← LSE: Public lectures and events
LSE: Public lectures and events
Sustainability, peace and development: in conversation with Juan Manuel Santos
01:24:01
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Welcome to the LSE Events Podcast by the London School of Economics and Political Science.
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Get ready to hear from some of the most influential international figures in the social sciences.
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Good evening, everyone. My name is Larry Kramer and for those who don't know, I'm the President and Vice Chancellor here at lse and it's my pleasure to welcome both our online audience and our live audience here in the Sheikh Zayed Group Theater for this event hosted by LSE's Global School of Sustainability. The Global School of Sustainability, or GSOSS as we call it, is new and this is the second in a series of events we're holding in connection with its launch. LSE's the Global School is an interdisciplinary center institute for research on sustainability expertise and impact. And that latter point, impact is particularly important. GSOC obviously will maintain LSE's high standards for pioneering research advancing social science, and will do so on several fronts related to sustainability. In particular, things like the finances that are needed for a green transition, the political and legal mechanisms that are needed for environmental protection. But it will have a particular focus on global policy engagement with partners here at LSE and around the world. The vision of GSAS is to help shape a sustainable world, one that's resilient, prosperous and inclusive. And it's going to strive to do that, is striving to do that by focusing on the most deeply rooted, expansive and complex obstacles to a sustainable future, and by mobilizing a substantial global network to collaborate on solving the most pressing economic, political, social and behavioral challenges to achieving sustainability. So, speaking of a global network, we're honored this evening to be hosting one of LSE's most prominent alums, as well as a friend, partner and inspiration, Juan Manuel Santos. I suspect everyone knows this, but Juan Manuel Santos was President of Colombia from 2010 to 2018. And among many accomplishments, he's known for what he achieved in the interconnected areas that we will focus on this evening. Peace, sustainability and justice. For his role ending his country's long running civil war, President Santos was awarded the Nobel peace Prize in 2016. At the time, the Nobel Committee added that the distinction is, quote, a tribute to the Colombian people who, despite great hardships and abuses, have not given up hope of a just peace. And to all the parties who have contributed to the peace process. President Santos never lost sight of that just peace. Taking steps to ensure a just transition and laying the groundwork for eventual unity and reconciliation. He emphasized not only justice for the victims, but importantly, the desire for truth. Inaugurating a historic truth commission to investigate the victimization of civilians during the civil war. President Santos is also noteworthy as an outspoken advocate for the protection of biodiversity and for fighting climate change. During his presidency, he significantly expanded protected areas in Colombia and strengthened the Ministry for the Environment. One of his biggest achievements in this area was the expansion of marine protected areas from 1.2 million hectares in 2010 to 12.8 million in 2018. He was also one of the initial promoters of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, was the person who formally introduced their adoption to the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro in 2012. There's a lot more I could say about our guest tonight, from his work today chairing the elders and mediating conflicts around the world, to his innovative policy approaches to the crisis of multidimensional poverty and his staunch defense of freedom of the press. But surely his greatest achievements is his two degrees from LSE, an MSc in 1975, 50 years ago today, and an honorary doctorate in 2019. So let's welcome him back to his intellectual home. Now, before we begin, we are also lucky to have two outstanding LSE scholars with us to discuss all of these issues with President Santos. Mary Calder is Professor Emeritus of Global Governance and Director of the Conflict Research Program at lse. She's had a brilliantly influential career writing on an international relations, humanitarian intervention and the globalization of civil society. Professor Lloyd Nicholas Stern is IG Patel Chair of Economics and Government and the inaugural Chair of the Global School of Sustainability, clearly one of the world's most well known and compelling academic and policy figures on, among other things, the subject of climate change. Nick's forthcoming book, the Growth story of the 21st the economics and Opportunity of Climate Action, will be published by LSE Press and launched in an event here next week. So look out for that, please. The way we're going to structure this evening is Nick and President Santos will have a conversation for a few minutes, then Mary's going to make a comment and then ask them a question. And then we will open it up to questions from the audience. And so there will be a chance for you to put questions to our panel. And I'll try my best to engage a range of views from both our online audience and our audience here in the theater. Although I'm not sure who's doing the online.
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Did we not. There you are.
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Okay, thank you. Good to know that for social media users following the conversation, the hashtag for tonight's event is the very clever SE Events. And with that, it's now my pleasure to turn the proceedings over to Nick, for a conversation with our guest.
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Thank you.
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Thank.
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You.
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Thank you. Thank you so much, Larry, for that warm welcome. First basic test is can you hear us in the back row? Very good. We pass that one. Juan Manuel, welcome back and congratulations on the 50th anniversary of your MSc here. Those of you who are studying for MScs will look forward to your next 50 years. And we trust that you'll have achievements that might be of the kind that Juan Manuel had, but that would probably only the best of you who are going to be able to manage that. I've got three questions for Juan Manuel which I'll go through in order. One will be about the peace process in Colombia and its lessons for the challenges we face now. The second will be on being president of a country striving for sustainability, but also with dependence on fossil fuels. And the third one will be about his new role as a chair of the elders and how he sees the challenges of wisdom in a turbulent, often irrational world. So those are the three questions. So first, Juan Marel, could you tell us something about the experience of those six years of negotiations in the context of decades, decades of civil war, and how you think that can guide us in managing conflict current and future, Please.
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A
Thank you. First of all, it's a great honor, a great privilege, and I'm very happy to come back to my alma mater. I never forget what I learned here. I was telling some students before this event how my very first class here was with a very well known professor called Amartya Sen, who now is still a professor, he's 92 years old and that he's teaching a course that I would love to take because I have no idea what all about, but it's called intuition. And right now we need good intuition to try to see how we behave in this very unpredictable world, the peace process in Colombia. And I would add that to the peace process and peace with nature. And very shortly I will tell you an anecdote that was very important for me when I was inaugurated that day, 7th of August 2010 as President. That morning I went to oldest indigenous community not only in Colombia, probably in the western hemisphere, the ones that maintain the pre Hispanic culture, the best called the cogis in the north of Colombia. And I went to pay a tribute to them. And so I asked them for their permission to go that afternoon and be sworn in in the Colombian Congress. And the governors of this indigenous community called the Mamos, they said, okay, we give you our blessing. We are very encouraged that you are the first head of state. In the history that recognizes us as your older brothers officially by asking our permission to take over the country. And they gave me a baton that says, here's a mandate. Make peace in this terrible war that we are going through, but also make peace with nature, because you will not have peace among humans if you don't make peace with nature. And they gave me the mandate at the end of my presidency because they told me to bring the baton back. I went to the same community, the same mamos, very proud, with a peace agreement that I had signed with the FAR guerrillas and with what the United nations had approved the SDGs as the mandate to make peace with nature as adhere. Is the mandate fulfilled? And they said, come back in a week. I was still president, said, okay, I will. And I went back, and they said, the peace agreement with the FARC is okay, but the peace with nature, that is not okay. And I said, why? And they said, because it's lacking the most important factor of a peace process with nature. And I said, but what could be what? What is lacking? Every single country approved it. We had a very interesting and very hard negotiation. We came out with the 17 SDGs. What is lacking? And they said, the most important factor, the spiritual factor, it's not present here. And unless the human beings feel that nature has life and that nature is in the same level as the humans and that mountains have life and that the rivers have life, they will never be peace with nature. So you take the baton and continue trying to make peace with nature. And that's what I've been trying to do, among other things, since I lost and since I ended my presidency. I tell this because they were an inspiration on how to go about trying to make peace. Colombia was suffering the most, the oldest war with the most powerful and oldest guerrilla group in the whole of the Western hemisphere. And everybody said, don't try. All your predecessors have tried. They failed. You were elected as a war hero. Because I was minister of defense before. Continue. You are good at what you're doing. Why spend your political capital in sitting down with these people who will never make peace? And I had remembered a conversation I had with Nelson Mandela many years back when he described how he made peace in South Africa. And he said, you can make peace. There's nothing. There's some. I remember some sentences that he uses a lot. It's not impossible. It is possible if you generate the correct conditions and you can create them. And I remember that phrase. And I started to identify the correct conditions to have a successful peace process. For example, to have the military balance of power in favor of the state, because as long as the guerrillas thought they would win by violence, they would will never negotiate in good faith and have the backing of your neighbors. Very important for the guerrillas not to use the other countries as safe havens. So I had to make peace with Venezuela, because when I became president, we didn't have any diplomatic or any kind of communication with Venezuela or with Ecuador, and very little with Brazil and Peru. So we created the conditions. But one of the most important things that happened during, before we started the negotiation or during the negotiations was an advice that a military commander, commander of the army, when I was Minister of defense and then I was president, gave me. He said, I know that you want peace, you are now making war, but treat the FARC not as your enemies, but as your adversaries. And I said, and what is the difference? He said, there's a big difference. Enemies you eliminate, adversaries you beat. But take into account that you will live with them the rest of your lives. Treat them as human beings. They have mothers, they have brothers, they have sons and daughters. Respect even their human rights. And that was such a powerful advice that I changed the whole culture of our military. Very difficult because military institutions are very conservative. But we did. And at the end, instead of giving the report after a battle of how many guerrillas were dead, they were given a report of how many guerrillas were wounded and taken to hospital. And I said, we achieved a very important victory, which is putting the human beings in the medal in the. In the middle of the negotiation and respected their dignity. They will eventually appreciate that. And afterwards, when I signed the piece, the commanders of the FARC told me, the airplanes that you send to bomb us or the helicopters to machine gun those, we. We expected them. But what we never expected was what you did to change the culture of the military, to treat us as human beings. And that was the most powerful weapon that you could have used, because our people started to consider the army, the soldiers also as human beings. And that was a very important start basis for. For the negotiation. And then when we said, what are the key elements for successful negotiations besides these conditions that the preconditions? And then we started to identify them. One person who helped me enormously is the current National Security Advisor in the uk. He was the chief negotiator and chief of staff of Tony Blair with the Good Friday Agreement, Jonathan Powell. I had a group of advisors who had had real time experience in peace negotiations, who, who advised me on how to administer such a difficult process. Because making peace, I always say, is much more difficult than making war. Making war is quite easy. You give orders and as long as you win, you are in good shape. But making peace needs a completely different type of leadership and completely different attitude. Instead of giving orders, you have to persuade, you have to educate, you have to convince a mother whose daughter has been killed, raped and killed, that the perpetrators will have a special justice and not a traditional punitive justice. Those type of things are extremely difficult. But if you persevere. And what we did was let's negotiate an agreement. And it's the first one under the umbrella of the Rome Statute, which was an international treaty that was negotiated to facilitate conflict resolutions. Let's put the victims in the center of the negotiations and their rights. Because usually the victims in the wars were in a way not acknowledged, they were not important. And the victims are the ones who really suffer the consequences of any war. So we put the victims in the center and gave them a special voice in the negotiation to defend their rights. And their rights are established in the Rome Statute. The victims have the right to the truth. And I remember having a conversation with Desmond Tutu about the importance of bringing out the truth in a conflict or after a conflict to reconcile. And many of the victims during the process told me, Mr. President, we don't want reparations, which is another right of the victims, therefore rights, truth, reparation, justice and non repetition reparations. We don't want any money. How much is my daughter worth or my father worth? We want the truth. We want these people to tell me why they did what they did as a way to repair them. And it's incredible how the process of bringing out the truth facilitates reconciliation. And so we made these four rights as the heart of the negotiation. I did something quite audacious. That again was the advice of another, of another great negotiator. He was a foreign former foreign minister of Israel called Shlomo Ben Ami, who was the architect of the Camp David agreement between Palestine and Israel. He said, they will ask you for a ceasefire, don't accept a ceasefire until you have an agreement and apply the Rabin doctrine. And I said, what is the Rabin doctrine? It's the former minister, former Prime Minister of Israel, Isaac Rabin, who told Arafat when he was negotiating, we will negotiate peace as if there is no terrorism, but I will continue fighting terrorism as if there is no peace negotiation, separate the two completely. So when the FARC asked me to for ceasefire, I said, no, we will apply the Rabin doctrine. What is that I explained to that. But negotiating in the middle of the war is extremely difficult. Public opinion will always go against you, so you have to have the capacity to spend your political capital. And they warned me, this process will do away with your political capital. And in a way, it did. But at the end, you succeeded. It was the most ambitious, probably the most ambitious peace agreement that has been negotiated, because it's not only the agreement as such that what they call the DDR, disarmament, disarmament, reintegration and demobilization, but also the causes of the war. We addressed why did the war started, and we tried to address the causes of the war. So it was very ambitious. And in this moment, what has happened, and this is a lesson for any peace agreement. You have to follow through, you have to implement what you agree, otherwise the whole thing will collapse. And right now, unfortunately, we had two governments after mine that have not implemented the peace agreement as they should. I'm still hopeful, hopeful that it will be implemented in the future, much more than it has been so far. But still, the guerrillas that signed the agreement are 90%, almost 90%, fulfilling their commitments. They're reintegrated into civil society. And this is what is considered probably the most ambitious peace agreement that has been negotiated so far. Still, one of the most difficult things is that we were talking about reconciliation. And with this, I finish. I remember going many times to the Vatican to speak to Pope Francis. We spoke about football and we spoke about the peace process. And he always said. And I said, pope Francis, why don't you go to Colombia and give me a push? This is very difficult, what we're doing. And he used to say, president Santos, don't worry, I pray a lot for you. And I said, my God, if you have to pray for me, it means I'm in deep trouble. But he said something so wise, he said, no, no, don't worry. I will go, but I will go when you and the Colombian people will most need me. And he chose to go to Colombia in a historic visit after we had signed the peace agreement, after the guerrillas had turned in their weapons. And he put a name to his visit. I'm going to Colombia to push the Colombian in. The most difficult phase of any peace agreement is the face of reconciliation that might take generations, but you have to do it and you have to persevere. And that's where we are now. And it's difficult, but we have to persevere. And this is a lesson for what is happening, for example, right now with the ceasefire in Palestine and Israel. The ceasefire in Gaza, It's a very unstable ceasefire. The points that they had identified must be implemented. Who is going to govern Gaza? This disarmament of Hamas, all these points have to be put into action, otherwise it'll collapse. So perseverance and have clarity of your objectives is so important in any solution of an armed conflict or any war. I could go on forever, but I think it's enough.
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D
Wonderfully clear and inspiring. You drew very strongly, and you've just set that out on the experience of Nelson Mandela in South Africa and the experience in Northern Ireland and the experience of Israel and Palestine and the Camp David in each of those cases. And in your case, there seems to have been or was direct leadership and the desire to make peace from the leadership of those countries. How far can you get without the leaders in those countries really wanting to make peace?
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Well. Well, how far? Not very far. If there's no will from the leadership to make peace, making peace is almost impossible, that I can assure you. And one of the conditions, one of the conditions that I mentioned necessary was precisely to convince the commanders of the guerrillas that it was in their personal interest to make peace and not to continue the war. And how did we do that? This is a very interesting story here in London. I came to 10 Downing street and told the Prime Minister, I need your help. And he said, and what do you need? I was Minister of Defense, I need the. Your help in what? The British are the best. And he said, and what are we the best? Intelligence. And he sent me to MI5, MI6. Sir John Scarlett was the head who knew about the Colombian intelligence more than anybody. I was amazed how much he knew about the Colombian intelligence. Why did the British know about Colombian intelligence anyway, that he advised me and sent a group to change the whole procedure of the Colombian intelligence. He said, at that time, you have been advised by the Americans that does not work. But he had a very logical explanation. The Americans like to compete. The dea, with the CIA, with the national security. They compete in terms of gathering intelligence. In Great Britain, they work together, and there's only one source, important source. And in Colombia, you need one important source, because what you're doing, because the Americans have advised you, is that the only institutions that gather intelligence are military institutions, the navy, the army, the Air Force. And they will never share among them the information because they want to satisfy their commanders. And he was so right. We changed it. We started for the first time in 45 years to be able to go after the leaders of the FARC who were kings in their regions. They had never been attacked. They were very well protected. And we started to make them vulnerable. And that changed completely. So the leadership started to say we want peace. And that was crucial. So to answer your question, if the leaders are not engaged and don't want peace, there will not be peace.
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D
Thank you. I did mention other questions, and we can perhaps come back to those around sustainability and the role of the elders, but we can come back to those because I wanted to give or we want to give Mary a chance to ask us both some questions and to share her thoughts.
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B
Well, that's really nice. And it's such a privilege to be on the same platform as President Santos and also my old friend Nick. You know, I wanted to say a few things because I talk about new wars and I wanted to talk about the huge problem new wars have for peace building. And why is that? The Columbia Peace Agreement does sort of stand out. What I mean by new wars is not necessarily that new wars are new, although they did. They are the wars that appeared after the end of the Cold War and that we see in large parts of Africa and in the Middle East. What I meant was that these new wars have a different logic. And what is the logic? Well, classic wars, whether we're talking about wars between states or classic left right wars between rebels and authoritarian states or whatever, are fundamentally a deep rooted contest. That's how we think of war, as a deep rooted contest. But actually, most of the wars that we observe today are kind of of more like a sort of mutual enterprise or a social condition. There are wars in which the various armed groups, criminal gangs, somehow benefit from violence directly rather than from winning. They kind of have an interest in violence. And why is that? Well, first of all, the actors are a sort of mixture of bits of of the state, armed groups, criminal gangs. You know, we see all these new armed groups like the Wagner group linked to Russia. Secondly, it has very much to do with the sources of finance. They actually make money from violence, whether it's from loot, pillage, whether it's from setting up a check point and charging people to go through hostage taking or smuggling, which is huge, particularly in Colombia. But everywhere has its own commodity. I mean drugs and actually oil, but antiquities, for instance in Syria. So all of those reasons. But also, and this is less true in Latin America, it's also to do with ideology. They base themselves on kind of extremist ideologies that depend on fear, extremist ethnic or religious conflicts. And so this makes. Well, just before I say That I think these new wars did evolve from the old left right civil wars of the 60s, 70s and 80s, and that's probably true in Colombia as well. And it was partly to do with finance. The support from the communist block dried up, so they had to find other sources of finance. And partly to do with tactics. In new wars, the tactics are directed. Most of the violence is directed against civilians. Violence is battles, and rather rare. You hardly ever get battles. What you get is violence against civilians and it's a way of controlling the population and you get forced displacement. Well, I could go on forever. And that came out of counterinsurgency. It came out of the low intensity wars of the 1980s. And so the problem we have is that these are terribly difficult, difficult to end. And you know, the big problem I think with a lot of peace building was that it was kind of assumed that they were deep rooted contests and not social conditions. So they're terribly difficult to end, partly because the warring parties are interested in violence and gain from violence and don't want to. But the only reason they will get agree to come to the table is if they see an advantage, which is that they establish themselves in a state or they get money, which they often do directly. I mean, I always give the Bosnian war as my classic example. It's where I started thinking about that. I mean, Dayton is considered the big success of peace agreements, but what it actually did was to entrench ethnic warlords. Bosnia is now really run by ethnic warlords and partitioned into ethnic statelets and it's being kept going. I mean, unlike Colombia, they had huge numbers of NATO and then European troops to keep the peace. They got more money per head than Europe received in martial aid. And it's still a totally dysfunctional society. It's still on the verge of going to war. So what was interesting about the Columbia Peace Agreement is that you did address some of these social conditions. You did involve civil society, which I think is hugely important. But things like the justice mechanism, I think, and you talked about reconciliation, which are very important. Encountering extreme narratives, things like the territorial peace, I think that was hugely important in focusing on the local, the gender aspects. So in a way it was quite a. It was a really pioneering agreement and still stands out today as a pioneering agreement. So my question now we come to the question would be there's still an awful lot to do. And you rightly say that the problems had to do with implementation. But I think it's also got to do with the evolution of the new war. The criminalization of the hinterland and all of this kind of thing. So what has to happen now?
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A
Well, you are so right. The peace with the farc, which was the oldest and most powerful guerrilla movement in the whole of the Western Hemisphere, ended what is defined as the armed conflict under international law, under international humanitarian law, and the application of the different rules. And as you very well say, things have evolved into what you call the new war. And this new war is right now the number one problem of all of Latin America, from Mexico to Argentina, all the Caribbean islands, Central America, is the expansion of the power of organized crime, which is also very now very much present in Africa. And it's advancing at an incredible pace, very fast, and it's even advancing in Europe. I don't know if you saw news two or three days ago of the Minister of Justice of Belgium saying, we are becoming a narco state. So it's a new war, it's a new type. It's not vindication of social aspirations, it's power and money. What determines these criminal bans. You go to any country in Latin America and they have diversified, not only drug trafficking, but illegal mining, extortion, kidnapping, different types. And many times these very powerful organizations are better equipped than states. That is why, for example, the threat that the US is imposing on Venezuela with. With 15% of the Navy power riding the coast of Venezuela saying that this is a way to fight this new war, drug traffickers, the cartels, that will be a failure. I mean, this is. I can guarantee you that that is not the way to fight these wars. You have to fight them with the same intelligence and the same procedures and different from the traditional military way of waging war. And so this is a big challenge in Colombia. We have seen the evolution of these new wars, and we have to confront them with a different approach than we confronted the far.
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B
Yeah, I mean, it's so interesting, isn't it? It. Because in Latin America, it's very clearly organized crime, but in Africa and the Middle East, I think these armed groups have taken on ethnic labels, so they present it as a kind of mixture of politics and crime. But I think fundamentally they're very much the same. And I wonder, how do you think Trump's actions now against the boats is going to affect the situation in Colombia?
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A
Well, I have learned out of my experience, because when I was Minister of Defence, I was in charge, among other things, of fighting drug trafficking. And nobody in the world, forgive me for talking about me, nobody in the world has sprayed more coca plantations than I have in this sense. And nobody has eradicated more coca trees than we did during that time. And at the end, at a very high human cost, because the drug traffickers put mines and bombs in the plantations and they shot down the planes that sprayed the coca plantations. I realized that the Americans had. This is an irony. The Americans were right when in order to combat and do away with the mafias that control New York, San Francisco, Chicago, they legalized liquor. And so I at the end said, and I told President Obama, this war on drugs from a punitive only punitive approach will only reinforce or strengthen the mafias that control the business. And that is what was happening. So every time that Trump attacks a small boat, the price of that drug goes up and the mafias are stronger. So that's why I say this is going to fail as a way of fighting the cartels. It's bound to fail. So to answer your question, I think that the approach, the military approach against drug trafficking is non corporate going to, is not going to work. And the proof is the war on drugs was declared back in 1971 and we are now much worse than we were in 1971 because the approach has been the wrong approach.
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B
Yeah.
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D
Larry. Larry, before we open it up, I'd just like to ask Juan Manuel to say something on the sustainability side of the story, because that's been such a big part of your life. And of course, this is a global school of sustainability that we're celebrating. You emphasized the Sustainable Development Goals and they were crucial part of the global agenda of 2015, including the Paris Agreement, which you were also very, very, very close to. You've mentioned your interactions right at the beginning with the indigenous people and the recognition that they insisted on, on the life and the soul of the entitlements of the natural environment. And you know, you spoke about spraying coca. Now you are president of a country where you were showing that tremendous leadership on the world stage at the same time as trying to manage a country that was and is dependent to a considerable extent on mineral fossil fuel resources. Can you tell us a little bit about how you navigate that? Because so many leaders around the world are faced exactly with that problem. They see what we have to do. They see that if we don't do it, we will destroy ourselves in many ways. Yet they have the short run interests of those revenues and pressures that it brings. So how do you handle that?
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A
Well, this is a very big challenge. How do you make the transition when you depend so much on the traditional revenues, fossil fuels, minerals. I go back again, again to the indigenous communities. When I also presented our development plan, we have in Colombia a development plan that becomes law. And another gesture that I made was bring the development plan for them to give an opinion. And they said, don't even give it to me. I said, why? Because we have a completely different definition of what development is for you, development is building roads, building buildings, extracting oil, making cars for us, development is preserving nature and preserving our culture. So. So we cannot ever agree on a development plan that you are presenting. And I said, why? What do we do? Then this very audacious governor said, Mr. President, you have to be willing to take very uncomfortable and unpopular decisions. And nature will give you time, but will not give you all the time that you have. You have to take unpopular long term decisions. And that is what is lacking now. And for that you need long term leadership. This is something that in the elders we're trying to promote. Leaders take decisions, not looking at the short term. Oh, what am I going to do if my revenue comes down? Or take decisions that will preserve your country or the planet in the long run. So the way to do it is being ready to take tough decisions because we all know where we want to go, how fast. Then again, that depends on the leadership. Can leaders convince the people that this is what is correct for your children and your grandchildren? Or are you going to be always dependent on your next election? And this dilemma is very difficult to manage. But unless you have a very clear vision of exactly where you want to go, then you will never take the correct decisions and we will all be in trouble.
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D
That's clearly crucial for the kinds of investments that we have to make. That you have to have a vision of where you're going that provides the environment in which investors can have some confidence in making their investments. But it's also necessary, don't you think, to, and this is a question, to find some shorter term gains. The clean is cheaper than the dirty across a whole range of activities. Now, if you can show lower prices fairly quickly, for example in the uk, in electricity, then you have some shorter term benefits. If you can offer cities where you can move and breathe, and that you can do fairly quickly also, then you can combine, as it were, the long term picture, which is going to underpin the investments that we need with the shorter term politics.
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A
And there has been advances when the Paris agreement was negotiated and you look back, the world has not done enough. That's a unanimous perception. But a lot of things have been done. You have to try to promote the good examples and as you mentioned, we have to have the good incentives and every transition is difficult. But that again, requires good leadership, which is the one that unfortunately we are lacking.
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C
So let me. We'll go to the audience for questions. If you're online, type your question into the Q and A box. If you're here, raise your hand. Where are the microphones? We'll take two questions at a time. We only have one microphone here. Okay. And if you could just state very quickly your name, your affiliation and ask. Try and ask a relatively short question.
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A
So let's get started.
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C
There's one question over there. Right here. The woman, right? Yes, right there. And a second one there. The man in the. No, no, in the blue shirt there. Okay, please.
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B
Hi, my name is Fahia Hassan. I'm a member of the London Youth Assembly.
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C
I'm sorry, is the microphone. You have to speak up a little.
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B
Sorry. Hi, my name is Fahia Hassan. I'm a member of the London Youth.
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A
Assembly and I wanted to ask about.
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B
The PDETs that your peace agreement like implemented specifically because I went to a lecture about one in Vienna. I'm going to butcher this so bad. Sorry, Buenaventura.
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A
And how in the long.
- [51:26]
B
And that was a case study about how no long term these have only caused delays and disappointment for the local people, specifically those affected by farc. What is your response to the long term, like disappointment this created in local communities. And how do you see development moving forward into the next few years?
- [51:46]
C
Two questions you want? So did you hear the question?
- [51:49]
A
I. I didn't quite understand. I couldn't hear the question. Well. Oh, okay.
- [51:58]
C
And let's just get the second question and take them.
- [52:01]
A
Hey, Juan Pedro Garcia from the MSc.
- [52:04]
C
In Local Economic development.
- [52:06]
A
And my question is, do you believe that the current conflict in Mexico with the drug cartels can be in a similar way as in Colombia addressed by a peace agreement? Or is it a completely different approach to. Than what happened in Colombia? Okay, first question. In the peace agreement, Buenaventura and the region around it, which was very. It's still a very complicated region. What we promoted was the communities getting together and establishing their priorities in what we called the territorial development plans. And that was a beautiful exercise. More than 2,800 meetings with communities all around the country in the difficult areas. And we came up with 17 of these plans generated from above by the community. That is still the solution. They are there. The communities are asking, why have you not implemented. Some of them have been implemented on a very small scale because the two governments that I mentioned the past Government, this government have been terrible in implementing the peace agreement, but that's still there. And I am hopeful because one lesson that I have learned in life, never lose hope. I am hopeful that still those plans that are there could be implemented hopefully by the next government. And to answer your question, your former president Lopez Obrador asked me the same question at the beginning of his mandate he had. He said, I want to negotiate with the cartels, with the policies in Spanish, aberazos y novalazos, hugging and no guns. And I said, Mr. President, with the drug cartels. That is going to be a failure. And it has been a failure. You cannot apply the rules of international humanitarian law, the Rome Statute to drug cartels. Those are two different type of negotiations. It doesn't mean that you cannot negotiate, but it's not a political negotiation. They want money. They want different things than the traditional guerrillas wanted in other countries.
- [55:02]
C
Let's take an online question. We'll just do one of those and then we'll go back to the audience.
- [55:08]
B
This is a question from Anthony, LSE alumnus. He asks, unlike the Millennium Development Goals, the Sustainable Development Goals include the rich countries like Germany, UK and usa. Yet those countries have reduced their education and aid budgets. How can the case be made for them to take SDGS and climate change seriously?
- [55:29]
A
How do you.
- [55:31]
B
They're saying that.
- [55:32]
C
By the way, I would ask if you're speaking into the mics, you guys are like still super quiet. So speak loudly into the mic so.
- [55:38]
B
That we can hear the questions.
- [55:40]
A
Well, there's a, there's a big, big challenge. Not only that the budgets have been reduced, but that some countries, And I mentioned one, the US are ideological against some of the SDGs. Why do you have a gender? We don't believe in climate change. Why this environmental. So that's a very difficult situation. But what I hope will happen is that, okay, the countries that are not, they're not committed, so be it, but the rest of the world should continue. Because if all of them, if all of us simply says, well, we'll, we won't do. If you don't do this, I won't do it either, then we'll all lose. We have to double down. Might be more difficult, but it's necessary.
- [56:46]
D
If I could just add to that one. The first is to challenge on the moral obligation not to take those cuts in aid lying down. And that's political. The second is to make the argument of self interest. If you worry about migration now, just let climate change rip and you'll see what migration really Looks like this is one of those examples where helping other people is not only the right thing to do, but it is actually in your own self interest. And the third thing is to, if you really persist in all this, then go for big leverage. And the biggest leverage we have is through the multilateral institutions where quite modest sums can lead through things like I won't go into the detail, but paid in and callable capital where you can use guarantees and so on. You can get big leadership by going through the multilateral development banks. So one of the consequences of cutting back by those countries is to they should make better use of, of those leverages and that means multilateralism.
- [57:56]
B
And just to add, I mean, it's not just climate change, it's the wars. The wars have produced huge waves of refugees. I mean, the most typical characteristic of new wars is forced displacement. In fact, the scale of forced displacement I think is a better measurement of the effect of the wars than casualties. And so, you know, if you don't, you know, the wave, Ukraine, Palestine, Sudan, which is just heartbreaking, if you don't put money into trying to address those issues, it's just going to make everything much worse.
- [58:41]
C
So let's go over here to the, the beige jacket over there and woman right there in the front. Then when you get the mics back, go to another part of the room so we can move that around. So go ahead over here.
- [58:54]
A
Thank you, Mr. President.
- [58:55]
B
I'm from Costa Rica. How do you feel when the no won the referendum and how do you.
- [59:02]
A
Manage to tackle that situation and what have you done differently in all the process of the peace agreement that you now feel that you could manage differently in that moment? Thank you.
- [59:15]
C
And let's just take. Are we. Ok, second question.
- [59:19]
B
Thank you very much for the talk tonight. My name is Janine. I am a researcher here at LSE at the International Road Center. I was also a researcher in Colombia for the Fundacion Paralapas informing the implementation of the, of the agreement in Colombia. We did the first reconciliation labs in Colombia. So my question, because we're in the, in your intellectual house and, and I'm a big fan of scientific research, as you can tell. What were the gaps in, in, in research that you found when you were doing these, this peace deal, when you were doing the agreement with the farc and which scientific studies helped you, guide you, guided you in the whole peace agreement, in the peace deals? Just for us to understand what can we do better to guide these type of processes? Thank you.
- [60:23]
A
Okay, the referendum, every peace process is Controversial, especially when you're going to make peace with a group that has committed all kinds of atrocities. And the hardliners say, no, you can't negotiate with them. You don't negotiate with terrorists, you kill them. But we had been trying to kill them for 50 years, and. And that was impossible. So when I started the peace process, I was called a traitor because I was elected president for the first time, because I was a war hero after being Minister of Defense. Then why are you negotiating with the people you have been so successful in fighting? Well, because I want peace. And the adversaries, the enemies of the peace process, start saying, Santos is going to convert Colombia into Venezuela, Chavez, Cuba, he's a communist, he's a member of the guerrilla, all kinds of accusations. So I said to the Carnoman people, don't worry. At the end of this process, I will put this to a referendum to have a guarantee that I'm not going to do anything crazy. Well, at the end of the process, I put it to a referendum. And one of the things that, when you ask me what would I have done differently is that I should have not underestimated the power of fake news. I underestimated they were accusing the peace process of things that were so outrageous that I thought people would not believe it. Well, they did. So I lost the referendum by small margin, but I lost it. And what did I do? I immediately recognized that we lost because many people said, don't recognize that there was a hurricane that day, that 4 million votes that would be for the peace agreement were lost, whatever. And I invited the leaders of the NO votes and told them most of them had been my predecessors. All of you have tried to make peace with the FARC and have failed. All of you say that you want peace, but not this peace. What is it that you want to change in this peace agreement? So we started a very interesting renegotiation with the leaders of the no vote two months, and they came up with 60 changes, and we incorporated 58. So no vote was left with no arguments against the peace process. And it was taken to Congress. And by unanimity, Congress approved the peace process. Some of them today continue to criticize it, but with no real moral standing because they participated in the negotiation. And I must confess that we had a better peace agreement after the renegotiation than the original one. The other question was, what kind of research? What evidence did I that we use? I would say the evidence that we used was practical experience. What I did was identify and choose people who had hands on experience in peace process to become my personal advisors. Not the advisors of the negotiating team, my personal advisors. That's how Jonathan Powell became an advisor. That's how Shlomo Ben Ami, the foreign minister of Israel, architect of the candidate agreement, became advisor, the head of the Salvadorian guerrillas, the commander of the Salvador guerrillas, chief negotiator of the San Bernardo peace process, became my personal advisor. A professor of negotiation from Harvard, William Ury became a personal advisor, A British another British member of the British intelligence who knew the FARC inside out. We came. So I use that the research of, for example, where should we concentrate the development plans? Well, that was almost obvious. The areas where the FARC had dominated for 40, 50 years, which coincided were the areas where the coca was grown, which is the areas where poverty was extreme. That did not need a lot of scientific evidence. It's sort of almost common sense. So what I would my answer would be more than scientific evidence, practical experience to negotiate and being willing to change, to be flexible. Because things peace processes are very difficult and circumstances many times change during the process. So you have to adapt yourself to the new circumstances. That is also very important.
- [66:51]
C
So let's. There's the woman in the. Yes, right there. Yes. And how about the man right next to you?
- [67:00]
A
Hi. I'm interrupting this event to tell you about another awesome LSE podcast that we think you'd enjoy. LSEIQ asks social scientists and other experts.
- [67:11]
B
To answer one intelligent question like why.
- [67:14]
A
Do people believe in conspiracy theories?
- [67:16]
B
Or can we afford the super rich? Come check us out.
- [67:21]
A
Just search for lseiq wherever you get your podcasts. Now back to the event.
- [67:28]
B
Hi, thank you very much for the talk. I'm Valentina Ramirez, former alumni of LSE and currently in the Institutional Investors Group on climate change. My question is related to something the audience celebrated on the alternative approaches to the new wars and the alternative ways of subsistence that essentially is a drug business. And of course, that's something easier to say once you are on the other side of, you know, Gabiria yourself on the other side of not being the head of state. So question is, what are the levers of change for an alternative way of dealing with the drug business or the.
- [68:07]
A
Drug approach that is not punitive and it's rather more, you know, a health.
- [68:11]
B
Health problem and what that actually acknowledges the problem of subsistence that the people involved in the business are addressing by speaking about the new world situation. Thank you.
- [68:23]
C
And let's take a second question from the man right next to you who had his hand up or Maybe doesn't. There you go.
- [68:30]
A
Thank you, Mr. President. I'm from Lebanon, born and raised, and we have similar issues in Lebanon with militias and weapons outside of the state. And we recovered from a Civil War in 1990, but have not really recovered. And I think the reason why is we've been having trouble having the important conversations because we don't have a shared version of our history and we don't agree on who did who and who assassinated who and who did what and when did what happen. And I was wondering if you had similar issues in Colombia and during that peace process with the FARCs, and how do you manage not to tear apart a society when having those difficult conversations? Thank you. Okay, the first question is, if I understood correctly, what type of alternative justice can you apply in the case of the drug. Drug carte cartels?
- [69:30]
B
Yeah, essentially, yeah. Legalization. How can you destroy that?
- [69:36]
A
I'll tell you an experience and try to answer that with an experience that I had when I first started to talk about regulation, which in fact is legalization. This is an issue that is so easy to satinize the hardliners and they. My adversary started to tell me to tell the Colombian people, president Santos wants to poison the Colombian kids. Don't allow him. And I used to go, as president, to restaurants and the mothers, president, don't poison my kids. Are you crazy? And so I had to start doing meetings like this one with the mothers all around the country. And I said at the beginning, who is in favor of regulating the drug trafficking? And everybody. No, no, no, no. Okay, I understand. I get the message. Lady, are you a mother? Yes, I am. Your kids, if your daughter or your son is caught with drugs, would you want her or him to be taken to jail or to an institution to help him with the problem? Well, of course, the institution to help him with the problem. And I said, well, that's what I am trying to do. Oh, why did you not explain it better? That was it? Because and still is, still is an issue that is very much taken in advantage of the people who want the hard line, no matter what. Kill the drug traffickers, no matter what. Well, it's easy to say, but it's much more difficult to do so. And that is, how would that be regulated? How did. If you go back 100 years and review the arguments and the discussions that the Americans had with illegalizing liquor, it's exactly what we are going through right now. But we did, for example, I convinced President Obama and all of the Latin American countries, Canada also, to convene A special session of the United nations in 2016 to address this issue, to change the conventions. And Europe more or less was supporting it. The UK was very supportive, but we encountered a fierce opposition. Asia, China, Russia and the Middle Eastern. The Middle Eastern countries for religious reasons, China for a historical reason. When I started to study why China is so vehement. Well, it goes back to the Opium wars and the humiliation that China. There are different reasons, but again, the hardliners relish that, that discussion because even today they have the upper hand. So you simply have to persevere. On the other question of Lebanon.
- [73:09]
D
Lebanon and understanding history.
- [73:16]
A
It's so important when you say that the truth is hard, but the truth is necessary. And to bring out the truth and what happened and the origins of the conflict, to bring one out and to people, to identify and start understanding the other part is so crucial. Because if you don't understand the other part, and that's why I talk so much about constructive dialogue, that sitting down and learning from the other, this is something that Mandela insisted very much. Learning from the other, not imposing your point of view and bringing out a common denominator. And the truth, if you bring out the truth, helps that reconciliation and that approach very much. It's very difficult many times to accept a truth that is not your truth is very difficult, but it's necessary. And you have to have a bit of humility, approach the other part with. With a generous heart. I know it's hard many times, but that's a way to make your enemy a friend. That's the best way to make peace, is make your enemy a friend. And you need to be generous to make your enemy a friend.
- [75:01]
C
Let's take an online question.
- [75:05]
B
This is a question from Alice, who's studying a Masters in Development Studies. The term gunpoint conservation has been coined to describe the intentional and unintentional biodiversity conservation by farc. Because of military presence in the forests. Are conservation efforts led by the state after the peace agreement bound to be less efficient because of democratic principles and non military state?
- [75:36]
A
Strangely enough, the FARC were quite environmental oriented. The traditional leader of the FARC was very insistent on not allowing deforestation for example. And one of the things that has happened, unfortunately is that precisely because in the agreement there was a specific program to promote sustainability and especially in the regions that were very conflictive and because the lack of implementation, the organized crime filled the vacuum. And one of the business of organized crime is happening in Colombia, it's happening in Brazil, it's happening in Peru, it's Happening in Ecuador is to chop down the trees and put cattle, because that's good business. And there it's a lack of official authority. That is what is happening. And you need the authorities to have.
- [77:00]
D
An.
- [77:02]
A
Effective strategy to stop that. And I hope that in next week or the week after in the cop 30, this is going to be a very important issue because the Amazon is approaching a tipping point. A tipping point where if it continues, there's no reverse. And this is one of the lungs of the world. And so I hope that the idea that Brazil has to make this fund.
- [77:40]
D
The Forest Tropical Forest Forever facility.
- [77:43]
A
Tropical Forest Forever is called. I hope that he. That we can. That the world will. And he will get the sufficient backing. Because I am a member of something called the Planetary Guardians. Talking about evidence, scientific evidence. This is a group based completely on science. Johan Rockstone, he's one of the members and he has identified with many other scientists nine boundaries, nine that the world cannot surpass. Otherwise we are done. Well, unfortunately, very recently we surpassed the seventh boundary, which is the acidity of the oceans. And we have to work to reverse the seven and not allow the other two to be surpassed. And this needs again cooperation, leadership, but cooperation at this moment, moment when the multilateral system is weakening and when the competition, the geopolitical competition doesn't allow the countries to make long term decisions, makes it difficult. But that doesn't mean we should not work for it because we need to work for it. Otherwise it's our future, future of everybody.
- [79:17]
D
We should note the message for the British government of the importance from the former president of an Amazonian nation to support the Tropical Forest Forever facility.
- [79:29]
A
And fortunately the British Prime Minister is going to Brazil.
- [79:33]
D
Yes, he is.
- [79:34]
A
That is a good sign.
- [79:36]
D
It is.
- [79:36]
A
I hope he goes with a lot of money.
- [79:41]
D
We're trying. We're trying.
- [79:42]
C
So we have time for, I think one last question. So let's take the woman in the back with her hand up right there. Yes, yes.
- [79:50]
A
Hi, my name is Maria Angela, I work here at lse. I am from Venezuela.
- [79:56]
B
And you briefly mentioned the situation in Venezuela regarding the war on drugs.
- [80:03]
A
But I would like to hear your thoughts on the situation with Maria Corina.
- [80:08]
B
And the democratic transition that Venezuelans have.
- [80:11]
A
Been fighting for for decades. How do you negotiate with a state.
- [80:19]
B
That has used the military against his own people?
- [80:24]
A
And what do you think are the.
- [80:26]
B
Steps that need to be taken for that transition to.
- [80:35]
A
I talk to Maria Corina very often. She's an extraordinary woman, just won the Nobel Peace Prize. So now we're colleagues. I called her very early and congratulated her. She has been always in favor of. Of a nonviolent transition. And a non violent transition means a negotiation. I understand. How do you negotiate with a regime that has committed so many atrocities because the Maduro regime has become an illegitimate regime that whose repression and disrespect for human rights have been increasing almost on a daily basis? Well, it's the same answer yesterday with the elders. We made a statement asking the Israelis and asking President Trump to press for the liberation of Mawar Bugatti, the Palestinian leader. But are you not being unrealistic? This is for Netanyahu, his number one enemy. Because he can unite the Palestines. Well, precisely. If he can unite the Palestines and if Netanyahu wants peace in good faith, then he should negotiate. Because you don't negotiate peace with your friends, you negotiate peace with your enemies. The same with Mauro. If there's a negotiation, well, I think that would be the lesser evil. There's no peace process which is free. There's always a cost. But I would prefer a golden bridge for the regime and see the Venezuelan people free forever than to continue being oppressed by this regime.
- [82:59]
C
So thank you, Alan. Before we say thank you, which I'll ask you to do in a moment, I just want to ask people also if you could stay in your seats until President Santos is escorted out by security. So with that, it has been a really fascinating conversation, covered a huge amount of territory and I think we'd all just really like to thank you for coming here and engaging with us.
- [83:40]
B
Thank you for listening. You can subscribe to the LSE Events podcast on your favourite podcast app and.
- [83:46]
A
Help other listeners discover us by leaving a review.
- [83:49]
B
Visit lse.ac.ukevents to find out what's on next. We hope you join us at another LSE event soon.