

The visible No

The reasons behind the No were very diverse. This is extremely important to keep in mind, because there are two rationales in operation here, two levels to this No: one visible, the other subterraneous. These two levels are dancing a dangerous tango at the moment, on television, on computer and mobile phone screens, on Facebook and Twitter streams, in the rooms of political parties’ headquarters, and in the minds of all Colombians in one way or another.

At the level of open argumentation, it seems there are three main groups within the No.

One is simply opposed to the idea of welcoming guerrilla fighters into civil life, either because these voters have themselves been the direct victims of the actions of this group, or because they see a total war against FARC as the only way forward. This is the position known in Colombia as guerreristas — warmongers.

Walking behind this group, another section of the No is opposed to the agreements for two reasons. Either they feel that the peace agreements are too lax or generous with the guerrillas in terms of criminal justice and future political representation ("too much impunity"), or they insist that the agreements as a whole, beyond their failure to punish the guerrilla fighters properly, lack legitimacy. Here the absence of legitimacy is derived from a sense that the negotiations did not include all the necessary stakeholders, or that the final document of the agreement was not properly socialized, or explained to the public.

From this group one hears comments such as: “The agreements were badly designed,” “They seemed to give too much terrain to guerrillas,” “We are giving the country to them for free,” “We can negotiate something better,” “I am afraid of an uncertain future, so I voted No.”

Finally, a third group dislikes the manner in which negotiations were conducted — the procedure rather than the substance. Like the second group, voters of this persuasion feel that the agreements were not managed as they should have been, that the guerrillas were petulant at the start of the negotiations and that they have only become more sensible recently, and that the President Juan Manuel Santos, frustrated with the difficulties of keeping things on track, ended up manipulating the country by setting a plebiscite to endorse the full agreement only after it had been signed in Havana. Maybe for them, if Santos had approached the plebiscite in a different way, they would have been compelled to vote Yes. Importantly, this group, like the second No group, side themselves with a negotiated solution to the conflict. They see themselves as being on the side of peace — peace in a different way, not the “peace agreements” way. They are not “warmongers.”

The subterraneous No

A set of subterraneous reasons also underpinned the No narrative throughout the pre-plebiscite campaign, and continue to support this position in the wake of the results. Gramsci would have placed these reasons in the sphere of common sense. They are connected with broader structural conditions in Colombia, but remain largely hidden in everyday rhetorical gestures, never quite fully expressed, yet surfacing now and then in conversations, lightly peppering policy proposals about what to do next.

In my opinion, these subcutaneous reasons make the No position of the first group of voters, the guerreristas, extremely dangerous, and in the case of the second and third No positions, extremely problematic at best.

Some of these subterraneous reasons became evident immediately after the results were announced, when it became clear that the peripheral areas most affected by the conflict, often rural areas, had voted Yes, while urban areas, less affected by the conflict, had voted No.

This electoral cartography does not necessarily mean (as many international reports have argued) that the rich voted No and the poor voted Yes — or that the victims of the conflict voted Yes and urban citizens and big land owners and industrialists voted, in their relative safety, No. As I mentioned above and here last week, the conflict in Colombia is old and deeply entrenched in the country’s geography and social fabric. Everyone, in one way or another, has been affected by it.

It does show, however, that populations that have long suffered the direct effects of violence, and face an imminent threat of future direct violence if the conflict reignites, endorsed the peace agreement. Not surprisingly, these areas are also some of the poorest parts of the country — areas in which extreme concentrations of land ownership are still the norm, and in which the living conditions of people such as small producers are appalling.

Plebiscite results. Green: Yes. Orange: No. Registraduría Nacional, Colombia.

This is the case, for example, in Bojayá, a municipality in the department of Chocó, on the Pacific coast. The inhabitants of Bojayá suffered a terrible massacre perpetuated by FARC in May 2002, in which 119 civilians were killed. Residents of Bojayá supported the peace agreements en masse, as was also the case with the entire Choco, where 96.15 percent of the population voted Yes. The Yes voters in these sections of the country bet on a different future, and forgave one of the main perpetuators of violence in their territories.

At the same time, however, Sunday’s results also show that the main areas and cities in the center of the country have become the refuge of the many IDPs created by the war, and places of profound dissatisfaction with the guerrillas and the conflict. As a good example of this, we might look at how the different neighborhoods in Bogotá voted. As a whole, the city contributed the largest number of Yes votes nationally. But if one breaks down the numbers per area of the city (localidades), some of the poorest parts voted No (such as Usme, Bosa and Ciudad Bolívar). A similar thing can be said of those departments that lie close to the border with Venezuela, where the Colombian civil war has been felt profoundly in recent decades, and where panic at the prospect of a “communist revolution” (here they look across to their neighbors, mired in economic crisis) convinced many that the only option was No.

So one subterraneous reason for the No concerns the large section of the Colombian population that seeks a “strong hand” (mano dura). These ‘o voters are tired of dreaming for a better future and distrust the present. They want the real. They want army and police presence on the streets and in rural areas. They want control and a sense of order, sooner rather than later.

The face(s) of the subterraneous No

The other subterraneous reasons behind the No are directly connected to the previous point. It is here that the face of Alvaro Uribe — president between 2002 and 2010 and currently a senator on behalf of his party, Centro Democrático — must fill our screens.

Uribe represents the quintessential strongman figure. The one. The now. He makes sense for many. He speaks common sense. A massive land owner, a horse lover, rich, assertive, conservative in his dress code, fearless in his attacks on enemies, expert at twisting institutions and deflecting attacks and investigations, a hater of everything “communist,” “socialist,” Cuban, Venezuelan or the like (his father was killed by FARC in 1983 during a kidnapping attempt), and fond of the use of force, Uribe has captured the collective imagination of a huge part of Colombia for nearly 15 years.

In the context of the peace agreements, Uribe emerged as the natural leader of the No campaign. Utilising all his personality traits, he refused every invitation to take a place around the negotiation table and instead attempted to derail the conversations at every opportunity.

Once the referendum results were announced, and as soon as it was clear that he and his supporters had “won,” Uribe started to lay out his plan to rewrite the painstakingly drafted peace agreements. As a result, both guerreristas and voters whose concerns focused on questions of impunity have coalesced around Uribe with other subsections of the No that, until this week, had remained pretty much off the public radar.

Uribe has put four points on the table, none of which reflect the arguments the No campaign used to attack the Yes campaign during the run-up to the plebiscite: arguments concerning the illegitimacy and impunity promoted by the agreements are missing from the No campaign’s post-referendum proposals (see here and here). Instead, the voice of those other, more obscure No alliances have begun to surface.

Firstly, and without mentioning that this was central to the original peace agreement, Uribe has called for an amnesty for low-level guerrilla fighters. What is different is that Uribe has not specified how such an amnesty is to take place. In particular, he has not said whether he wants to condition these amnesties on the telling of the “truth” (something the original agreements set out clearly). This aspect of Uribe’s proposal has been broadly understood as repeating the basics of the agreement, and thereby suggesting that he, and the No more broadly, didn’t have any substantive concern with promoting “impunity” through the framework set up in Havana. The media and public has thus seen this proposal as evidence that Uribe is trying to gain political terrain to capture the peace process and rebrand it as his own. So far, not too bad.

Secondly, and here is where things start to become knottier, Uribe has announced that it is important to shrink the social component of the peace agreements, especially in terms of the fiscal reform that accompanies the transitional process in order to finance the agreement’s social commitments. According to Uribe, however, fiscal reform will increase taxes on foreign investors, a sector that he has openly supported for many years. He has also insisted that a peace agreement which puts “private initiative” (la iniciativa privada) at risk would destroy any future peace. Neoliberalism trumps all, in other words.

Thirdly, Uribe wants to extend the amnesty rules for guerrilla fighters to members of the official Army. He has labeled this proposal alivio judicial (judicial respite) for army officers not involved in serious war crimes. This proposal is extremely dangerous, in my opinion. Not only does it blur the line between irregular and official forces and fail to condition amnesties on the telling of ‘truth’, it suggests that Uribe is reaching out to dissatisfied members of the Armed Forces, who, up to this point, have sided with the government and the peace process. Striking back here is brute force in the form of raw sovereign power. The government should decide on the exceptions, especially if the state is administering the violence. This is mano dura that could even verge on actual impunity.

Fourthly and finally, Uribe has called attention to dissenting voices on the right as important “representatives” of civil society who should be brought to post-plebiscite peace negotiations — in particular, religious leaders and “moral pastors” (especially national Christian figures) and other visible heads of the No vote, including former conservative president Andres Pastrana and former General Inspector Alejandro Ordoñez (who recently lost his position due to irregularities in the process of his second appointment to office).

Ordoñez, famous in the country for burning ‘evil’ books during his undergraduate years, for his radical condemnation of abortion, and for his crusade to protect ‘family values’ (valores de familia), has been outspoken about an apparent “gender ideology” (una ideología de género) in the agreements. For Ordoñez, as for the religious leaders and “moral pastors’ identified by Uribe, the mention of the LGTBI population in the agreements was a further mainst”eaming of a dangerous ideology that should be prevented at all costs. Hard-fought rights won by the LGTBI movement through official channels at the Colombian Constitutional Court and the legislature are now being contested as part of the opposition to the peace agreements. Striking back here, is mano dura again — this time in its most literal masculine, heteronormative form.

Counter-revolution

The coming together of the different positions among the No-voters reveals that — minute by minute, hour by hour — a full-scale counter-revolution is developing in Colombia, under the aegis of the voting results of October 2, 2016. Visible and subterraneous reasons are merging under the stereotype that we, Colombians, have made of ourselves: claimers of mano dura.

The result is that questions about the “illegitimacy” of the agreements, about the “impunity” promoted by them, and about their alleged lack of socialization, have been superseded by the unrolling of a post-conflict agenda predicated on an even more restrictive political economy, more violence, more prejudice and fewer rights for minority groups.

As this counter-revolution takes form, the country is noticing how the electoral map, colored green and orange by the “democratic” exercise last Sunday, now speaks of deeply engrained conservative ideas, elite interests and deep-rooted fears. Like the Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom, the cartography that has emerged as a result of the plebiscite tells a story of hate and exclusion.

For the LGBTI community, this is extremely worrying. Already during the run-up to the plebiscite, memes were circulating on social media about the Yes being trapped in a "homosexual economy." A collage of Timochenko (Timoleón Jiménez), FARC’s main commander and one of the most visible figures during the peace agreement negotiation in Havana, having sexual intercourse — in the official logo shape of the Yes — with President Juan Manuel Santos, fed into a widely-circulated argument that in signing up to the peace agreement the country would give away its “virility” along with its sovereignty.

Supporters of the No who circulated this image are now at the forefront of discussions about the country’s future. Not only can they push for a more mano dura with FARC, they can also advance their disdain for the LGBTI community, as if that disdain had been articulated directly by the 6,431,376 people who voted No, and by extension the entire country which is obliged to follow the electoral result.

Revolution in present tense

Vijay Prashad has lucidly summarized the current situation: “If the vote had gone the other way, Colombia might have shown the world that even intractable civil wars can come to an end. It would have been a message to Syria and to the Congo, a message of the power of negotiation towards a new civic compact. But this did not come to pass. Even as President Santos and the FARC leadership try to maintain their optimism of a deal, the return of Mr. Uribe suggests that Colombia might turn its back on a real peace.”

While facing this reality, and the gloom it has cast over the country, it is still important to remember that on October 2, the No won by no more than a handful of votes.

As I noted before the elections, the plebiscite was an opportunity for Colombians to insist to themselves and tell each other that we are more than our stereotypes. To show ourselves that we are conscious of our own history. I believe that this is what happened last Sunday for the Yes voters, and this is what is still happening for them and for those who are realizing the limits of the No.

As I write this, Indigenous communities have just reaffirmed their Yes to peace and to the peace agreements.

Children across the country have said Yes.

The LGBTI movement has stood up again and reconfirmed that they are on the side of the peace agreements. They stand ready to argue back against the senseless idea of a “gender ideology” and the direct questioning of their rights and their place in a contemporary and future Colombia.

Students have said yes, and they are marching across Colombia at this very moment demanding “peace now.”

Marcha por la Paz (Carrera 7, Bogotá, 5 October 2016) Natalia Angel

Marcha por la Paz (Plaza de Bolívar, Bogotá, 5 October 2016) Paola A. Acosta

As the rubble of history continues to hurl itself before our feet, we, Colombians and fellow travelers, must remember that other worlds are possible. History has told us so. We must capture the memories of other, better times as they flash before us. These images, as Walter Benjamin warned us, reveal themselves only “in a moment of danger.” Our job is to try to summon up the courage to make them real.

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N.B: I must thank Rose Parfitt and Jenifer Evans for all of their comments, suggestions and generous editorial support. Thanks also to Natalia Angel and Paola Andrea Acosta for letting me use their photos of the Peace March on 5 October 2016. All limitations of this piece are clearly mine. 

An earlier version of this text was published in Critical Legal Thinking.