By James Petras
In late August 2012, President Santos announced that the Colombian regime was opening peace negotiations with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, (FARC), with the aim of ending nearly 50 years of civil war.
Several economic, social, political and military changes account for the Santos regimes abrupt shift from a policy of “peace” through extermination of the guerrillas to a policy of a negotiated peace.
The most basic change is the regimes adoption of an economic model based on developmentalism via large scale long term flows of foreign extractionist capital – in mining, petroleum and gas.
The second factor is the regimes’ perception that, after a decade of intense repression, including the assassination of thousands of peasants, trade unionists and human rights activists and the forcible displacement of three to four million peasants from zones of guerrilla activity, the popular insurgency no longer is an immediate threat to regime power and that it is an appropriate moment to shift from militarization of the country to exploiting its abundant natural resources, especially at a time of high commodity prices.
The third factor leading to the peace negotiations is the perception by the guerrilla leaders that new mass popular movements such as the Patriotic March (Marcha Patriotica) are emerging with a mass base and that the peace negotiations offered them a platform to present their proposals for progressive social and economic reforms. By accepting to negotiate, Santos recognized that the FARC is a “legitimate belligerent “(and not a “band of criminals”); he could not impose a “military solution” nor “exterminate” the FARC (as his predecessor Alvaro Uribe boasted); a political dialogue was possible and necessary to end the armed conflict.
