Farc referendum guards Mario Tama/Getty Images

Colombia Between the FARC and the People

Colombian voters' recent rejection of a peace deal with the FARC guerrillas means that the 52-year-old fight is not over. To pacify the country for good, Colombia's government needs to follow Peru's example in its own successful 12-year fight against the Shining Path.

LIMA – Colombian governments have been fighting the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) for the past 52 years, with no victory in sight. In early October, a razor-thin majority of voters rejected Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos’s proposed peace deal with the guerrillas.

Compare Colombia’s experience with that of Peru, which defeated its own guerrilla movement, the Shining Path, in less than a dozen years, from 1980 to 1992, with more than 85% popular support. Peru was able to achieve a lasting peace for two reasons.

First, the Peruvian government focused on creating rights for the poor people whom the guerrillas controlled, and it codified those rights in its 1991 agreements with the United States and the United Nations. By contrast, Santos, despite his good intentions, negotiated a peace plan that creates rights for the FARC.

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