Politics in Colombia: Peace and brotherly love

THE annihilation of the Patriotic Union (UP), a small left-wing party created in 1985 as the political arm of the FARC guerrillas, was one of the darkest episodes in Colombia’s recent history. More than 3,000 members of the party, including two presidential candidates, were murdered during the 1980s and 90s by right-wing paramilitaries linked to the armed forces, as peace talks fell apart. The FARC have long cited the UP’s fate as a reason for their mistrust of democratic politics. Their opponents say that the FARC cynically used the peace talks and sacrificed the UP as a means of buying time to build up their guerrilla army—part of their strategy of “combining all forms of struggle”.The antecedent of the UP hangs over the promising new peace talks that the FARC and Colombia’s government have been conducting in Havana since November. One item on the agenda is the need to provide the FARC with guarantees that they can enter politics once they have laid down their arms. So it was helpful to both sides that a court ruled on July 4th that the UP could have its legal status as a party restored. The loss of that status, because of the party’s failure to win sufficient votes in past elections, was because of extenuating circumstances, the court ruled.Restoration was an “act of justice”, said Luciano Marín (also known by his nom de guerre, “Iván Márquez”),...



via The Economist: The Americas http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21582305-these-are-what-left-most-needs-peace-and-brotherly-love?fsrc=rss|ame