Colombia Prioritizes FARC Spending Amid Peace Process Crisis

On Wednesday Colombian President, Juan Manuel Santos, issued a presidential decree ordering all national entities included in the national budget to prioritize spending "directed to financing and executing the different actions demanded by the process of reincorporation of FARC-EP members."

RELATED: 
Murder of Colombian Social Leader Highlights UN Condemnation

On Nov. 24, 2016, the Colombian government signed a peace treaty with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC, to end a five-decade-long armed conflict.

The document also contemplates the existence of a committee in charge of articulating all state efforts aimed at reincorporating former guerrilla members who have given up their arms. 

Santos' decree comes after Head of the UN Mission in Colombia, Jean Arnault, gave a negative balance to the implementation of the peace process on Nov. 21. "To this date a very high percentage of former FARC members are no longer in the territorial spaces for reincorporation," Arnault said citing "loss of trust in the options available and breaches" of state compromises.    

Earlier this month former FARC leader, Ivan Marquez, claimed the peace process was in a deep crisis and asked Santos to save it by "exclusively taking over control over its execution."

According to Marquez the Colombian Congress has failed to implement the peace treaty, criticizing the legislative body for trying to "reconfigure the treaty" instead of implementing it. 

Among the most relevant complaints are that the Special Jurisdiction for Peace was crafted as a body of justice for FARC members, excluding all other actors as agreed in Havana, and the refusal by Congress to designate legislative seats for the victims.  

Other issues remain. So far there has been no progress on land redistribution, no modernization or access to credit, and community organizers continue to be murdered.

Yesterday social leaders protested in front of Congress against a series of murders that affect their communities and to demand the implementation of the peace treaty.