As a particularly hot summer is winding down, what’s on my mind?
I’m long past indignation for Mr Trump’s antics of all kinds on whatever subject. The recent heat has done him no good. He’s more erratic by the day, and it should become clearer than ever that he’s a mentally unstable person. But have no illusions: his supporters may still stand firm, and sunstroke is but the least of his ills.
There is a long laundry list of other issues to be worried about: the burning Amazon, Boris Johnson’s assault on centuries of democracy in the United Kingdom (and dragging the Queen down into the arena with him), to name only two.
From my observation post near Gibraltar, I felt close to one of the battlefields when the Iranian oil tanker was to be liberated from the Straits.
But a more troubling and very personal connection came all the way from Colombia, when one of the FARC commanders, Ivan Marquez, denounced the peace accord with the government and called for renewed armed combat.
I had been involved in all the stages of the peace agreement concluded in Havana, and very early in the process I met Sr. Marquez several times in my own house, when the European Union was exploring how to help forwarding the process. Sr. Marquez was then based in Havana, and clearly enjoyed much support from the Cuban side. The other FARC negotiators had to travel to the Cuban capital under complicated and secret arrangements because the FARC were still listed as a terrorist organization, and the emissaries risked capture and extradition. Marquez moved around discreetly in Havana, with the unmistakable aura that surrounds a character of violence and intrigue.
But because he was at hand, he became our most convenient counterpart.
His announcement is also a slap in the face of his long-time Cuban supporters. Cuban diplomacy worked hard and well to achieve the agreement. The main Cuban go-between, Rodolfo Benitez, was a good colleague and friend of mine. I don’t know how he feels about the situation now.
It would have been naive to think that more than half a century of civil war intermingled with cocaine production and trade from all sides, could be brought to an easy conclusion. There would unavoidably be bumps in the road. But the resumption of armed struggle is more than that.
The EU representative for the Colombia peace process, Mr Eamon Gilmore, was a veteran of the Irish reconciliation. We often talked about the similarities and the differences between the two cases; but he always warned of exactly what is happening now with Sr. Marquez: that dissenting commanders may at any time derail or subvert the process.
It’s sad to think that, due to Sr. Marquez in Colombia and to Boris and the Brexiteers in London, both those peace deals have now become shaky.
THE DIPLOMATIC LOUNGE 