In 1995, the Guatemalan government was engaged in talks with the URNG in order to end the country's three-decade-plus civil war. Today, the Colombian government is working to end the five decade conflict with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. Both conflicts saw the deaths of over 200,000 citizens killed.
The 1995 elections were a pre-referendum on the negotiated settlement/surrender that would come the next year. While all Guatemalan political parties committed themselves to continuing to pursue peace with the URNG, it was obvious that the path to peace would be much more difficult should the FRG's Alfonso Portillo emerge victorious. Instead, the pro-peace PAN and Alvaro Arzu emerged with a 51 to 49 percent victory and the peace process continued.
One of the reasons why we believe the Guatemalan and Colombia wars lasted so long is that, unlike the Salvadoran conflict, the elites in both countries were against them (See Rettberg 2007). While the Colombia elite is by no means fully behind the peace process, there is greater support from them than there has been in the past. Elements of the military are split as well. There were important relationships between the Guatemalan guerrillas and the country's military at the individual level that I'm not sure exists in Colombia which could prove problematic if/when snags develop.
Unlike the last serious effort at peace in Colombia, the US is behind these negotiations as well. The US and the international community were fully supportive of the peace process in Guatemala, perhaps more than Guatemalans.
The accords were celebrated in Guatemala one year after the 1995 elections. At that point, the URNG turned its attention towards transforming itself into a political party. It was an overwhelming challenge made more difficult by the fact that it had to simultaneously lobby for society to go out and vote in support of constitutional reforms in 1998. Like Guatemala and unlike El Salvador, Colombians will have to approve several aspects of the peace agreement through the ballot box. In Guatemala, the accords failed as the country's elites demagogued the issued and convinced people that their passage would forever divide the country along ethnic lines. In Colombia, it is possible that the pro-peace Santos wins, the accords are signed, and then the people vote against them - just like in Guatemala!
In Guatemala, the weakened guerrillas never seriously considered rearming because of the failed to approve the constitutional reforms or to implement other aspects of the peace accords. I don't know if that would be the case in Colombia where the guerrillas are much stronger than their Guatemalan counterparts.
Finally, with the arrival of victims of the armed conflict at the table in the Colombian negotiations, the situation reminds me to a certain extent with the Guatemalan case where civil society was involved through the Assembly of Civil Society (ASC). The ASC was much more supportive of the Guatemalan guerrillas but the involvement of more than just the rebels, government, military, elite, and international community a la El Salvador is notable.
I lean towards supporting a faulty peace than continued war (I'm a softy at heart). However, I asked someone recently if it was better that Santos lose the election this weekend rather than have him win and then have the peace defeated at the ballot box. Both scenarios are dangerous. While the election is what everyone should be focusing on at this moment, they cannot ignore the groundwork that is going to be needed to convince the Colombian people to go along with the peace, to transform the FARC into a nonviolent political actor, and to help Colombia take one more step towards being the region's most interesting country.
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