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| Photo: Gearóid Ó Loingsigh. Colombian police officer Cubillos who murdered Dilan Cruz during a protest in Bogotá. |
The peace process in Colombia with the ELN is dead and buried, though the government has only formally suspended it. But in reality, there is no such process anymore. With the outbreak of violence in the Catatumbo region, partially provoked by the so-called FARC dissidents i.e. demobilised guerrillas mobilised as criminals. According to the government the ELN has no desire for peace. Implicit in that phrase is the idea that everyone else does, even José Feliz Lafaurie, member of the state’s negotiating team, who in the midst of the process promoted a right-wing paramilitary rearming,[1] without any repercussions regarding his participation in the state’s negotiating team.
The first thing to say is that peace processes, are in practice, beyond any discourse and PR exercise, more processes of pacification than anything else. The insurgencies surrender, accommodate themselves in the structures of the state, they integrate into them and end up defending the system they fought against. It is worth remembering that they fought through violent means. They killed in the name of a supposed anti-capitalism and now without blushing they defend capitalism. These are untrustworthy people. Whoever is capable of killing someone in the name of something they now no longer defend, has no ethics, is a hollowed-out person, without political or moral reference points. The worst of killers.
But this article is not about them, but rather the powers that publicly support a peace process and project themselves up as defenders of a non-violent society, not to say a society in peace. Amongst them many of the NGOs and their funders, the western states. The USA financed many “peace” initiatives in Colombia. The Public Defender’s Office wouldn’t exist without them. But nobody takes seriously the idea that this country is one that believes in the peaceful resolution of conflicts or that they are pacifists. Though, that has not meant that successive Colombian governments have stopped describing them as great allies in the search for peace.
In the case of the European Union, against all evidence, there is a belief in some sectors that the EU is a power that promotes peace and is interested in a peaceful resolution of conflicts. Over and again the ambassadors have made statements on peace issues, and EU economic initiatives are dressed up in the language of peace. The promotion of cash crops and monocultures are called the Peace Laboratories and the Free Trade Agreement included a human rights article that has never been implemented, not even when in the midst of the National Strike in the face of a wave of police murders of youths, Gustavo Petro and various national and international organisations and personalities asked for the FTA to be suspended.[2] That letter was addressed to the European Commission in representation of Ursula von der Leyen who supports the genocide in Palestine.
In 2001, the EU described itself as a body that seeks to:
… increase the efficiency of EU action in the field of conflict prevention through more coordinated and systematic use of EU instruments and by promoting international cooperation and improving its capacity to react to incipient conflicts.[3]
There is no end of books, articles and speeches from the academic world that vouch for that vision and the NGOs have also repeatedly vouched for the same vision of the EU. They accepted no criticism and belittled any criticism of any reference to the past or interventions in other parts of the world with phrases such as “that was then, but not now” or “yes, but the EU is not the one shooting us”, i.e. it is a force for peace, that European imperialism plays a progressive role in Colombia. They never gave any importance to the criticisms of the stupidity and cynicism of their own comments. They had power, cash and the backing of the European governments.
Between 2000 and 2024, 52% of arms transfers came from the USA, 13% from Israel, 9.2% from Germany and 5.1% from Spain.[4] Whilst it is clear that the USA plays the main role in supplying arms, the genocidaires in Israel and two European countries play an important role. That is without counting the other forms of help such as training etc. But they insist that the EU is a progressive force.
But times change and the current world situation does not forgive them as much, if it were the case that it did so before. The leaders of the NGOs and more than one social organisation that kissed and hugged EU ambassadors will have to update their discourse.
On occasions following the kisses and hugs they would cry because EU companies had done them some harm. It is true, they shouldn’t have hugged the British ambassador and then cried about the killings of leaders who opposed BP in Casanare in the 1990s, but they managed to do so. Nowadays they shouldn’t do the same with various ambassadors and then complain that the health system in Colombia is in the hands of European companies, or that they continue to exploit the natural resources of Colombia. But they do. Regardless of whether Petro’s health reform is good or not, you cannot hug the EU and then cry about their companies continuing to dominate the health sector and that the health reform was sunk. But they do. The Historic Pact benches and the government cabinet is full of such people.
But is the EU a force for peace? Well, let’s look at the actual juncture. It is not the case that the EU did nothing about Palestine. It did a lot, but not in support of the Palestinians but rather the Zionists in the midst of genocide. In 2024, Germany exported more the US $160 million of arms to Israel and in the last weeks of December 2024 authorised a further US $30 million as a new year’s present.[5] Meanwhile, Germany expelled doctors who had worked in Gaza and even a former Greek minister in order censor voices against genocide. They and other governments have repressed protests, criminalising even such harmless things like wearing a Palestinian keffiyah. And recently they attacked the 8th of March demonstration because some of the women held Palestinian flags in solidarity with the women murdered by Israel in maternity hospitals, schools, refugee camps and in their own homes.[6] However, there is more than one cynic in Colombia that says that the EU is a force that cares about peace and the welfare of Colombia. I describe them as cynics, because I refuse to believe that at this point there are people so stupid, though I may be wrong about that.
For geo-strategic reasons Trump pushes his puppet Zelensky towards an agreement with Putin. The EU’s reaction was to call for more war and say that they are going to continue to support the war in Ukraine. In the middle of this juncture, Ursula von der Leyen announced an €8 billion plan to rearm Europe.[7] Germany announced that it was going to invest money to rearm and it is calculated that its war budget (not to say defence) could double to €100 billion per year.[8] The last time a German government proposed rearming it did not end well. The current German government is authoritarian and has fascist hues regarding human rights, civil liberties and war (rather than defence). It is tempting to think that it is something new, and that it has to do with Trump’s recent political manoeuvres. But that is not true either.
In 2022, Germany changed its constitution in order to increase its military expenditure and modified the rules on arms exports.[9] They took advantage of the situation following the invasion of Ukraine. But that proposal to rearm did not fall out of the sky, it had been nurtured in Germany for a long time, just like Hitler’s rearming did not begin with him but beforehand in the Weimar Republic. One of the Nazi’s victims was Carl von Ossietsky, a pacifist who campaigned against German rearming in the 1920s and who was sentenced for treason and espionage due to his pacifist work two years before Hitler came to power. We are repeating history, with the same debates between governments before WWI and also before WWII. Like then we are also witnesses to how large sections of the European left advocate for war.
So, to return to the issue and the question posed at the beginning of this article. Whether the ELN is disposed toward peace or not, we don’t know, but we do know that the European powers don’t want peace anywhere. This should be obvious, but we have for decades listened to the corrupt in the NGOs telling us the Europeans were different to the USA. They are not, they are warmongers as much in Colombia as Ukraine and Palestine. They are willing to openly support a genocide. What counts is money and the interests at stake. It is called imperialism and the USA may be the main imperialist power, but it is not the only one.
It is more than 20 years since I wrote my first criticism of the role of the EU in Colombia. The well-paid NGO functionaries, some of whom are now in Congress, others are high ranking functionaries in Petro’s government rained down criticisms. Overtime they dug themselves into their penthouses and estates and continued to affirm the most stupid things. They can apologise to the Colombian people or even to the Palestinian people for having described their executioners as friends of peace.
The European Union is not like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with a good side and another evil one in constant battle, one against the other. There is just one. Whether it proposes peace or war depends on its calculations about which is most likely to strengthen their interests in a country. So they talk about peace half-heartedly in Colombia and facilitate a genocide in Palestine. I don’t know who well disposed towards peace, but I know it is not Lafaurie, nor Petro or the EU. Peace is cheap talk from those who charge exorbitantly for the services to “peace”.
The most repugnant cognitive dissonance in Colombia is to talk of “allies for peace” who commit war crimes and crimes against humanity in other parts. In Colombia there is a war and it will be resolved one way or another. Historically the insurgencies have been the least violent ones in the Colombian armed conflict and that is backed up by international reports over the years. I apologise for embarrassing those from the large NGOs whilst you sip wine and eat imported cheese in the Soledad neighbourhood or the Zona T. You pay for the fine things in life by denying the truth, betraying your compatriots and selling your souls to the murderers of your people. You have no ethics. As the Bob Dylan song Masters of War says
Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul
But you already know that. You made your Faustian Pact with the EU, amongst others. You profit from peace over the graves of others.
References
[1] El País (23/02/2024) La nueva estrategia de seguridad ganadera revive miedo paramilitar. Camila Osorio.
[2] Letter to the European Commission. Carta a la Comisión Europea pide suspensión del tratado de libre comercio con Colombia.
[3] Commission Communication of 11 April 2001 on Conflict Prevention final - Not published in the Official Journal].
[4] Figures taken from.
[5] The Jerusalem Post (29/12/2024) Germany approves new arms exports to Israel despite ‘quiet embargo’ – report.
[6] Middle East Monitor (09/03/2025) German police crack down on pro-Palestine International Women’s Day march.
[7] The Guardian (04/03/2025) Eu chief unveils €800bn plan to ‘rearm’ Europe. Jon Henley.
[8] France 24 (05/03/2025) Germany set for massive rearmament as divide with US widens.
[9] BBC (01/06/2022) En qué consiste el histórico plan de rearme de Alemania (el mayor desde la Segunda Guerra Mundial). Cristina J. Orgaz.
⏩ Gearóid Ó Loingsigh is a political and human rights activist with extensive experience in Latin America.
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