The United Nations will expand its monitoring of the implementation of a 2016 peace deal between Colombia’s government and the now-defunct FARC guerrilla group.
The UN’s Security Council on Wednesday vowed to verify the implementation of a comprehensive rural reform and policies to improve the conditions of ethnic minorities.
The rural reform and the improvement of conditions of ethnic minorities are key elements of the agreement that included the dismantling of the FARC in 2017.
The UN’s mission in Colombia was already verifying the former guerrillas’ reintegration and the implementation of security policies for participants in the peace process.
The demobilization and disarmament of the FARC was only a part of the agreement between the former guerrillas and former President Juan Manuel Santos.
Main peace deal elements
The UN’s expanded mandate in Colombia
The rural reform is one of the main elements of the peace deal and considered key to prevent perpetual violence that first erupted in the 1940’s.
Another element if the amplification of rights for ethnic minorities like indigenous peoples and Colombia’s black minority who have disproportionally suffered from the armed conflict.
The implementation of these parts of the peace deal was largely ignored by former President Ivan Duque, whose far-right party has opposed the peace process.
Duque obstructed peace in Colombia ‘deliberately’
Why the land reform matters
The extremely unequal distribution of land and disputes about ownership have long been a major cause of violence and armed conflict in Colombia.
The distribution of land has historically been extremely unequal in Colombia, but this was aggravated by the armed conflict and the preceding civil war.
Some 8 million people, mainly farmers, were forcibly displaced by the violence. Between 2085 and 2004 alone, approximately 80,000 square kilometers of land was dispossessed from displaced farmers.
This has devastated Colombia’s rural economy and left more than 500,000 victims who have demanded the return of their lands.
Colombia’s peace deals in depth: Rural reform
What’s wrong with the ethnic minorities?
Colombia’s native peoples and descendants from African slaves make up approximately 15% of the country’s population.
The armed conflict affected them more than Colombia’s white or mestizo majority because of the location of indigenous and Afro-Colombian territories and deeply-rooted racism.
The peace deal vowed to improve the rights of these ethnic minorities as well as Colombia’s tiny gypsy minority, and improve their living conditions.
This part of the peace deal has also been largely ignored while newly formed illegal armed groups have continued to subject ethnic minorities to violence and armed conflict.
UN expert rejects violence against indigenous in southwest Colombia
Renewed efforts to make peace
President Gustavo Petro has vowed to implement a “Total Peace” policy, which seeks to implement the peace deal with he FARC and additional policies to end violence that surged during the peace process.
In order to achieve this, the Petro administration asked the UN’s Security Council to also monitor the implementation of the rural reform and measures to improve ethnic minorities’ rights in October last year.
The full implementation of the peace deal is expected to take at least a decade.