Colombia a dire lesson to Syria on futility of war

After 52 years of war, the guns finally fell silent in Colombia at midnight on Sunday, when permanent ceasefires were proclaimed both by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Colombian government.

But this happened only after 220,000 people had been killed and seven million displaced by the fighting — and it took four years to negotiate the final peace deal. Yet original causes of the Colombian civil war have been irrelevant for decades. Why is it so hard to end a lowintensity civil war?

The Syrian civil war is much more intense: as many Syrians have already been killed or fled from homes in five years of war as the total number of victims of the Colombian civil war in half a century.

But everybody in Syria is well aware the civil war in next-door Lebanon, which has much the same mix of ethnic and religious identities, lasted for 15 years.

When fighting began in Colombia in 1964 the population was mainly rural, 40 per cent were landless peasants, and barely half the country’s people were literate. It seemed an ideal environment for a Marxist guerrilla movement promising land reform, and FARC fitted the bill perfectly.

FARC grabbed a lot of territory, but Colombian governments, though corrupt, were never quite wicked and stupid enough to lose the war, and over the decades Colombia changed. The economy grew despite the fighting, there was a mass migration of peasants to the cities and education worked (98 per cent of young Colombians are now literate).

Land reform is still a big issue for the quarter of the population that remains on the land, and the peace deal promises to deliver it, but even 20 years ago it was obvious FARC could never win. The Colombia it had set out to change had changed without it, even despite it.

On the other hand, government troops could never root FARC out from its strongholds entirely, so it was time to make peace. Peace talks duly began in 1998 and continued on and off until the final push for a settlement began four years ago under President Juan Manuel Santos.

Why did it take so long? Because the “losers” had not lost, though they could never win. FARC’s leaders and its 7,000 fighters had to be amnestied, given guarantees for their safety after they disarmed, and allowed to become a legitimate political party. The two sides were not divided by ethnicity or religion, but had been killing each so long trust was lacking.

It took 17 years to reach this point, and the deal could collapse if Colombians do not vote in favour of it in a plebiscite Oct. 2. They probably will approve it, but the vote could be close because so many hate to see the rebels “rewarded”, not punished.

Now consider Syria, where atrocities have been much worse. In Syria there are profound religious and ethnic cleavages, and it’s not two sides fighting but five: the government, two mutually hostile organizations of Islamist jihadis (so-called Islamic State and the Nusra Front, now calling itself the “Army of Victory”), remaining Arab insurgents of the “Free Syrian Army”, and the Syrian Kurds.

Each has fought the others at some point. Not one has a reasonable prospect of establishing control over the whole country, but none has been driven out by a military defeat either.

There are those who see increasing engagement of the U.S. and Russia in the Syrian war as a hopeful development, since if these two superpowers can agree, maybe they could impose some kind of peace.

Perhaps, but if a simple, small-scale civil war like Colombia’s took so long to end, why would we expect Syria’s war to end any time soon? Remember Lebanon. Fifteen years.