For Gómez-Suárez, if Colombia’s battle is regional, then the answer needs to be too.
He attracts a distinction between his method to the Comuneros and the best way the Colombian authorities beforehand negotiated peace with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), as soon as the most important insurgent group within the nation.
In 2016, beneath then-President Juan Manuel Santos, Colombia signed a historic peace cope with the FARC that promised rural reforms and growth in alternate for the nationwide demobilisation of the group’s fighters.
The negotiations that led as much as the deal, nonetheless, had been fraught — and a few elements of the FARC splintered off into dissident teams slightly than comply with the phrases.
Gómez-Suárez argued his region-specific method could possibly be extra environment friendly.
“With earlier agreements, specifically that with the FARC guerrillas, there was this concept that nothing is about till every little thing is agreed, which implied that the events would solely start implementation after a remaining doc was signed,” Gómez-Suárez stated.
“Our case is spectacular as a result of typically now we have even applied earlier than agreements are formally reached.”
He identified that the Comuneros proposed a unilateral ceasefire even earlier than their first assembly with the federal government’s delegates, as an indication of fine religion.
Since then, the events have signed two agreements and plan to start the Comuneros’ transition to civilian life earlier than the subsequent presidential elections in 2026.
The first agreement contains 4 factors, together with a definitive bilateral ceasefire, the gradual destruction of the group’s weapons and a collaborative programme to take away land mines all through Nariño.
The second establishes security ensures for the Purple Cross, a humanitarian nonprofit, to function within the Comuneros’ territory.
As well as, the deal requires the creation of a staff composed of Comuneros members who will likely be educated and tasked with trying to find individuals who have gone lacking throughout the battle.
In return, the federal government has pledged funding for setting up roads, aqueducts, faculties and universities within the territory, to assist tackle poverty and infrastructure shortcomings in Nariño.