On newspaper cartoons in the Colombian Peace Process

On 2nd October 2016, Colombians were invited to the ballot to
vote on whether to accept the terms of a peace deal between the government and
FARC rebels, which had been several years in the making. Voters rejected the landmark deal, with a slim
majority of 50.2% voting against it. Whilst the
referendum’s failure to deliver public endorsement for the deal came as a surprise
to many international observers, at a national level there have been signals of
public discontent and fatigue with the peace process for some time. We found
evidence of this in our study which centred on portrayals of the peace process
through political cartoons featured in Colombia’s mainstream newspapers. Not
only did this study tell us something about circulating opinions of the peace
deal and its proponents within Colombian society, it also highlighted a
divergence between the international and domestic framing of the peace process.

The Colombian government and the country's largest left-wing rebel
group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), have recently taken
steps to put an end to more than five decades of violent armed conflict known
as ‘La Violencia’. During this conflict
more than 220,000 people have been killed, and up to 80% of these have been
civilians.

Since 2012 the Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos,
FARC rebel leaders, and public officials from across the Americas have been
participating in high stakes negotiations, with the aim of putting the Latin
American region’s most protracted conflict to bed. Although the negotiations represent the third major attempt at
resolution in the last five decades, there is a sense – internationally at
least – that ‘the parties to the conflict have taken stock of both their own
past failures and lessons learned from other peace processes’ (Conciliation
Resources 2016) and that peace will finally prevail. Indeed, the negotiations have been favourably appraised by a
range of influential international figures such as the UN Secretary General
Ban-Ki Moon, Pope Francis and US President Obama (UN, 2016; Guardian, 2015a;
New York Times, 2016). They have also been widely celebrated in the
international press (See for example: BBC, 2016; Guardian, 2015b; New York
Times, 2012; Washington Post, 2016).

There is good
reason for such optimism. The negotiations have yielded partial agreements,
accords and/or signs of collaboration on a range of contentious issues
including the de-militarization and political re-integration of FARC members,
substantive land reforms, curbing the illicit drug trade through a scheme of
crop replacement, and the deactivation of landmines. On June 24 2016, Ban-Ki
Moon and other prominent members of the international community attended a
ceremony to mark the signing of ‘a bilateral and definitive
ceasefire, cessation of hostilities, and laying aside of weapons’. This drew the
fifth of five substantive items on the FARC-government negotiating agenda to a
close, and paved the way for a referendum in October 2016, in which the Colombian
people themselves had the opportunity to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the peace deal.

Quite notably, political parties across the board in
Colombia’s congress formed a temporary coalition to promote a ‘yes’ vote in the
plebiscite which would have led to the ratification of the peace deal. Yet,
there are powerful voices in Colombia who have been highly critical of the
peace process. Former president Alvaro Uribe, leader of the ‘no’ campaign, has
voiced his opinion that the government has made too many concessions to the
rebels. Angling in on an offer of amnesty for rebels who confess their crimes,
he has stated that the arrangement was tantamount to allowing the rebels to
‘get away with murder’. By a very small margin of 0.21% and with a remarkably
low voter turnout at 37.4%, on October 2nd 2016, Colombians rejected
the peace deal with FARC (Registraduria Nacional, 2016). The referendum results
demonstrate not only a polarization within Colombia but also a disjuncture
between the popular domestic discourse and the dominant international discourse
on the peace negotiations.

Contrary to the celebratory tone of the international
press, coverage of the peace deal in Colombia has been more critical. Our
recent study mapping political cartoons from Colombia’s major newspapers since
2012 finds that these cartoons mirror a sense of fatigue and disenchantment with
the negotiating process. Political cartoons combine graphic art, humour and
commentary to produce a contrived snapshot or visual shorthand on the most
pressing of current affairs. Where scholars have addressed political cartoons,
they have variously described them as examples of expression that embody
democratic freedoms (Kuipers, 2011; Maggio, 2007), a medium that simplifies and condenses
complex scenarios to enhance their accessibility and familiarity for the public
at large (El Refaie, 2003; Brants 1998; Richie 1979), as well as a form of
social commentary that feeds off and in turn influences public perceptions (El
Refaie, 2003). Together,
these insights suggest that – with some limitations – political cartoons can be
read as a barometer or even mirror of public opinion through which it is
possible to map and interpret evolving discourses of support, critique and
resistance to the Colombian Peace process.

In June 2016, we began a process of mapping political cartoons
in five major Colombian newspapers: El Tiempo, El Espectador, El Pais, El
Colombiano and El Heraldo. Using digitised
archives and paper issues we were able to access and analyse a large sample of cartoons
going all the way back to 2012. We found that regardless of
these newspapers’ particular ideological inclinations, their editorial cartoons
have conveyed a generalized skepticism of the peace process right from the
outset of the negotiations in 2012. In initial stages of the negotiations, cartoons
emphasised an uncertainty rooted in the
historical behavior of the rebel group and in the failures of previous
negotiations with the government. Hence, many of the early signs of
progress in the negotiations were overshadowed by the depiction of the FARC`s
past actions and the myriad issues remaining to be agreed.

Meanwhile, we found
that as time wore on, achievements and milestones in the negotiations were
critiqued and overshadowed by depictions of the setbacks. For example, in
November 2013, the partial accord on political participation was undermined in
the centre-left newspaper El Espectador
with cartoons that emphasized the fragility of the agreement. One of these
depicted a ‘dove of peace’ walking on egg-shells. Other cartoons served to
amplify public anger at the release of photographs showing FARC leaders ‘resting’
– sunbathing and smoking cigars – after the negotiations in Cuba. One cartoon depicts
FARC prisoners held in a jungle confine with the statement, ‘tenemos derecho al descanso’ (trans. ‘we
have the right to rest’).

Our study of domestic
political cartoons also gave us insights into circulating perceptions of the parties
to the negotiation. The FARC rebels are repeatedly characterized as
untrustworthy and unreliable, with cartoons focusing on events that reinforce
this narrative – the kidnapping of police officers and generals, the launch of
an attack during a ceasefire. Antipathy towards the FARC is echoed by national
polls, where some 90% of Colombians have quite consistently registered their
disapproval of the rebel group.

Depictions of the
Colombian government and particularly, the Colombian President, Juan Manuel
Santos have shifted over time. Following Santos’ reelection campaign launch in
November 2013, he has increasingly been depicted as pursuing the peace negotiations
for his own personal agenda and regardless of the cost. Again, this shift tends
to mirrors decline in Santos’ public approval ratings, which dropped to just
30% in August 2016.

Given the results of the referendum and the public
perception of the negotiations and its parties, there are major challenges
ahead for the Colombian government and for its people. Evidently, the effusive support
of the international community and international press does not exactly translate
into domestic support for the peace deal. This issue of disjunction is brought
into sharp focus by the figure of Santos himself, who is at once an
international Nobel Peace Prize winner and an increasingly unpopular national
president. Santos now faces the tough job of mediating with the opposition and
the FARC in order to tackle polarization and apathy within the country. Ensuring
peace will also require Colombia to face up to the issues of race-based
exclusions and income inequalities. Those communities that have been the
hardest hit during la violencia are
predominantly indigenous and Afro-Colombian. The voices of these groups are
routinely marginalized in Colombia’s domestic politics; their political
incorporation is essential for molding a just and lasting peace.