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Colombia: No matter how you cut it, the FARC deal is bad news

I didn’t do a Carnival during the weekend, but in its place I recommend that you read this article by Mary O’Grady:
The Unraveling of a Narco-Terror Non-Deal.Colombia’s FARC will keep raising its demands as the ‘peace’ charade drags on. Calling the process a ‘peace’ charade is almost being kind. I would use the word travesty, since Santos appears willing to place the government of Colombia at the mercy of the world’s largest narco-terrorist organization in exchange for their assurance that they won’t attack cities:

Still facing significant popular opposition, Mr. Santos last month tried using a scare tactic: “We have ample information that they are preparing to return to war and urban warfare, which is much more devastating than the rural war. That is a reality, I know,” he said. “If the plebiscite is not approved, we return to war, it’s that simple.”

As O’Grady points out, Santos’s own Defense Minister, Luís Carlos Villegas, contradicted that statement.

While the negotiations – hosted in communist Havana and blessed by both Pope Francis and the Obama administration – drag on for over five years, Santos has slowly phased out the people of Colombia from the process (emphasis added):

Mr. Santos initially promised a national referendum to approve each of the specific points within the final agreement. But FARC leaders insisted that the group’s members not do jail time for their many crimes against humanity, and demanded the right to enter politics—no doubt bankrolled by their immense drug-trafficking profits. These concessions require changes to the constitution that would eliminate the principle of equality under the law and allow felons to govern.

Most Colombians do not support them so Mr. Santos backtracked on his referendum pledge. Instead he is using his simple majorities in Congress to extralegally change the constitution. This will set a precedent for future presidents to rewrite the highest law of the land as it suits them, thereby dangerously concentrating power in the executive.

So Santos, who is likely looking forward to a Nobel Peace Prize, would concentrate power, while installing unelected narcoterrorists in Colombia’s Congress.

Not that this should come as a surprise; when Santos was running for re-election three years ago, he promised the FARC unelected seats in Congress, along with allowing the FARC to become a political party and labeling drug trafficking a political crime.

Last week former president Álvaro Uribe wrote in the WSJ that Narco-Terror Is Being Rewarded in ColombiaThe so-called peace deal does little to redress decades of deadly violence.

The current negotiations do not ensure genuine accountability for FARC members responsible for war crimes and human-rights violations; and that those guilty of kidnapping, murder, forced abortions, armed displacement, indiscriminate attacks on innocent women and children or drug trafficking will be appropriately punished. On the contrary, the so-called peace agreement will serve as a thick mantle of impunity.

Uribe points out that, in addition to impunity and seats in Congress, the deal is going to cost U.S. taxpayers an untold amount of money  since (emphasis added),

To make things worse, the agreement includes no demand for FARC to surrender the billions of dollars worth of illegal assets that it has amassed through the drug traffic. Colombian and American taxpayers—the latter through U.S. foreign aid to Colombia—will carry the entire burden of economic reparations for FARC’s victims.

On the very same week,

The 1st Front (also known as the “Armando Ríos” Front) of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – FARC) announced it will refuse any eventual order to lay down its arms in a press release published by Caracol Radio on July 6. The front belongs to the FARC‘s Eastern Bloc and is active in the remote eastern departments of Guaviare, Vaupés and Guainía.

InSight Crime concludes the 1st Front won’t be the last,

Following months of field research in areas with a strong guerrilla presence, InSight Crime estimates that at least 30 percent of FARC fighters will choose to ignore an eventual peace deal in order to maintain lucrative criminal economies such as drug trafficking and illegal mining.

The opposition’s Twitter hashtag is #SantosEstoNoEsPaz (#Santos This Is Not Peace)

A great deal for the FARC, a bad deal for everybody else.

And it’s ten days away.

SEE ALSO: What the FARC really want.

As of the writing of this post, I have not found an official text for the agreement either in Spanish or in English.

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