ASSESSMENTS

What the Colombian Peace Deal Will Not Achieve

Nov 12, 2015 | 10:28 GMT

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos (L) meets with the head of the FARC guerrilla Timoleon Jimenez (R) in Havana on Sept. 23, 2015, as Cuban President Raul Castro (C) holds their hands.

(YAMIL LAGE/AFP/Getty Images)

After more than 50 years fighting off a left-wing insurgency within its borders, Colombia may be on the verge of achieving a peace agreement with the largest of the country's militant revolutionary groups, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The historic deal would effectively diminish violence in the country to whatever the other major leftist Colombian militia, the National Liberation Army (ELN), can sustain on its own. But a peace agreement would not resolve everything. Even if FARC militants by and large lay down their arms, many will stay active in criminal activity such as drug trafficking and illegal extraction of resources. Much of rural Colombia, along with several cities, would still be plagued by violence, this time perpetrated by criminal organizations in the name of profit rather than militias in the name of Marxist-Leninist ideology....

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