Speaker 1: Pushkin. This is solvable. I'm Anne Applebaum. The answer is
Speaker 1: not to turn inward, to retreat into competing factions, distrusting
Speaker 1: those who don't look like you, or worshiped the way
Speaker 1: you do, or don't get their news from the same
Speaker 1: source as you do. We must end this uncivil war. Thankfully,
Speaker 1: President Biden was using poetic language in his inauguration speech
Speaker 1: on November twentieth, twenty one. The US is not in
Speaker 1: a state of civil war, but certainly with the insurrection
Speaker 1: at the US capital, uncivil actions by US citizens as
Speaker 1: well as our deep divisions were on full display. What
Speaker 1: is it that they want? What are their concerns, What
Speaker 1: are their ideals their objectives. If you don't have an
Speaker 1: idea of what they want, it's very difficult to negotiate.
Speaker 1: Negotiation is a way to mitigate tension. Another is to
Speaker 1: elevate truth and distinguish it from fiction. But just how
Speaker 1: best to pursue any of these tactics can be harder
Speaker 1: to discern. Here it's solvable. We're going to explore these
Speaker 1: questions and others as part of a series examining the
Speaker 1: strength of democracy and how to solve polarization in the US.
Speaker 1: President Biden has inherited a nation that is not just
Speaker 1: politically polarized, but it's also reeling from a long history
Speaker 1: of racial trauma. We know that anger and pain don't
Speaker 1: disappear with the installation of a new president. Every peace
Speaker 1: process boils down to where you draw the line between
Speaker 1: peace and justice. No matter where you draw the line,
Speaker 1: there will always be some people from one side seeking
Speaker 1: more justice or from the other side seeking more peace.
Speaker 1: Je Manuel Santos was awarded the Nobel Prize in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: He is the former president of Columbia. He is credited
Speaker 1: with reuniting his country by ending its deeply divisive civil war,
Speaker 1: a conflict that lasted more than fifty years. Columbia makes
Speaker 1: an interesting example for Americans, not because we are involved
Speaker 1: in a civil war, but because the habits of mind
Speaker 1: and the tactics that the Colombians have used to reintegrate
Speaker 1: their insurgency might help us think about how we can
Speaker 1: bring Americans back together into a single political system too.
Speaker 1: My soluble is to find the ways to end civil
Speaker 1: armed conflicts and to find reconciliation. I first spoke with
Speaker 1: one Manuel Santos in twenty nineteen. Here's our conversation Juan
Speaker 1: Manuel Santos. When you became president of Columbia, you were
Speaker 1: faced with one of the longest running, most insoluble civil
Speaker 1: wars in the world. When you begin thinking about how
Speaker 1: to solve a problem like that, it seems intractable, it
Speaker 1: can't end. How do you break the problem down? What
Speaker 1: do you think of first? What was your first instinct?
Speaker 1: My first instinct was to try to get a complete
Speaker 1: picture of the problem and try to generate the necessary
Speaker 1: conditions to solve it. Many times this is not done,
Speaker 1: and when you don't have the necessary conditions at your disposal,
Speaker 1: it is impossible to solve a conflict of the nature.
Speaker 1: What do you mean by conditions? What exactly what you're
Speaker 1: talking about. I studied why my predecessors failed, because all
Speaker 1: of them tried to negotiate peace. And I studied more
Speaker 1: than seventeen conflicts around the world. Some of them were
Speaker 1: successful in being ended, some of them not. But I
Speaker 1: studied each and every one of these conflicts and extracted
Speaker 1: what was applicable to our conflict and what to do
Speaker 1: and what not to do. And when I had those
Speaker 1: conditions ready, I then started negotiations. Conditions like you have
Speaker 1: to have the military balance of power in the favor
Speaker 1: of the state. As long as the insurgency the grillers
Speaker 1: think they can win by using violence, it's very difficult
Speaker 1: to negotiate peace. You need the commanders of the insurgency
Speaker 1: to personally consider that for them on a personal level,
Speaker 1: it's better to negotiate a peace agreement than to continue
Speaker 1: the war. And something that is very very necessary in
Speaker 1: today's world. Any asymmetric war in any part of the
Speaker 1: world needs the support of the region and if necessary,
Speaker 1: of the international community to reach an agreement. So these
Speaker 1: conditions were identified and then created. Because conditions don't appear
Speaker 1: just out of the blue. You have to create those conditions,
Speaker 1: and we created those conditions in the case of Colombia.
Speaker 1: And what did you do first? Well, my first effort
Speaker 1: was to strengthen our military and I had the opportunity
Speaker 1: of doing that because I was Minister of Defense before
Speaker 1: being president. And also to use the carrot and the
Speaker 1: stick with the military commanders, telling them that they personally
Speaker 1: would be better off if they negotiate peace. And something
Speaker 1: that I did which was quite controversial at the moment,
Speaker 1: was making peace with our neighbors in order to seek
Speaker 1: their support. Charis in Venezuela, who's not popular in Colombia,
Speaker 1: was very unpopular, and we didn't have diplomatics or even
Speaker 1: trade relations with aswell at that time, and I made
Speaker 1: peace with him. Also with President Correa and Ecuador, the
Speaker 1: south of Colombia. We did not have diplomatic or even
Speaker 1: trade relations with either, and we needed them to support
Speaker 1: the peace process, otherwise the peace process would not be successful.
Speaker 1: So I made peace with both of them, and with
Speaker 1: other neighbors which we did not have it at that time,
Speaker 1: in good relationships Brazil and Peru and the rest of
Speaker 1: that America. I know that one of the other things
Speaker 1: you did is that you sought to give the rebel
Speaker 1: leaders some incentive to join the political process in Colombia,
Speaker 1: in other words, to bring somehow bring them in, allow
Speaker 1: them to have a political party, allow them to be elected.
Speaker 1: And this, of course was also controversial because many people
Speaker 1: feel that these are criminals and they should be in jail.
Speaker 1: Can you explain why you thought that was necessary and
Speaker 1: whether you think it worked well. Every peace process boils
Speaker 1: down to where you draw the line between peace and justice.
Speaker 1: No matter where you draw the line, there will always
Speaker 1: be some people from one side seeking more justice or
Speaker 1: from the other side seeking more peace. So to make
Speaker 1: peace is not very popular, and this is an experience
Speaker 1: that all peacemakers have had during the recent history. Also,
Speaker 1: in a process of this sort, what are the guerrillas
Speaker 1: fighting for. They want to change the country, they want
Speaker 1: political power, and you have to give them a way out,
Speaker 1: a dignified way out, if you want them to lay
Speaker 1: down their arms, and the way to do that is
Speaker 1: to offer them space in our democracy. And almost every
Speaker 1: peace process around the world has to give the counterpart
Speaker 1: some guarantees that they can continue their struggle without violence
Speaker 1: through democratic means. And this is an essential part of
Speaker 1: any agreement. Yes, this is what was done in Northern
Speaker 1: Ireland as well. Absolutely, and every other conflict in the
Speaker 1: world has been solved by giving the counterparts some kind
Speaker 1: of guarantees in their democratic life. Otherwise they will never
Speaker 1: give up their arms unless you defeat them militarily and
Speaker 1: exterminate them, which is something impossible. In the case of Columbia,
Speaker 1: it was impossible. Then you have to negotiate, and negotiations
Speaker 1: mean making transactions. In the case of Colombia, for example,
Speaker 1: I gave them ten places in our Congress, five in
Speaker 1: the Senate, five in the House of Representatives, to guarantee
Speaker 1: them for three periods representation in Congress. And they were
Speaker 1: satisfied with that, and I think that was an essential
Speaker 1: part of the agreement. When you do that, though, don't
Speaker 1: you really and I know this was you know this
Speaker 1: did happen in Colombia, don't you risk losing public support?
Speaker 1: The public is angry at these people. They're terrorists. They've
Speaker 1: caused all this damage, They've killed people, they forced people
Speaker 1: to leave the country. They've been very destructive. So how
Speaker 1: do you bring the public along and convince them that
Speaker 1: this is trade off between peace and justice is worth it.
Speaker 1: When I became president, I was the most popular politician
Speaker 1: in Colombia. I had more than eighty five percent favorability.
Speaker 1: As soon as I talked about negotiating peace, I was warned,
Speaker 1: this will cost you your political capital. People will not
Speaker 1: understand that you are very effective. Hawk was elected because
Speaker 1: you were successful making war. You now sit down with
Speaker 1: the terrorists to make peace. But it's the only way
Speaker 1: to finish the war through a negotiation, And so you
Speaker 1: have to be able to do what is correct, even
Speaker 1: though it's I'm popular. You have to be able to
Speaker 1: sacrifice your political capital if you want to achieve your objectives.
Speaker 1: And I was warned that was going to happen, and
Speaker 1: it happened. My favoriteity went down dramatically. But I have
Speaker 1: the great satisfaction of ending the war with the FARC
Speaker 1: after fifty years, and that, of course, is made it
Speaker 1: worthwhile in every respect. I was in Columbia last year
Speaker 1: and was traveling with a friend who was doing a project.
Speaker 1: We met lots of young people who were entrepreneurs and
Speaker 1: who were building new things in Columbia, and I did
Speaker 1: have a feeling that this is a country where there
Speaker 1: was a lot of optimism. People kept beginning sentences by saying,
Speaker 1: now that we have peace, now that the war is over,
Speaker 1: now we can do things that we couldn't do before.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, they weren't at all enthusiastic
Speaker 1: about the deal, about the rebels entering the political process.
Speaker 1: It was a very strange contrast, you know, You is
Speaker 1: if they were half convinced that this was a good thing,
Speaker 1: and they saw why it was beneficial, but they didn't
Speaker 1: feel optimistic about the process itself. This happens in every
Speaker 1: peace process. The people like peace, but they don't like
Speaker 1: to pay the price for peace. The price in this
Speaker 1: case was to see the guerrillas terrorists who had committed
Speaker 1: tremendous atrocities war crimes in congress. A lot of people,
Speaker 1: of course, don't like it. I don't like it, but
Speaker 1: it's the necessary price you have to pay in order
Speaker 1: to have peace. I prefer to have them in congress
Speaker 1: shouting and making speeches, then to have them in the
Speaker 1: jungles can napping and putting bonds. How do you bring
Speaker 1: society around? What is the Do you have advice for
Speaker 1: your successors? How do you How do you convince people
Speaker 1: that this is a good way to end the conflict,
Speaker 1: because I know some people are not convinced. One of
Speaker 1: the most difficult problems that you run in a process
Speaker 1: of this sort is to tell the people that they
Speaker 1: have to learn how to forgive, how to reconciliate. And
Speaker 1: this is very hard. To tell a mother whose daughter
Speaker 1: or son had been killed raped to forgive the perpetrators.
Speaker 1: This is very, very difficult. But I learned from the
Speaker 1: victims that the victims, and this is a very strange paradox,
Speaker 1: were the ones who at the end were more enthusiastic
Speaker 1: about ending the war because they did not want other
Speaker 1: people to suffer what they suffered. For me, that was
Speaker 1: a lesson in life. I never expected that. On the contrary,
Speaker 1: people who had never experienced war or was not affected
Speaker 1: by war were the ones who were more critical of
Speaker 1: the peace process. But this is something which is normally
Speaker 1: in many other processes. I studied them. For example, in
Speaker 1: the case of Israel and Palestine, Prime Minister Rabine, who
Speaker 1: paid with his life the piece processes he did with
Speaker 1: the Palestinians, experienced that from the Israeli people who did
Speaker 1: not want the Palestinians to have a say in Israeli politics.
Speaker 1: And this is a common denominator of almost every piece process.
Speaker 1: Mandela who was very much criticized by his own people
Speaker 1: for being too lenient, but as he said, if you
Speaker 1: want peace, you need to make transactions. Did you meet
Speaker 1: with victims? Yes, I had a marvelous experience. A professor
Speaker 1: from Harvard went and visited me at the beginning of
Speaker 1: my government and said, you are embarking in a very
Speaker 1: very difficult trip. I advise you when you're sad, when
Speaker 1: you're about to throw in the towel to talk to
Speaker 1: the victims, tell you their dramas, what they have gone through.
Speaker 1: That will re energize you. And that's what I did.
Speaker 1: I had as a discipline to talk to victims every
Speaker 1: week or every two weeks, to different victims, and that
Speaker 1: served through the process with six years as a tremendous
Speaker 1: re energizer. Every time I talked to a victim, I
Speaker 1: came out saying I have to continue, I have to persevere.
Speaker 1: And they, the victims, were the first ones to tell me, President,
Speaker 1: don't throw into town, continue persevere. What was your experience
Speaker 1: like of speaking to the rebels whom you'd fought against
Speaker 1: for many years? You need to put yourself in their shoes.
Speaker 1: Empathy is very important in any negotiation. What is it
Speaker 1: that they want, What are their concerns, what are their
Speaker 1: ideals their objectives. If you don't have an idea of
Speaker 1: what they want, it's very difficult to negotiate. So I
Speaker 1: came into the negotiation with tremendous ap hancian. I was
Speaker 1: their worst enemy, but I made it as one of
Speaker 1: my objectives to build trust that they started trusting me
Speaker 1: and I started trusting them. Of course, I put many
Speaker 1: sort of measures throughout the process to confirm that they
Speaker 1: were negotiating good faith, and I think they did the
Speaker 1: same with me, and at the end the trust was
Speaker 1: there that I was negotiating good faith and that they
Speaker 1: were negotiating good faith, and that was essential. From your experience,
Speaker 1: do you think you can generalize you learned from other
Speaker 1: conflicts which you studied. Are there lessons that you would
Speaker 1: like to pass on to others when you look around
Speaker 1: the world, when you look at you at Israel, Palestine,
Speaker 1: or at some of the other other civil wars that continue, Yes,
Speaker 1: there are many lessons. First, that every conflict can have
Speaker 1: a solution. Five years ago, six years ago, nobody in
Speaker 1: colum We thought that a peace agreement with the fart
Speaker 1: was possible, and people say that we made possible the impossible.
Speaker 1: And that is a lesson for any conflict if you
Speaker 1: find the correct conditions and you find the correct moment,
Speaker 1: because there are moments in a process which are essential
Speaker 1: to have a successful negotiations. I think every conflict in
Speaker 1: the world can be solved. Any other specific lessons I mean,
Speaker 1: is it just is it just being optimistic or the
Speaker 1: specific of any conflict, you need to know what the
Speaker 1: counterpart really wants. You need to be able to convince
Speaker 1: the international in today's world, the international community, of a
Speaker 1: solution to this conflict. You need to know where you
Speaker 1: draw your red lines, but where you can give to
Speaker 1: the counterpart what is necessary to obtain peace. For example,
Speaker 1: in the case of Colombia, and in the case of
Speaker 1: today's conflicts, there's no way you can have a solution
Speaker 1: with total impunity because all countries are are subject to
Speaker 1: the Rome Treaty, which is a treaty that was negotiated
Speaker 1: by the international community precisely to allow peaceful solutions of
Speaker 1: armed conflicts. In that Rome Statute, the International Criminal Court
Speaker 1: was born, was created, and the transitional justice was in
Speaker 1: a way invented, and the negotiation in the case of
Speaker 1: Colombia and in any case, was go and negotiate as
Speaker 1: much justice as you can without sacrificing peace. And this
Speaker 1: is the nutshell of any today. You cannot have total
Speaker 1: amnesty for war criminals or people who have committed terrorist
Speaker 1: acts that are considered crimes against humanity, But how to
Speaker 1: punish them, how to judge them, is an essential part
Speaker 1: of any conflict today. In the case of Colombia, it's
Speaker 1: the first time that the two parts sat down and
Speaker 1: negotiated a special tribunal to apply transitional justice, and this
Speaker 1: is being showed as an example for other conflicts from
Speaker 1: No One. Lots of people say, whenever you approach a
Speaker 1: country in the throes of a civil war or a
Speaker 1: difficult conflict, I'm thinking of Libya, I'm thinking of several
Speaker 1: other particularly difficult places. People from those places will say, Oh,
Speaker 1: our country is so specific. Our conflict is to do
Speaker 1: with our history. You know, there aren't any lessons we
Speaker 1: can learn from the outside. Sounds like you don't agree
Speaker 1: with that. No, because we're all human beings, we all
Speaker 1: have concerns, we all want to live in peace, and
Speaker 1: you get any conflict via a religious conflict, ethnic conflict.
Speaker 1: These conflicts can be solved when there's goodwill from both
Speaker 1: parts and a conviction that peace is better than the war.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of countries that have now have
Speaker 1: very deep divisions and deep polarization, which doesn't necessarily lead
Speaker 1: to civil war violence. The United States right now is
Speaker 1: very bitterly divided and polarized. Do you have advice for
Speaker 1: Americans about how they can think about overcoming these deep
Speaker 1: civic divides? Well, this is a problem that there is
Speaker 1: president Almost everywhere in the world, there's deep polarization. That's
Speaker 1: when emotions take over and arguments are left to one side.
Speaker 1: We must try to recuperate the importance of the arguments
Speaker 1: of dialogue and not simply react with your emotions. This
Speaker 1: is much easily said than done, but it is again
Speaker 1: a necessary condition to try to diminish the polarization that
Speaker 1: we're seeing in the US, in Colombia, in Europe, for example,
Speaker 1: what is happening in Europe due to the problem with migration.
Speaker 1: When you analyze the problem migration in Europe, this is
Speaker 1: a very very small problem to create such political reaction,
Speaker 1: and you have to be able to explain to the
Speaker 1: public opinion that the problem is not as big as
Speaker 1: many people are trying to present it. The problem is minimal.
Speaker 1: I will give you a statistic. In Colombia, we have
Speaker 1: today many more Venezuelan refugees than the whole amount of
Speaker 1: refugees that have gone into Europe. We had been able
Speaker 1: to cope with that. How is it possible that in
Speaker 1: Europe governments are falling because of that? It's simply an
Speaker 1: example to show you that many of the problems that
Speaker 1: have caused this polarization are not that big, and the
Speaker 1: big challenges to try to explain why this is so
Speaker 1: and try to reduce the polarization. Are there examples of
Speaker 1: ordinary Colombians or groups of Colombians who contributed to the
Speaker 1: peace process by their actions? Are there examples? You can give,
Speaker 1: oh many many examples. I will tell you one specific example.
Speaker 1: Her name is Pastora Mida. Her son was tortured and
Speaker 1: then killed. Two weeks later, somebody went into her house.
Speaker 1: He was wounded, and she took care of him. And
Speaker 1: when he recovered, he saw a photograph of her with
Speaker 1: her son, and he said, I am sorry to tell
Speaker 1: you I was the one who killed him, and I
Speaker 1: was the one who tortured him. And she reacted in
Speaker 1: a most spectacular way, positive way, saying, thank you for
Speaker 1: telling me, because I will forgive you and this will
Speaker 1: liberate me from my hate. That story for me was
Speaker 1: so powerful, liberate me from my hate. This is what
Speaker 1: the world needs to be liberated from hate. And this
Speaker 1: specific example I can mention a hundred in the war
Speaker 1: in Colombia, people who really are the heroes of this
Speaker 1: peace process. That's why when I received the Peace Prize
Speaker 1: and Nobel Laureate. I said this is not for me,
Speaker 1: It's for the victims. That was the former President of Columbia,
Speaker 1: Juan Manuel Santos. To learn more about the Colombian peace
Speaker 1: process and truth and reconciliation, please check out our show notes.
Speaker 1: Solvable is produced by Joscelyn Frank, Research and booking by
Speaker 1: Lisa Dunn. Our managing producer is Katherine Gerardo and our
Speaker 1: executive producer is mil LaBelle. Solvable is a production of
Speaker 1: Pushkin Industries. You can find additional Pushkin podcasts on the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows. I'm Ann Applebaum.