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opinion

Can Canada help in monitoring the end to one of the world's most enduring and terrible conflicts right in our own hemisphere?

Likely not, but it's worth making an offer, at least through diplomatic channels, to see whether Canada's peacekeeping experience can be put to use in ending the conflict between Colombia and the FARC guerrillas.

Canada has more peacekeeping experience than any country in the Western Hemisphere. It has excellent relations with Colombia, including a free-trade deal.

Canada also has good relations with Cuba, the host country for the talks that would be especially anxious to see negotiations be crowned with successful implementation of the agreement. (Canada played quiet host to the Cuban-American negotiations that led to the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.)

The two sides have told the United Nations they want only countries from the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States to participate in a year-long mission to oversee implementation. CELAC, as it is called, does not include Canada.

The UN Security Council just passed a unanimous resolution authorizing a mission of unarmed observers. It would take a little nudging by the Cubans, and agreement from Colombia at least, to adjust the deal to allow Canada to participate, and that might not be possible despite Canada's experience.

If not part of the observer mission, Canada should tell Colombia it would consider any reasonable request to help. John de Chastelain, former head of the Canadian Armed Forces and an expert in decommissioning weapons from his time working on the Northern Ireland peace accord, has already given advice to the Colombian government.

For three years, the Colombian government and the guerrillas have been negotiating an agreement in Cuba. The negotiators set a March 23 deadline for a final accord. Some FARC leaders said this week the date might change. They blamed the government for reneging on parts of the deal thus far negotiated.

This chirping from FARC might just be a negotiating tactic or evidence of a split within the group. The two sides have come so far, and FARC has become so marginalized in Colombia, that a final agreement seems inevitable.

What a relief – a miracle even – final peace would be for a conflict that began with the creation of FARC (a Marxist revolutionary group) in 1964 and has killed 220,000 people. At the height of the conflict, Colombia bore the hallmarks of a failed state: endemic violence, an epicentre for the drug trade, a sagging economy, human-rights violations.

Today, Colombia has its challenges, some of them made more acute by the collapse of oil prices, the country being an oil producer. It also sits next to Venezuela, a failing state whose government, presumably to distract attention from its own incompetence, began causing trouble along the border between the two countries. On the other hand, thousands of educated Venezuelans have left for Colombia, where their talents are helping their new country.

The very idea of negotiating with FARC split Colombia. Negotiations were fiercely criticized by former president Alvaro Uribe, who had waged an aggressive and successful military campaign against the guerrillas. He denounced the idea of negotiations as a sacrilege to the dead, an appeasement of terror, and recommended more military action to crush what was left of FARC.

His successor, Juan Manuel Santos, however, recommended at least a try at negotiations, and three years later he is on the cusp of a deal. For this, he was welcomed Thursday at the White House by President Barack Obama, the U.S. having worked through three administrations using military, political and economic means to help Colombia defeat FARC and end the conflict.

Many aspects of the tentative deal were and remain contentious, perhaps the most controversial being the idea of "transitional justice." How should justice be meted out for those who committed crimes?

More than 90 per cent of Colombians told Ipsos, the polling firm, they want FARC leaders to serve prison time. The agreement, however, allows those who confess to crimes to avoid jail.

Mr. Santos, who might merit a Nobel Prize if this deal sticks, has said, "It is much more difficult to make peace than to make war. Making war is quite popular … making peace is much more difficult."

Anything Canada can do to help "make peace" in Colombia would be time and money well spent.

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