Is the War in Colombia Over?

The 45-year-old Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the oldest insurgency in Latin America, is crumbling. Several top leaders have died within the past year -- one killed by Colombian forces, another assassinated by his subordinates and its legendary commander claimed by old age. Its disarray became embarrassingly clear in July when one of its divisions was duped into releasing some of the FARC's most precious hostages, including a former Colombian presidential candidate and three U.S. military contractors.

According to the Colombian government, many of the current FARC leaders, as well as those of the smaller National Liberation Army, are no longer living in the country. Two powerful FARC divisions that operated along the Caribbean coast with nearly 500 members have essentially evaporated. Desertions have been growing at such a pace that the FARC has ceased organized operations against the Colombian military.

Colombian military leaders call it the end of the end -- not quite over yet but not far from it either. In an interview here this week, Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos described how the government has cornered the FARC by undermining its popular support, access to financing and operational capacity. "We are drowning them," he said and added "I believe (the conflict) can be won."

And he may be right -- it's hard to believe today that the FARC has any chance to recover. But it is one thing to be winning the war and another quite different to secure the peace. Today there are several indications that military advances are far outpacing other critical steps toward peace in Colombia.

While the conflict has evolved, and the military is clearly in the driver's seat, the FARC has modified its tactics and continues to inflict substantial pain. Just this month, the organization that once claimed to defend the poor and marginalized admitted to killing at least eight indigenous people in southern Colombia, accusing them of cooperating with the government.

No longer planning for combat, it terrorizes the civilian population. According to Santos, the FARC is now dedicated to planting bombs and land mines as well as kidnapping, albeit in a diminished capacity. Also, with its numbers dwindling, recruiting has grown more aggressive, forcing local families to relocate.

In Colombia, peace is never easily achieved: In 2003, President Alvaro Uribe tried to negotiate with the murderous right wing fighting faction of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, a coalition of paramilitary groups that formed in the 1980s to protect wealthy land and business owners, as well as drug dealers, from leftist guerrillas.

The government demobilized 32,000 AUC combatants and supporters and extradited several of its leaders to the United States for violating the terms of the agreement. Many of the lower-rank fighters continue to participate in programs that seek to reintegrate them to society.

Still, up to 5,000 have left the process and are likely members of 16 to 22 new illegal armed groups now fighting for control over territory with illegal drug activity or potentially lucrative agro-industries. These groups now frequently work with the "leftist" guerrillas and together terrorize local populations.

As a consequence of all this continued strife, the crisis of the internally displaced in Colombia is perhaps the greatest obstacle to secure the peace. Despite all the progress on the battlefield, the official number of people internally displaced continues to grow, now totaling more than 2.5 million people.

Among displaced communities and the organizations that represent them, "there is not a feeling that the conflict is advancing toward peace," according to Roberto Vidal, professor at the Javeriana University in Bogota. Vidal is the author of a report released this week at the Brookings Institution in Washington about the links between displacement and building peace in Colombia. The study highlights a basic conclusion drawn from other conflicts worldwide: Without enduring solutions for the displaced, through reparations or resolutions of land and property disputes, "stability and sustainable peace can hardly be achieved."

For Vidal as well as many human rights activists, a path to sustainable peace will need to pass through Washington. Just as billions of dollars in U.S. support in the last decade have been instrumental in Colombia's military successes, they feel it is now incumbent upon U.S. leaders to encourage their Colombian counterparts to forge ahead to reduce the new forms of violence, eliminate land mines and get the displaced securely back home.

In recent years, however, Democrats in Washington have been more focused on violence against trade unionists, holding up the pending free trade agreement with Colombia. And while these concerns are not misplaced, they hint at a narrow perspective that ignores how much Colombian efforts, and U.S. support for them, need to evolve.