How the Weak Wage War

If you have ever wondered what would happen if the European Union ran the world anti-terror campaign, take a look at Colombia. The Colombian government realized long ago that there was no military solution to criminal insurgency. In fact, they’ve been finding new ways to convince themselves of this supposed truth ever since the formation of leftist guerilla groups more than 40 years ago.

For all the talk of cycles of violence, the one thing Colombia has never tried is an all out military campaign to eliminate the guerillas. Action has been authorized for retaliation or to try to convince the fighters to negotiate, but not mobilization on a national scale for the purpose of killing large numbers of rebels. Even now, the government devotes only 3.5 percent of its GDP to the military—quite a laid-back response for a country under siege.

Just sometimes, though, there is no alternative to a military solution. FARC, the largest group with 17,000 fighters, has no interest in participating in a pluralistic society. FARC is a pseudo-Marxist revolutionary group (is there any other kind?) that has about as much to do with liberalism as al-Qaeda has to do with Islam. The right wing AUC, which developed in response to the government’s failure to provide security, has been known to extinguish whole villages in its reactionary zeal. Both would rather traffic in drugs than in ideas.

The United States too has failed Colombia. During the Clinton administration, aid to Colombia was limited to anti-drug efforts. Military equipment used to destroy some poor farmer’s only cash crop could not be deployed against the rebels. The United States let its obsession with the drug war blind it to the real problem—millions of acres of fertile coca-growing land under the authority of left-wing thugs.

The kind of war that has faced Colombia for decades can last for decades more. In Angola and El Salvador, countries that also faced guerilla movements, war led to the exhaustion of the warring parties, and, subsequently, peace. Though thousands are killed in Colombia each year, the vast majority are civilians. The government has not been able to put up enough resistance to appreciably wear down the rebels. Whenever the guerillas need a few years to rest and acquire fresh recruits and better weapons, they need only agree to a cease-fire and receive the laurels of the international community for reviving the peace process. Until FARC and AUC leaders are in danger of dying from something other than natural causes, they have no reason to end the war.

Give peace a chance. This is the correct opinion, the educated opinion. Behind it is the idea that peace, at any cost, is better than war. If only the two sides could sit down and talk out their differences, they would recognize their common humanity and set aside the horrors of war. If only they could understand each other. How often do we hear arguments along these lines in the newspapers, in schools and in private conversation? The guerillas understand the government well enough to have survived this long. As Colombians have come to better understand the guerillas, the more they are disillusioned with negotiations.

Colombia gave peace a chance. In 1999 the government effectively ceded the FARC a territory the size of Switzerland as a condition for negotiations. Until this year, when the government retook nominal control, this supposedly demilitarized zone had provided the guerillas a safe haven to train, improve their equipment and learn tactics from Irish Republican Army veterans. The guerillas took less interest in the peace talks, always demanding more concessions for the privilege of their company.

The lesson is not that appeasement is always a failed strategy, but that it is a limited one. The Romans used goodwill gestures throughout their history. They found that when they sent a nice urn to a ally, the goodwill gesture could signal the desire keep a close relationship. There is nothing wrong with generosity bestowed from a position of strength. But as the Israelis discovered when they withdrew from Lebanon, if the gift is seen as a concession to violence, you’re in for a lot more violence. Late in the empire, the Romans could buy off some of the barbarians at enormous cost, but they couldn’t stop the ever-increasing number who took Roman largesse as a sign of weakness.

Recently, the deadly peace process collapsed, discrediting former President Pastrana and opening the door to the election of his hardliner opponent. In Colombia, that’s the good news. When two sides can never live in peace, there is no reason for preventing the resolution that can only be achieved through war.

Ebon Y. Lee ’04 is a government concentrator in Lowell House. His column appears on alternate Mondays.