McLeod Group guest blog by Cristina Rojas, December 15, 2022
The recent election of Gustavo Petro and Francia Márquez as president and vice-president of Colombia gave a new momentum to the peace agreement between the government of Colombia and the guerrilla group FARC-EP. The agreement, signed in 2016, aimed to end the armed conflict that produced 8.7 million victims, including 7 million internally displaced people and thousands of disappeared and kidnapped people and victims of sexual violence.
The Petro-Márquez presidential program asked for support from international actors, including the United States, to address issues related to social justice, climate change, food accessibility, ending the war on drugs and promoting ethnic and gender equality. Canada should step up and join these other international actors in promoting a sustainable peace in Colombia.
Sustainable peace demands justice for marginalized communities
A major impetus for the search for justice is the accord’s commitment to construct a “stable and durable peace” in Colombia. As a result of pressure from Indigenous and Black communities, disproportionally affected by the conflict, an Ethnic Chapter was included in the peace agreement. It incorporated the right to free and informed consultation, to return to their territories, and to participate in the decisions that affected their lives. Márquez’s status as the country’s first Afro-Colombian vice-president means that she plays a crucial role in this process.
Sustainable peace requires global justice
To ensure peace, dignity, and social and climate justice, Petro and Márquez are asking for international cooperation in several areas.For instance,during the COP27 Climate Summit, Petro questioned the idea of the market as the main mechanism to overcome the climate crisis, and pleaded for a decarbonized world economy through public and global multilateral planning. The International Monetary Fund should initiate a program of exchanging debt for investment, while the world’s private and multilateral banks should stop financing the hydrocarbon economy.
In addition, Márquez supported a demand for reparations with initiatives such as cancelling the external debt to allow countries that have been victims of colonialism, slavery and climate change, to improve the living conditions for ethnic-minority communities. She also advocated the inclusion of Afro-descendant, Indigenous and peasant communities in international forums, given their practices related to environmental care and sustainability.
At the Leaders’ Summit on Global Food Security in September 2022, Petro endorsed a food sovereignty program to transform the inefficient use of land encouraged by free trade agreements, mentioning the case of the import of corn from the United States and Canada. An economy based on food production requires a shift away from cocaine, petroleum extraction and cattle ranching. He called for international collaboration to empower peasants by offering incentives to move towards food sovereignty. Petro stated the country’s dilemma this way: “if Colombia produces more agriculture and food, more corn, if it imports less corn from the United States, it exports less cocaine. Which of the two paths do we prefer?”
Petro also asked for the support of the international community to help Colombia move away from the war on drugs, which has been ineffective and proved to be a powerful driver of violence. The proposal includes redirecting international finance allocated to the war on drugs to the support of policies and programs for economic transformation.
Additional proposals include the vice-president’s call to implement a feminist foreign policy (following Canada, Chile and others) and the creation of a multilateral alliance of Indigenous peoples. Overall, the country’s new leadership has put on the world agenda a challenging and path-breaking series of demands that open up hope for a sustainable peace.
International responses
Initial responses from international actors are encouraging, including the US government’s commitment to being the “first international guarantor” of the Ethnic Chapter and the US embassy’s donation of 12 helicopters to protect the Amazon. In response to Petro’s commitment to US$200 million annually to protect the Amazon, Germany, Norway and the United Kingdom have announced contributions of their own. Márquez also signed a memorandum of cooperation with Spain to articulate efforts in favour of women, the LGBTIQ+ community and people with disabilities.
The Canadian embassy in Bogotá has supported the peace agreement through funding for Indigenous and Afro-descendant organizations. In 2021, Canada announced $29.5 million in development assistance to support, among other projects, the implementation of the Ethnic Chapter.
However, the Canadian government has not yet explicitly responded to President Petro’s initiatives, maybe because they potentially clash with Canada’s main agenda in Colombia: trade and investment, especially in the mining sector. The partnership between Canada and Colombia for a sustainable peace requires a rethinking of Canada’s support for Canadian-based extractive companies.
As the report of the Truth Commission states, civil war and the extractive economic model are the two faces of the destructive process that Indigenous and Afro-descendent communities have experienced. Recent international discussions, including COP27 and the Global Commission of Drug Policies in Colombia, point to Canada’s openness to support initiatives like “loss and damage” suffered by vulnerable countries facing climate disasters. The question is, will this openness extend to changes in Canada’s traditional support for extractive industries?
Canada could also provide more support for Indigenous and Black communities in Colombia. The new leftist Colombian government and ethnic and social organizations may well be interested in learning more about, for example, the lessons of the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the experiences of Indigenous management of boreal forests, the Squamish-led project called Senakw for land acquisition in urban Vancouver, and the Cowessess First Nation’s historic child welfare agreement with Canada and Saskatchewan. There is also potential for Indigenous-to-Indigenous partnerships, including the lessons from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and the identification of missing children who died in residential schools. Another important area for mutual learning could be recent innovations in childcare policy underway in Canada and in places like Bogotá’s District Care System.
Although Canada has not yet provided a response to the Petro-Márquez initiatives, this is a promising moment for new commitments around themes of human rights, climate justice and reconciliation with Indigenous and Afro-descendent communities. The stakes are high and so are the potential benefits for collaboration between the two countries.
Cristina Rojas is a consultant and Distinguished Research Professor, Carleton University. Image: AFP.