The Hill News

Last week, my colleague Alice Thomas and I were entangled in an interminable web of meetings and traffic in Bogota. Our discussions centered on two very different, yet interrelated, challenges facing Colombia: Two years of record floods that paralyzed broad swaths of the country, and the start of reparations for the victims of Colombia’s decades-long conflict. Both the conflict and the flooding have displaced millions of people. And while the government agencies responsible for responding to natural disasters and conflict are different, we noticed some striking similarities.

In both cases, the Santos Administration has demonstrated strong political will by creating new institutions, strategies, and processes for dealing with displacement. Nevertheless, serious concerns remain as to whether the Colombian government can convert savvy policymaking into real results.

While the government marshaled more than a billion dollars to respond to the floods, ! weak institutions at the local level hampered aid delivery. Since then, the Santos administration has taken steps to rectify these shortcomings, but significant challenges remain. Indeed, these same institutional weaknesses could also undermine implementation of the Victims Law.

The U.S. may have no better partner in Colombia than the partner it has in President Santos. He appears dedicated to healing Colombia’s deep societal wounds and is undaunted by attempts to slow progress. But he will need help to face down the mounting pressure from large land owners, the latifundistas. A bitter irony of the Victims’ Law is that in its attempt to reconcile 48 years of conflict and unite the nation, it has divided Colombia’s elite.

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