In 2016, the government of Colombia signed a historic peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Former combatants handed over their weapons to United Nation observers in a symbolic step marking the end of more than 50 years of bloody civil war that killed over 200,000 people and displaced millions of others.
The South American country has since developed a model that assists former FARC members in finding employment as soon as they disarm and reintegrate into society—a peacebuilding model that they are now exporting to other countries, including Cameroon, suffering from similar socio-political crises.
Christened the South-South Cooperation Program for peacebuilding: from Colombia to the world, the initiative was officially launched in Yaounde on Friday April 19.
In Cameroon, the program that aims at sharing good practices and lessons learned by Colombia in the process for the consolidation of peace will reinforce efforts to disarm, demobilize, and reintegrate ex-fighters of Boko Haram in the Far North and secessionist combatants in the English-speaking North West and South West regions.
Opportunity for Cameroon
The Presidential Agency for International Cooperation (APC) of Colombia, whose Director General, Eleonora Betancur Gonzalez, headed the country’s high-level delegation to Yaounde, will foster the implementation of the program with the technical expertise of the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
It will be carried out in three phases: design of program of cooperation for peacebuilding in Africa; sharing best practices and community experiences from the cooperation program for peacebuilding in Africa; and the implementation of action plans in each country and the provision of technical assistance within the framework of the cooperation program for peacebuilding in Africa.
In 2018, President Paul Biya created the National Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (NDDR) Committee with task to facilitate the social reintegration of former militants and repentant fighters.
The Secretary General of the Ministry of External Relations (MINREX), Chinmoun Oumarou, who chaired the official launching ceremony, said the institution requires multifaceted support; both domestically and internationally, to carry out its activities.
“This peace consolidation program represents a real opportunity for our country to benefit from the support, guidance, and even training by experts with proven expertise in disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration,” Oumarou said.
Hopes from Colombia
He recalled that it was in 2021 that the government of Cameroon committed to strengthening cooperation and the strategic partnership between the NDDR Committee and the Agency for Reincorporation and Normalization (ARN) of Colombia, “in order to learn and benefit from Colombia’s good practices in the area of conflict resolution and peacebuilding.”
The Acting Resident Coordinator of the United Nations System in Cameroon, Aïssata De, corroborated that it was during the 2021 visit to Columbia that the decision to launch a South-South Cooperation Program “to export peace achieved in Colombia” was made. The Coordinator of the NDDR Committee, Fai Yengo Francis and IOM Chief of Mission Abdel Rahmane Diop were part of the visit.
Fai Yengo is now hopeful Cameroon can leverage Colombia’s experience to build upon the progress made so far through the program. He said expectations are that through the initiative, “a general peace will be achieved for the development of the countries concerned and the well-being of the populations.”
4,000 ex-fighters to be reintegrated
According to Fai Yengo, there are currently about 4,000 ex-fighters lodged in the three DDR Centers of Meri in the Far North, Bamenda in the North West and Buea in the South West regions, many of whom are in the final stage of reintegration into society.
Observers are worried though that unlike the Columbia case where a model was developed which assists former FARC members in finding employment as soon as they transition to civilian life, Cameroon does not yet have such an initiative. And with the insurgency in the Far North still ongoing, just like the intractable bloody armed conflict in the North West and South West regions, the reintegration may be putting the cart before the horse.
Besides Cameroon, the Columbia model will also be implemented in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Nigeria, and the Philippines.
