Military Review English Edition July-August 2016 | Page 49

COLOMBIA

in 1987. Similarly, Syria’s
crushing of the Muslim
Brotherhood, thought
disturbingly conclusive,
also produced over time
a renewed and far more
intractable insurgency,
involving many of the
same communities and
some of the same organizations that were supposedly crushed in 1982.24
Military victory does not
obviate the requirement
for reform.
In Colombia, the
government neither
(Photo courtesy of Chamal Pathirana, Wikimedia Commons)
completed its military
Sri Lankan soldiers carry their unit flags 19 May 2012 during the annual parade in Colombo, Sri Lanka,
victory nor inflicted sufmarking the anniversary of the civil war victory over Tamil Tiger rebels.
ficient harm to produce
final confrontation with LTTE from 2006 to 2009, the
a definitive balance of power in the attendant negolethality and manner of execution by the Sri Lankan
tiations. The concessions that it has made since then,
armed forces sowed the seeds for a longer-term conperversely, have largely benefited FARC rather than the
testation of government legitimacy and raised red
people, whose link to the government (i.e., legitimacy)
flags across the West as to the need for concessions
constitutes the center of gravity of almost all irregular
and compromise. Even as it was losing militarily, LTTE
confrontations of this type and whose grievances have
was given a leg up in terms of international legitimacy,
remained more or less unchanged and may, during
which may well fuel a further round of violence in the
peace, grow worse. Tellingly, the inhabitants of FARC’s
future. While international pressures have abated folnew peace zones were never consulted as their commulowing the unexpected change of government in 2015,
nity was given, like political fodder, to the narco-trafthe question remains whether the narrative of genocide fickers now in charge.
in Sri Lanka can yet provide LTTE or a successor organization a fresh lease of life.
Vulnerabilities of a
Second, a total military victory would not—and
Postconflict Society
indeed should not—preclude the types of reforms necThis brings us to a final consideration. Even if
essary to address the sources of alienation and drivers
the negotiations with FARC succeed in achieving a
of violence. The key, however, is that such reforms are
compromise that results in the formal termination of
undertaken in a manner benefiting not the armed group conflict, the historical record reveals several reasons
but the people that it claims to represent. The question
to worry about the fate of postconflict Colombia.
for Sri Lanka, therefore, is whether its government has
First, postconflict societies are in most cases fragile
done enough, in the aftermath of LTTE’s military defeat, and violent—often more so than during the final years
to co-opt a Tamil population and to avoid a re-emerof conflict.25 Where peace agreements are signed, the
gence of armed mobilization as a means to redress
state is asked to undergo deep-rooted political and
grievances in a closed political opportunity structure.
economic reforms even while maintaining public orSri Lanka’s crushing of the JVP in 1971 provides
der in a society tra umatized and powerfully shaped by
a cautionary precursor, given the resurgence of that
violence. New or mutated sources of instability must
group and the launch of a far more potent insurgency
be carefully managed, and public security must be
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