Q&A with Sergio Jaramillo

Sergio Jaramillo is a philosopher and classicist who holds degrees from Oxford, Cambridge, the University of Toronto, and the University of Heidelberg. He served in different positions as a diplomat, including Ambassador in Brussels. Jaramillo was Vice Minister of Human Rights and International Affairs when Juan Manuel Santos was the Minister of Defense of Colombia. He served as the High Commissioner for National Security and High Commissioner for Peace during the Santos presidency. Jaramillo led the secret negotiations with the FARC guerrillas, which ended with the signing of the General Agreement in 2012, and then together with Humberto de la Calle led the public negotiations that ended with the signing of the Final Agreement in November 2016. Jaramillo is currently a Senior Advisor at the European Institute of Peace (EIP).

Elisabeth Ungar: You are a philosopher and a classicist. How do you explain, with your academic background, that you dedicated so many years of your life to participating and enhancing peacebuilding processes in Colombia and other countries?

Sergio Jaramillo: I studied ancient Greek and philosophy for ages at the University of Toronto, Oxford, Cambridge, and the University of Heidelberg, and lived in France and Russia. So, I was a bit of a Chekhovian “eternal student.” I would not recommend this to anyone, but when you actually live and study in different countries, in four or five different languages, you are struck by the distinctiveness of each language’s take on the world. In fact, you begin to wonder whether you have multiple souls, as you move from one language to the next. That is actually very useful when you are facing a tough negotiation, because nothing is more difficult than breaking out of your own bubble and imagining how things might look to the man or woman sitting across the table from you.

Ungar: You were the High Commissioner of Peace during the Presidency of Juan Manuel Santos and a member of the peace negotiation delegation between the Colombian government and the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia). This process took more than six years, aimed to end over 50 years of internal war between the oldest guerrilla group in Latin America and the Colombian state, which according to the Truth Commission left 450,664 people killed between 1985 and 2018. However, considering the underreporting, the actual homicides could have reached 800,000. The peace agreement reached is recognized internationally as an example for other countries immersed in internal conflicts or profound divides. What were the most salient conditions that made possible the peace agreement after many failed efforts? What made the difference versus other processes that took place in the past?

Jaramillo: That’s a big question. My short answer is that a successful negotiation needs both favorable conditions and a properly thought-through process. On conditions: as Kohl said of German reunification, it is all very well to say that “the stars were aligned,” but someone actually has to align them. In our case that meant success on the military front, but also very proactive diplomacy to move our neighbors from being part of the problem to being part of the solution, which is what President Santos did brilliantly with Hugo Chávez, and intense back-channeling to the FARC to agree on basic conditions for the negotiations.

At the same time, you can have the most favorable conditions but unless you forge a careful process for negotiations, the opportunity will be lost, as so often happens. The key for us was to go for an incremental approach from back-channeling to secret talks that ended with a framework agreement to publicly known talks that fleshed out that agreement in a long, four-year slog. By working incrementally, we had ample time to test each other and develop a tit for tat logic that is the true basis of trust: having shared results that neither side wants to give up on so quickly.

Ungar: How can you build trust between actors who have been in opposite, and even irreconcilable, positions for decades?

Jaramillo: I mistrust the word “trust” that is bandied about so often. Trust is the result of a well-structured process, not a precondition. That is why you must design things carefully, create “tit for tat” structures and move incrementally, as I just explained. Of course, human relations matter, you want to be able to have frank exchanges on the side and understand better the other side. But the most important thing by far is to create a structure that holds the process and reduces the risk of collapse.

Ungar: What were the most difficult moments during the negotiation process?

Jaramillo: Without a doubt, when we lost the referendum by 0.4% (60,000 votes out of 13,500,000) to approve the agreement. All the hard work of six years was hanging by a thread. We went back to what had worked for us, a robust methodology and a capacity to engage. We went to the leaders of the “No” campaign and said: “very well, you said you wanted modifications to the agreement, what are they?” We locked ourselves up with them for over a week at the Ministry of the Interior and drew up a list of sixty headlines of what they wanted changed. With that, we went back to Havana and told the FARC: “we lost, there is no way around making changes to the agreement.” We got them to accept about fifty-eight of the sixty, but it was extremely hard. From their point of view, these were all concessions. They almost had a nervous breakdown.

Ungar: When did you see the light at the end of the tunnel?

Jaramillo: I had a strong intuition from the beginning that, if we did things properly, there was a real chance. But again, it is an incremental process. The more results you achieve, the likelier it seems the overall negotiation will end successfully. Two key moments for me were first, when we signed the Acuerdo General, the framework agreement, at the end of the secret talks in August 2012, which included not just the whole structure of the final agreement but the basic trade-offs and the sequence of implementation. That was in many ways the key to success.

And then second, over three years later, when we signed the agreement on victims’ rights in December 2015. That was exceedingly difficult to negotiate and with that agreement under our belts, it looked like we had a clearer path to the end. But you still had to finish, and it was hard to dock the ship.

Ungar: What are the main obstacles that the implementation of the agreement has faced?

Jaramillo: There have been many obstacles, but the main one by far has been the lack of continuity in governments. It is a real problem in democracies, as we all know from the Oslo Accords. We faced similarly bitter opposition from former president Uribe, and when his pupil Iván Duque became president in 2018, the leadership and energy were sapped from the peace process, even if under international pressure he could not give up entirely on the agreement. And the current government, which comes from the left and claimed to have implementation as a top priority, has actually done very little, even less than Duque. It is the problem with politicians: if things that are not of their authorship and part of their legacy, they take no interest.

Ungar: What was the role of the armed forces in the peace negotiation process?

Jaramillo: President Santos was very careful to avoid a split with the military, as had happened in the past. Given that he had been minister of defense just before he became president (I was his deputy then), he was in a good position to do that. When the talks went public, he brought in the best-known former commander of the armed forces and the most respected former director of the police into the delegation in Havana. And when at the end we were about to negotiate the technical detail of the definitive cease-fire, we brought five active service generals and a whole host of officers to negotiate that. There was no civilian-military divide on our side, and that was a key to success.

Ungar: For you, what are the most important lessons of this negotiation process?

Jaramillo: Too many to list: have a vision, anticipate, prepare things as thoroughly as you can, be patient and listen carefully to everyone (especially your own people) even if you think you are right, never ever forget the dignity of the other side, and push every day as hard as you can. Without that, without constant and increasing momentum, nothing will be achieved.

Ungar: Dialogues have taken place in Mexico between members of the Venezuelan Government and the Venezuelan opposition. If you could talk to them, would you give them any advice?

Jaramillo: I very much hope those talks start again soon, but I do not think they are going to work unless some basic agreements are struck quietly in Caracas first. It is not obvious that the government is ready to engage seriously, so the most useful conversation would be with Maduro in Miraflores Palace.

Ungar: Can you please mention three elements in your experience that you have found essential to successful negotiations?

Jaramillo: Political courage, selfless engagement by leaders, and credible mechanisms to give people voice – all very rare things in the modern world.

About the Author:

Elisabeth Ungar Bleier is Colombian and a 2021 Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative Fellow. Her academic and nonprofit activities involve strengthening democracies and democratic institutions, citizen participation, transparency, and anticorruption in the public and private sectors. A political scientist trained at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Ungar earned a Master of Legal Institutions and Sociology of Law from the University of Wisconsin in Madison. She was a political science professor, researcher, and founder of Congreso Visible (Visible Congress), a watchdog organization. Since 2015, she has been a member of the Board of Universidad de los Andes. For nine years, she was the Executive Director of Transparencia por Colombia, a chapter of Transparency International (TI), and a member of the board of TI. Ungar is the author of numerous books and articles about transparency, anti-corruption, political reform, political parties, and congress. She is a permanent columnist of El Espectador, the second largest Colombian daily newspaper.

This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.