Colombia’s Ambassador Hopeful Peace Talks Will End Rebel War

This could very well be the year Colombians mark the end of Latin America's longest-running guerrilla war — a nearly 50-year-old conflict between the government and Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) rebels that has left hundreds of thousands dead and countless millions displaced from their homes.

Carlos Urrutia, Bogotá's ambassador in Washington, says peace talks now under way offer Colombia's best chance in decades to negotiate a settlement to end the bloodshed once and for all….

On March 5, the peace talks were suddenly overshadowed by the death of 58-year-old Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, the fiery populist whose anti-American rhetoric put him at direct odds with Colombia — long considered one of Washington's strongest allies in Latin America….

That didn't deter experts from debating the FARC talks at a Feb. 6 conference at the National Defense University's Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies. The symposium, titled "Hemispheric Forum on the Colombia Peace Negotiations," featured Urrutia as well as retired Colombian Army Gen. Carlos Alberto Ospina Ovalle — now a professor at the center — and several Washington-based specialists on Latin America.

"As we've seen from peace processes across the Americas, without effective implementation, even the most ironclad agreement negotiated completely in good faith runs the risk of breakdown and failure," said the event's moderator, Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Council of the Americas. "It is here that the international community can and should be expected to play a meaningful role.

Nevertheless, Farnsworth said prospects for a binding peace agreement may be as good as they've ever been.

"This is the best moment in a generation — and some would say ever — to think about a final resolution of the conflict," he said. "But we won't even get to the implementation phase if the parties cannot conclude a peace agreement themselves...."
 

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