Speaker 1: Pushkin. I'm Mave Higgins, and this is Solvable Interviews with
Speaker 1: the world's most innovative thinkers working to solve the world's
Speaker 1: biggest problems. My solvable is to find the ways to
Speaker 1: end civil armed conflicts and to find reconciliation. That's Juan
Speaker 1: Manuel Santos, former President of Columbia, who was awarded the
Speaker 1: Nobel Peace Prize in two sixteen for his role in
Speaker 1: ending more than fifty years of conflict in that country. Now,
Speaker 1: as you can tell from my accent, i'm irit. I
Speaker 1: grew up in the Republic of Ireland, which was far
Speaker 1: from the violence and the terror happening up in Northern
Speaker 1: Ireland at the time, and I was too young to
Speaker 1: vote in the referendum for the Good Friday Agreement, which
Speaker 1: was this incredible development in the peace process between Ireland
Speaker 1: and Britain and Northern Ireland. But I have to say
Speaker 1: I remember so much relief and just such huge joy
Speaker 1: all over the country when the agreement was ratified and
Speaker 1: the violence was over. Now in Ireland it hasn't been
Speaker 1: a perfect piece, but certainly lives were saved and sanity
Speaker 1: was restored to this region that was in complete turmoil.
Speaker 1: So I was reading this UN report and one hundred
Speaker 1: years ago, whenever there was war, ninety percent of the
Speaker 1: casualties were military personnel and ten percent were civilians, mainly
Speaker 1: women and children. And now that number has totally reversed.
Speaker 1: In a war today, ninety percent of casualties are civilians.
Speaker 1: To understand how difficult it is to end a civil
Speaker 1: war or any armed conflict, really, perhaps it's useful to
Speaker 1: look at the conflicts ongoing today. There's this ongoing conflict
Speaker 1: mapping project. It's called the Armed Conflict Location and Event
Speaker 1: Data Project, and this year, just up until May of
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, they reported over eight thousand deaths in places
Speaker 1: like India, Syria, Yemen and Nigeria, and across the world overall,
Speaker 1: violence causes one point six million deaths every year. Conflicts
Speaker 1: in Syria and in Nigeria and in Yemen today, sometimes
Speaker 1: I think they look intractable, like how on earth could
Speaker 1: we even hope to see an end to these terrible times?
Speaker 1: But other wars have ended, Other conflicts like the one
Speaker 1: in Northern Ireland, they seemed endless too, but they did end.
Speaker 1: And our guests today knows more than most about just
Speaker 1: how to make peace As President of Colombia, he was
Speaker 1: instrumental in bringing to a close a decades long conflict
Speaker 1: between the government, paramilitary groups and communist guerrillas like the
Speaker 1: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, who you probably know as FARK.
Speaker 1: Millions of Colombians were displaced through the years of the conflict,
Speaker 1: and two hundred and twenty thousand people were killed. So
Speaker 1: how did Columbia put through? Former President Santos discusses how
Speaker 1: he's here with Ann Applebaum, who's reported from Columbia in
Speaker 1: the past herself. There are tons of fascinating insights in here,
Speaker 1: so let's get into it. One manual, Santos, when you
Speaker 1: became president of Columbia, you were faced with one of
Speaker 1: the longest running, most insoluble civil wars in the world.
Speaker 1: When you begin thinking about how to solve a problem
Speaker 1: like that, it seems intractable, it can't end. How do
Speaker 1: you break the problem down? What do you think of first?
Speaker 1: What was your first instinct? My first instinct was to
Speaker 1: try to get a complete picture of the problem and
Speaker 1: try to generate the necessary conditions to solve it. Many
Speaker 1: times this is not done, and when you don't have
Speaker 1: the necessary conditions at your disposal. It is impossible to
Speaker 1: solve a conflict of the nature. What do you mean
Speaker 1: by conditions? What exactly were you talking about? What? What
Speaker 1: was it wasn't known. I studied why my predecessors failed,
Speaker 1: because all of them tried to negotiate peace. And I
Speaker 1: studied more than seventeen conflicts around the world. Some of
Speaker 1: them were successful in being ended, some of them not.
Speaker 1: But I studied each and every one of these conflicts
Speaker 1: and extracted what was applicable to our conflict and the
Speaker 1: lessons that I should learn of what to do and
Speaker 1: what not to do. And when I had those conditions ready,
Speaker 1: I then started negotiations. Conditions like you have to have
Speaker 1: the military balance of power in the favor of the state.
Speaker 1: As long as the insurgency the grillers think they can
Speaker 1: win by using violence, it's very difficult to negotiate peace.
Speaker 1: You need the commanders of the insurgency to personally consider
Speaker 1: that for them on a personal level, it's better to
Speaker 1: negotiate a peace agreement than to continue the war. And
Speaker 1: something that is very very necessary in today's world. Any
Speaker 1: asymmetric war in any part of the world needs the
Speaker 1: support of the region and if necessary, of the international
Speaker 1: community to reach an agreement. So these conditions were identified
Speaker 1: and then created. Because conditions don't appear just out of
Speaker 1: the blue. You have to create those conditions, and we
Speaker 1: created those conditions in the case of Columbia. And what
Speaker 1: did you do first, What was your first effort in
Speaker 1: that direction? Well, my first effort was to strengthen our
Speaker 1: military and I had the opportunity of doing that because
Speaker 1: I was Minister of Defense before being president, and also
Speaker 1: to use the carrot and the stick with the military commanders,
Speaker 1: telling them that they personally would be better off if
Speaker 1: they negotiate peace. And something that I did which was
Speaker 1: quite controversial at the moment, was making peace with our
Speaker 1: neighbors in order to seek their support. Charles in Venezuela,
Speaker 1: who's not popular in Colombia, was very unpopular and we
Speaker 1: didn't have diplomatic relations or even trade relations with Venezuela
Speaker 1: at that time, and I made peace with him. Also
Speaker 1: with President Correa and Ecuador, the south of Colombia, we
Speaker 1: did not have diplomatic or even trade relations with either.
Speaker 1: We needed them to support the peace process, otherwise the
Speaker 1: peace process would not be successful. So I made peace
Speaker 1: with both of them. And with other neighbors, which we
Speaker 1: did not have it at that time, in good relationships
Speaker 1: Brazil and Peru and the rest of that America. I
Speaker 1: know that one of the other things you did is
Speaker 1: that you sought to give the rebel leaders some incentive
Speaker 1: to join the political process in Colombia, in other words,
Speaker 1: to bring somehow bring them in, allow them to have
Speaker 1: a political party, allow them to be elected. And this,
Speaker 1: of course was also controversial because many people feel that
Speaker 1: these are criminals and they should be in jail. Can
Speaker 1: you explain why you thought that was necessary and whether
Speaker 1: you think it worked well. Every peace process boils down
Speaker 1: 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 a space in our democracy, and almost
Speaker 1: every peace process around the world has to give the
Speaker 1: counterpart some guarantees that they can continue their struggle without
Speaker 1: violence through democratic means, and this is an essential part
Speaker 1: of any agreements. Yes, this is what was done in
Speaker 1: Northern Ireland as well. Absolutely, and every other conflict in
Speaker 1: the world has been solved by giving the counterparts some
Speaker 1: kind of guarantees in their democratic life. Otherwise they will
Speaker 1: never give up their arms unless you defeat them military
Speaker 1: and exterminate them, which is something impossible in the case
Speaker 1: of Columbia, it was impossible. Then you have to negotiate,
Speaker 1: and negotiations mean making transactions. In the case of Colombia,
Speaker 1: for example, I gave them at ten places in our Congress,
Speaker 1: five in the Senate, five in the House of Representatives
Speaker 1: to guarantee them for three period representation in Congress. And
Speaker 1: they were satisfied with that, and I think that was
Speaker 1: an essential part of the agreement. When you do that, though,
Speaker 1: don't you risk and I know this was this did
Speaker 1: happen in Colombia, don't you risk losing public support? The
Speaker 1: public is angry at these people. They're terrorists, They've caused
Speaker 1: all this damage they've killed people, they forced people to
Speaker 1: leave the country. They've been very destruct So how do
Speaker 1: you bring the public along and convince them that this
Speaker 1: 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 unpopular. You have to be able to sacrifice
Speaker 1: 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 favorability 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: worth while in every respect. I was in Columbia last
Speaker 1: year and was traveling with a friend who was doing
Speaker 1: a project. We met lots of young people who were
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs and who were building new things in Columbia, and
Speaker 1: I did have a feeling that this is a country
Speaker 1: where there was a lot of optimism. People kept beginning
Speaker 1: sentences by saying, now that we have peace, now that
Speaker 1: the war is over, now we can do things that
Speaker 1: we couldn't do before. But at the same time, they
Speaker 1: weren't at all enthusiastic about the deal, about the rebels
Speaker 1: entering the political process. It was a very strange contrast,
Speaker 1: you know, as if they were half convinced that this
Speaker 1: was a good thing, and they saw why it was beneficial,
Speaker 1: but they didn't feel optimistic about the process itself. This
Speaker 1: happens in every peace process. The people like peace, but
Speaker 1: they don't like to pay the price for peace. The
Speaker 1: price in this case was to see the guerrillas terrorists
Speaker 1: who had committed tremendous atrocity the war crimes in Congress.
Speaker 1: A lot of people, of course, don't like it. I
Speaker 1: don't like it, but it's the necessary price you have
Speaker 1: to pay in order to have peace. I prefer to
Speaker 1: have them in Congress shouting and making speeches, and to
Speaker 1: have them in the jungles can napping and putting bonds,
Speaker 1: How do you bring society around, what is the do
Speaker 1: you have advice for your successors? How do you convince
Speaker 1: people that this is a good way to end the conduct?
Speaker 1: Because I know some people are not convinced. One of
Speaker 1: the most difficult problems that you confront in a process
Speaker 1: of this order 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 have 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 peace 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: This is a common denominator of almost every piece process.
Speaker 1: Mandela was very much criticized by his own people who
Speaker 1: are 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
Speaker 1: me President don't throw into towel, continue persevere. What was
Speaker 1: your experience like of speaking to the rebels whom you'd
Speaker 1: fought against for many years? You need to put yourself
Speaker 1: in their shoes. Empathy is very important in any negotiation.
Speaker 1: What is it that they want? What are their concerns,
Speaker 1: what are their ideals, their objectives. If you don't have
Speaker 1: an idea of what they want, it's very difficult to negotiate.
Speaker 1: So I came into the negotiation with tremendous apprehension I
Speaker 1: was their worst enemy. But I made it as one
Speaker 1: of my objectives to build trust that they started trusting
Speaker 1: me and I started trusting them. Of course, I put
Speaker 1: many sort of measures throughout the process to confirm that
Speaker 1: they were negotiating good faith, and I think they did
Speaker 1: the same with me. And at the end, the trust
Speaker 1: was there that I was negotiating good faith and that
Speaker 1: they were negotiating good faith, and that was essential. From
Speaker 1: your experience, do you think you can generalize you learned
Speaker 1: from other conflicts which you studied. Are there lessons that
Speaker 1: you would like to pass on to others When you
Speaker 1: look around 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: Colombia thought that a piece agreement with the farm was possible,
Speaker 1: and people say that we made possible the impossible. And
Speaker 1: that is a lesson for any conflict if you find
Speaker 1: the correct condition and you find the correct moment, because
Speaker 1: there are moments in a process which are essential to
Speaker 1: have a successful negotiations. I think every conflict in the
Speaker 1: world can be solved. Any other specific lessons, I mean,
Speaker 1: is it is it just is it just being optimistic
Speaker 1: or there's or their specific To solve any any conflict,
Speaker 1: you you need to know what the counterpart really wants.
Speaker 1: You need to be able to convince the international in
Speaker 1: today's world, the international community, of a solution to this conflict.
Speaker 1: You need to know where you draw your red lines,
Speaker 1: but where you can give to the counterpart what is
Speaker 1: necessary to obtain peace. For example, in the case of
Speaker 1: Colombia and in the case of today's conflicts, there's no
Speaker 1: way you can have a solution with total impunity because
Speaker 1: all countries are are subject to the Rome Treaty, which
Speaker 1: is a treaty that was negotiated by the intrans community
Speaker 1: precisely to allow peaceful solutions of armed conflicts. In that
Speaker 1: Rome Statute, the International Criminal Court was born, was created,
Speaker 1: and the transitional justice was in a way invented, and
Speaker 1: the negotiation in the case of Colombia and in any case,
Speaker 1: was go and negotiate as much justice as you can
Speaker 1: without sacrificing peace. And this is the nutshell of any
Speaker 1: conflict today. You cannot have total amnesty for war criminals
Speaker 1: or people who have committed the terrorist acts that are
Speaker 1: considered crimes against humanity, But how to punish them, how
Speaker 1: to judge them, is an essential part of any conflict today.
Speaker 1: In the case of Colombia, it's the first time that
Speaker 1: the two parts sat down and negotiated a special tribunal
Speaker 1: to apply transitional justice. And this is being showed as
Speaker 1: an example for other conflicts. From no One, lots of
Speaker 1: people say whenever you approach a country in the throes
Speaker 1: of a civil war or a difficult conflict, I'm thinking
Speaker 1: of Libya, I'm thinking of several other particularly difficult places.
Speaker 1: People from those places will say, oh, our country is
Speaker 1: so specific. Our conflict is to do with our history.
Speaker 1: You know, there aren't any lessons we can learn from
Speaker 1: the outside. Sounds like you don't agree with that. No,
Speaker 1: because we're all human beings, we all have concerns, we
Speaker 1: all want to live in peace, and you get any
Speaker 1: conflict we had, a religious conflict, ethnic conflict. These conflicts
Speaker 1: can be solved when there's goodwill from both parts and
Speaker 1: a conviction that peace is better than the war. There
Speaker 1: are a lot of countries that have now have very
Speaker 1: deep divisions and deep polarization, which doesn't necessarily lead to
Speaker 1: civil war violence. One might even say that the United
Speaker 1: States right now is very bitterly divided and polarized. Do
Speaker 1: you have advice for Americans about how they can think
Speaker 1: about overcoming these deep civic divides. Well, this is a
Speaker 1: problem that is present almost everywhere in the world, this
Speaker 1: deep polarization. That's when emotions take over and arguments are
Speaker 1: left to one side. We must try to recuperate the
Speaker 1: importance of the arguments of dialogue and not simply react
Speaker 1: with your emotions. This is much easily said than done,
Speaker 1: but it is again a necessary condition to try to
Speaker 1: diminish the polarization that we're seeing in the US. In Colombia.
Speaker 1: In Europe, for example, what is happening in Europe due
Speaker 1: to the problem with migration. When you analyze the problem
Speaker 1: migration in Europe, this is a very very small problem
Speaker 1: to create such political reaction, and you have to be
Speaker 1: able to explain to the public opinion that the problem
Speaker 1: is not as big as many people are trying to
Speaker 1: present it. The problem is minimal. I will give you
Speaker 1: a statistic. In Colombia, we have today many more Venezuelan
Speaker 1: refugees than the whole amount of refugees that have gone
Speaker 1: into Europe. We had been able to cope with that.
Speaker 1: How is it possible that in Europe governments are falling
Speaker 1: because of that? It's simply an example to show you
Speaker 1: that many of the problems that have caused this polarization
Speaker 1: are not that big, and the big challenges to try
Speaker 1: to explain why this is so and try to reduce
Speaker 1: this polarization. Are there examples of ordinary Colombians or groups
Speaker 1: of Colombians who contributed to the peace process by their actions?
Speaker 1: Are there examples? You can give, oh, many, many examples.
Speaker 1: I will tell you one specific example. Her name is
Speaker 1: Pastora Mita. Her son was tortured and then killed. Two
Speaker 1: weeks later, somebody went into her house. He was wounded.
Speaker 1: He took care of him, and when he recovered he
Speaker 1: saw a photograph of her with her son, and he said,
Speaker 1: I am sorry to tell you I was the one
Speaker 1: who killed him, and I was one who tortured him.
Speaker 1: And she reacted in a most spectacular way, positive way,
Speaker 1: saying thank you for telling me, because I will forgive
Speaker 1: you and this will liberate me from my hate. That
Speaker 1: story for me was so powerful. Liberate me from my hate.
Speaker 1: This is what the world needs to be liberated from hate.
Speaker 1: And this specific example, I can mention a hundred in
Speaker 1: the war in Colombia, people who really are the heroes
Speaker 1: of this peace process. That's why when I received the
Speaker 1: Peace Prize and Nobel laureate, I said, this is not
Speaker 1: for me, It's for the victims, liberation from hate. It's
Speaker 1: such a beautiful idea and a possible reality too. But
Speaker 1: keeping the peace is always ongoing work. Since one Manuel
Speaker 1: Santos ended his term as president, his successor Van Duquet
Speaker 1: has actually undone much of his work. Some dissident fark
Speaker 1: rebels started to fight again, and lawlessness prevails in some
Speaker 1: parts of the country. And sadly, the number of social
Speaker 1: activists being killed is on the rise. As we've heard,
Speaker 1: achieving piece is incredibly difficult, and maintaining pieces possibly even
Speaker 1: more so. Columbia has a difficult road ahead, but things
Speaker 1: are undeniably better there now than the darkest days of
Speaker 1: the conflict, and their example is really want to learn from.
Speaker 1: Solvable is a collaboration between Pushkin Industries and the Rockefeller Foundation,
Speaker 1: with production by Laura Hyde, Hester Kant, Laura Sheeter, and
Speaker 1: Ruth Barnes from Chalk and Blade. Pushkin's executive producer is
Speaker 1: Neia LaBelle, Research by Sheer, Vincent, engineering by Jason Gambrel
Speaker 1: and the great folks at GSI Studios. Original music composed
Speaker 1: by Pascal Wise and special thanks to Taylor Heather Fine,
Speaker 1: Julia Barton, Carli Mgliori, Jacob Weisberg, and Malcolm Gladwell. You
Speaker 1: can learn more about solving Today's biggest problems at Rockefeller
Speaker 1: Foundation dot org, slash solvable. I'm Mave Higgins, Now go
Speaker 1: solve it.