Colombia Peace Process

Stephanie Leutert has a good summary of the Colombia peace process at Americas Quarterly.

Land reform continues to be a contentious area and just last month the FARC unveiled a 10-point communiqué outlining its requests. While the plan failed to explicitly mention the 4 to 5 million citizens currently displaced due to the conflict, successful peace talks could create new opportunities for these Colombians to return to their land.

This is unfortunate. The displaced all too often seem to get swept under the rug. For these particular negotiations, probably part of the problem is addressing it would require some level of acknowledgment that the FARC played an important role in creating the displacement.

As for land reform, it'll be tough going.  I assume the negotiators have authority to hammer out details of disarmament, but land reform is a public policy issue under the purview of the Colombian legislature that will see stubborn elite opposition. Colombia desperately needs it, but can it be done in this manner?