#93 From Hawk to Dove, Negotiating Peace after War: Former Colombia President Juan Manuel Santos

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 5:00: Harvard University
2. 10:00 – 15:00: Harvard University
3. 15:00 – 20:00: Jonathan Powell
4. 20:00 – 25:00: Rabin Doctrine, Climate Change
5. 25:00 – 30:00: Climate Change
6. 30:00 – 35:00: Climate Change, Conservation International, The Elders, Wildlife Conservation Society

Notable quotes from "#93 From Hawk to Dove, Negotiating Peace after War: Former Colombia President Juan Manuel Santos"

• Learned over their lives and their careers and now your host and board member number of schools at Harvard Princeton and Columbia Lynn tomman hi everyone it's Lynn tomman…

  about Harvard University · at 4:25

• Least try to make peace for example he gave me another very good advice which I started to call the Rabin Doctrine he said to me now that you have the military balance of power…

  about Rabin Doctrine · at 20:06

• As well I was one of those citizens of the world who was rather indifferent to climate change being indifferent is like being a denier now I accept that I had for the first…

  about Climate Change · at 23:03

• Change I member of some boards of NOS that are fighting climate change and promoting conservation like the wildlife conservation Society conservation International I am part of…

  about Wildlife Conservation Society · at 32:57

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Juan Manuel Santos — Person · 5 mentions
• Shlomo Ben-Ami — Person · 2 mentions
• Jonathan Powell — Person · 1 mention · first at 19:30
  Special advisors to be my personal advisors schomo benami was one of them Jonathan Powell the former Chief of Staff of the British prime minister and chief negotiator of the…

Companies & orgs

• Harvard University — Company · 2 mentions · first at 4:29
• Wildlife Conservation Society — Company · 1 mention · first at 33:04
• Conservation International — Company · 1 mention · first at 33:07
  NOS that are fighting climate change and promoting conservation like the wildlife conservation Society conservation International I am part of a group called the elders that…
• The Elders — Company · 1 mention · first at 33:11
  Conservation Society conservation International I am part of a group called the elders that was created by Nelson Mandela most importantly I'm now a grandfather with some…
• Mossad — Company · 1 mention

Concepts & topics

• Climate Change — Concept · 5 mentions · first at 23:09
• FARC — Concept · 4 mentions
• Rabin Doctrine — Concept · 2 mentions · first at 20:13

Full transcript with timestamps

0:28 e e e e e e e e welcome to the three takeaways podcast which features short memorable conversations with the world's best thinkers Business Leaders writers politicians scientists and other newsmakers each episode ends with the three key takeaways that person has learned over their lives and their careers and now your host and board member number of schools at Harvard Princeton and Columbia Lynn tomman hi everyone it's Lynn tomman welcome to another episode today I'm excited to be with President Santos who is president of Columbia from 2010 to 2018 he was the sole recipient of the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize for bringing Colombia's 50 plus year civil war with more than 8 million victims to an end I'm excited to find out how ended a 50 plusy year Civil War in Colombia with so many victims I'm also excited to learn more about his unique and very humble leadership style which enabled him to change from Hawk to

5:13 Dove on War the environment and Drugs in 2016 president santz announced that an agreement had been made completely settling the conflict between the Colombian government and the farc the Revolutionary armed forces of Colombia which was a Marxist leninist gorilla group the peace was based on a Truth and Reconciliation like approach in which complete admission of guilt and community service by the farc members served in place of punishment British Prime Minister Tony Blair has a wonderful quote about President Santos bringing peace to Colombia he said quote was a really tough thing to do this was frankly tougher than Northern Ireland tougher than any conflict I have been involved in and I would put the Israeli Palestinian conflict in the same bracket unquote welcome president Santos and thank you so much for your leadership and for our conversation today thank you very much for having me and it's a great

6:19 honor to have this conversation today with you the honor is mine thank you congratulations on establishing peace in Colombia I understand you started out as a hawk but changed your position to being a dove how did that happen I recognize that Colombia would not have a future if we continue the war and so I started to study what were the necessary conditions to have peace with the far to have a a successful peace process and I studied many other peace process around the world to see what could be applicable to the Colombian peace process and I studied also the attempts that my predecessors because all of them had tried to make peace with a Fark had tried to negotiate pie with the far and failed and one of those necessary conditions that was very clear to me was that we had to tilt the military balance of power in favor of the state because as long as the guillas thought that they could win through violence then they

7:29 would never negotiate in good faith with that in mind I had been in politics for some time and I was appointed as minister of defense and I saw the opportunity there to create that condition that necessary condition to negotiate peace so I started to make a profound transformation in the armed forces of Colombia to give them more legitimacy I made a big effort to change the culture of the Armed Forces which is very difficult because Armed Forces all around the world are very conservative institutions but we succeeded and one of those conditions was to respect the human rights of everybody of the community even of our adversaries of our enemies of the farc and that was extremely important to acquire what you call the moral High Ground I also made many changes in the intelligence with the help of the intelligence agencies of the US like the CIA of the British like the MI6 of the Israelis like the

8:44 mosad and so we did tilt the balance of power and I was elected because I became a war hero I was very effective in combating the gorillas combating the farc so I got elected president of Colombia in the year 2010 but I had always thought that the only way to finish the war is in a negotiating table so I had to make a transition from being a a hawk a war hero to being a dove negotiating peace which was a very difficult transition because they warned me that people had elected me precisely because I was a war hero and the moment I sat to negotiate with the far I would be called a traitor I would be criticized and my political Capital will go down very rapidly and that was exactly what happened but I remember somebody saying listen I know you want peace in the end I know you are convinced that your country will never take off because peace will not allow the country to take off to a very rich

9:57 country if you really want peace you need to try to negotiate peace you can maintain your popularity I was very popular at that time and you can maintain the Applause of the public opinion by continuing the war because you are good at it but ask yourself the following question what if you end up very popular your four years of your presidency and you look back and you ask yourself I had the opportunity to negotiate peace to save hundreds of thousands of lives and I didn't because I wanted to maintain my popularity would you go to your grave with your conscience in peace would you really think that that would have been a good way to look back to your life and that question that reasoning was what really convinced me to take the risk of initiating the peace process in Columbia it's very different being a hawk you need a certain type of leadership it's like a vertical type of leadership you

11:08 give orders you have a strategy you have your tactics you rally the forces around you and you go against your adversaries and as long as you win you're okay making peace needs a completely different type of leadership it's much more horizontal you have to persuade people people you have to teach you have to convince people of something many times very difficult how do you convince a mother whose daughter had been raped and killed to accept that their perpetrators will have legal benefits in the peace process that is very difficult but you have to make that transition that's how I made the transition from HW to Dove how did you convince the millions of victims of the farc those who had lost family members or who daughters or mothers were raped to accept what you call retributive Justice as opposed to any punishment it was a lesson of life for me a professor that I had former professor in Harvard went to

12:15 visit me and said listen you're embarking in a very very difficult journey and you are going to be alone and you're going to feel that you want to throw in the towel many times so I encourage you to talk to the victims they will re-energize you they will give you the stamina that you need to continue to persevere and so I did I started to talk to the victims to ask what happened with them to ask for their advice and I thought that the victims precisely because they were victims were going to be the most reluctant to accept the transitional J Justice the type of justice that is not the punitive Justice we are accustomed to because it includes benefits legal benefits for the perpetrators but I discovered through all these conversations that I had with them that at the end they all said no but president Santo you must persevere continue you have our support and I asked them why are you so generous with

13:25 the people who committed these horrendous crimes against you and most of them said to me because we don't want other people to suffer what we suffered and that for me was a lesson in life from then onward I discovered that the Human Condition was much better than what I thought you talked about the conditions for peace and making them more favorable by tilting military power in favor of the government how did you convince the leaders of the farc to stop fighting and how did you convince them that peace was better for them well that was also a strategy where you use the carrot and the stick and what was the stick the leaders of the fork had never been touched they were sort of Warlords in the regions protected by the communities and not one single member of what they call the Secretariat which was sort of the board of directors of the fork had ever been touched well I changed that by changing the

14:31 intelligence by changing the tactics of the military and I started to go after with success the high value targets of the guillas and so I offered them this listen there is a way out you are going to be judged and sanctioned but there is something called transitional Justice because the peace agreement in Colombia was the first one to be negotiated at Under the Umbrella of the Rome statue which was created precisely to facilitate peace processes so I said to them I'm going to go after you now you know because during my government and during my Ministry the military took out the number one the number two and the number three of the gas and so they knew that for the first time they were in danger and at the same time I showed them the carrot and what was the carrot that you were offering them a way out to be reincorporated into normal Democratic Civil Society amnesty for all the soldiers not the most

15:39 responsible of the crimes but most of the what they call the soldiers of the gist they would have an amnesty and the most responsible would have to be judged and sanctioned but by a special tribunal that would be negotiated between the farc and the government and that was very unique of this peace process never before in any peace process around the world had the two parties in an armed conflict Garden together to create a special tribunal and then accept to submit to it that had never happened before and this is what is happening in Colombia and this is why all around the world they are saying that this is a very unique precedent for other peace processes in the future and what were the decisions with respect to the leaders of the farc most of them said yes they got together and they decided that they would negotiate and they started to negotiate in good faith for the first time it was

16:41 a difficult negotiation of course they didn't consider themselves defeated they say this is a negotiation among equals that's what they were saying and in a way you have to respect that and it's a negotiation difficult negotiation but I think it was very successful we uh not only negotiated what you call the DDR the demobilization the disarmament and the integration we went much further to try to correct many of the structural problems of Colombia that we have had since our independence we are a very unequal country with a terrible land distribution with a lot of inequality and we are trying in the implementation to address these problems to make our democracy more inclusive to give the indigenous communities and the Afric Colombians more rights so it went Way Beyond what normal peace processes have done in other parts of the world can you give some specific examples well for example we negotiated

17:51 a rural reform that would give the peasants that had been displaced by violence their land back and also help from the state to redo their lives we gave the indigenous communities certain rights for them to be able to have autonomy in their health systems in their education systems to be able to have more voice in the Congress and in the Colombian Affairs in general the same with the afro Colombian Community this is the first time ever that a gender chapter was included and it was included because I was convinced studying other peace processes and studying history that in the wars women are the more victims of the victims women are the ones who suffer the most and so I said we need to recognize this fact and so we need to include a complete chapter in the agreement that would give the woman a special place in the implementation of the peace agreement and in the process and so we did one of your advisors was schomo

19:06 benami the former foreign minister of Israel who I also know what was his advice to you on negotiation and terrorism and why was it important wello benami was one of the most important advisors because I chose some very special advisors to be my personal advisors schomo benami was one of them Jonathan Powell the former Chief of Staff of the British prime minister and chief negotiator of the Northern Ireland peace process was another Hakim bovos was the commander of the Salvadorian Armed Forces Chief negotiator for the Salvadorian armed forces in thean of the Salvadorian guerillas in the in thean armed peace agreement and he was also an advisor and Shalom benami he was the one who told me about what would I feel at the end of my government if I had not at least try to make peace for example he gave me another very good advice which I started to call the Rabin Doctrine he said to me now that you have the

20:17 military balance of power in your favor don't accept a ceasefire until you have an agreement this would put a lot of pressure on the gorillas to negotiate faster they are very slow usually in taking and making decisions and so I followed his advice I did not accept a ceasefire and I said nothing is agreed until everything is agreed and that's how things evolved so he was very very important he's a personal friend he just wrote a marvelous book marvelous book which I recommend it's the best thing I have read about the Palestinian Israeli conflict CA prophets without honor it just came out and whoever is interested in this conflict and in peace processes this is a great book written by shomi I look forward to reading the book and I will also invite him on three takeaways didn't he also give you advice to the effect that you should negotiate as if there's no terrorist ISM and fight as if there's no

21:32 negotiation absolutely that's what the Rabin Doctrine is all about he said Rin told Arafat we will negotiate as if terrorism did not exist but we will continue to fight terrorism as if there is no peace process and that's exactly what I told the guerillas there's no ceasefire until everything is agreed but we continue to negotiate and it was more difficult but looking back I think it was a correct decision this was risky many times people criticize you because why are you talking and at the same time you are allowing these people to commit these atrocious crimes how can you explain that many times that is difficult to explain but making peace is not an easy task it's very difficult many times it's like when they say about making laws it's like making sausages when you see how they make sausages AES is not a very pretty scenario but once the sausage is cooked it tastes delicious that happens with

22:39 peace most leaders are very self-confident and they don't change their perspectives you are very unusual and that your perspective on war changed from Hawk to Dove and you also had a similar change on the environment and on drugs can you talk about how you changed your position in these other key areas as well well I was one of those citizens of the world who was rather indifferent to climate change being indifferent is like being a denier now I accept that I had for the first time Communications and I got to know our indigenous communities and with them I also was quite indifferent they were not very important to me when I started to to talk to them and to understand them and they started to teach me many things about them and about their culture and about the country and about the world and about life I started to respect them to the extent that when I became President when I was elected president

23:45 the day I was going to be swor in in Congress that morning I took a plane and then a helicopter to the most important or the oldest indigenous communities in Colombia there are many indigenous communities in Colombia for the oldest and I asked them for their permission because they were our older brothers to be sworn in and if they would give me their mandate and so they did they gave me a baton and they said you go make peace but not only peace among human beings you have to make peace with nature because human beings are at war with nature and nature is going to retaliate and you're going to suffer this retaliation and a week after I got sworn in the worst ni phenomenon hit Colombia and for the first year almost year and a half I had to administer a flooded country it was pouring rain and rain and rain and I had no idea of how to handle this so I asked for help I brought in people from

24:53 the multilateral institutions experts from the United States among them vice president Gore he went to Colombia and taught me all about climate change all about the importance of protecting biodiversity because he knew much more than I did how important Colombia was in terms of biodiversity and the source of water so I started to get more and more interested more and more understanding how important it is to fight climate change and and so I became in this process from being indifferent to a passionate green activist which I now I'm I am convinced that this is the most important challenge that the world has and every citizen of the world must contribute to stop this climate change because otherwise we will all perish and so I also had a big transformation in my life from being a almost a denier to being a passionate activist in terms of the environment and with the drugs also it was a personal experience the War on

26:04 Drugs in the world was declared back in 1971 the first Convention of drugs was approved in the United Nations in 1961 and this War on Drugs was very punitive with prohibition like the prohibition that the United States applied to the sale of liquor back in the 20s that prohibition and that very punitive approach well made Colombia country where unfortunately we suffered the most in this War I think no other country in the world has suffered more in the War on Drugs than Colombia and I had to apply the established procedures in fighting drugs in all the links of the chain and I did it and when I became minister of defense I went by the book spraying the coka plantations with herbicide a very strong herbicide eradicating forcefully the coca plants and the marijuana plants going after the drug lords and going after the Laboratories and I extradited more drug dealers to the United States than any

27:20 other person in the world I sprayed more hectors than any other person in the world and I eradicated more hectares of any other person in the world yet Colombia is still the number one provider of cocaine to the world markets so I learned that the only way to take away the power of the mafias which are the ones that control the business of drug trafficking is by regulating the market by legalizing the market as the US did in the 20s with liquor and I use an anecdote there which I read in a recent biography that I read about Western Churchill the historian is called Andrew Roberts and he tells how churel went to Canada in the 20s in 1920s he went all across Canada and then went to California and asked for a drink and they said Oh Mr church this is prohibited here in the United States and church replied well how strange this country referring to the United States is here you give these fabulous amounts

28:29 of money that are made by the sale of liquor to the mafias in my country we give it to the treasury that in a way encapsulates the problem so I am now a promoter around the world of a change in the policy of the war against drugs that we have been fighting for 70 years and we have not won we are today worse off than we were 70 years ago so it's a war that fails and a war that fails you have to change your strategy you have to change your tactics you probably don't know that there are more people in prison in the United States for nonviolent crimes related to drug trafficking than the whole population of prisoners in Europe This is absurd we have to change that there are some examples already I use the example of Portugal they regulated the use of drugs all drugs and all the collateral damage has gone down tremendously so I think this is a way I know it's not very popular I know that people are afraid there are many

29:41 many studies about the consequences of legalizing and those studies don't prove that consumption goes up it doesn't go up and you can do the same thing as has been done with liquor or with cigarettes you can make a good policy to this encourage young people of using drugs because today the mafias are the ones that encourage the young people to use drugs even in at least in country like mine they are go even to schools and give them drugs in order to hook them to drugs so I think this is a way to fight this war in a much more effective way you've talked about the leadership required for peace and how that's different can you talk more generally about your style of leadership that has enabled you to accomplish so much is it because of your humility your empathy why do you think it's been so successful well thank you for saying that it has been successful It's a combination of many things empathy you

30:47 just mentioned that word is extremely important you need to be able to put yourself in the shoes of others especially in the shoes of the people you want to lead this is absolutely fundamental because if you don't understand their fears their anxieties their goals then it's very difficult to lead any person or any group of people you need to know where you want to go for example in war you need to know how you are going to define success and I received a lesson when I was in the Colombia Navy when I arrived for the first time I had no idea of how to sail and they taught me how to sail an officer of the Colombia Navy he taught me that if you want to be a good sailor you need to know where you want to go you have to have a port of destination then you can use all the wins in your favor even if they're against you you can use them in your favor I think that is a playable to any leader you need to

31:53 know where you want to go what you want to achieve Define your purpose Define what your goal is or what the success is and then persevere rally the forces get as much advice as you can never think that you know everything because then you will make mistakes in that way be humble don't be afraid of asking other people that know more than you do for their help the collective intelligence always is better than the individual intelligence president Santos having ended a 50 plus year war with over 8 million victims and won a Nobel Prize what is next for you I am right now honored to be a professor in Colombia University I had wanted to be a professor all my life this is a temporary professorship anyway I am very much involved in the war against climate change change I member of some boards of NOS that are fighting climate change and promoting conservation like the wildlife conservation Society conservation

33:09 International I am part of a group called the elders that was created by Nelson Mandela most importantly I'm now a grandfather with some grandchildren who are now my reason to live and who will now learn about the Civil War in Colombia from the history books before I ask for the three takeaways that you'd like to leave the audience with today is there anything else you'd like to mention that you haven't already touched upon no I would simply say that again climate change is the most important challenge that the world has this war in Ukraine has in a way diverted the attention of the world but we must not allow that to happen we must persevere and continue with the challenge of stopping global warming otherwise we'll be in grave grave problems also be always an optimist there is no conflict that cannot be solved I think if there is the Good Will and you create the conditions people thought that the conflict in

34:19 Colombia after 50 years of war would never be solved well it was solved the conflict with the farc and so I think all conflicts can be solved you must try to create the necessary conditions for them to be solved and last but not least your Port of destination always identify where you want to go as a leader of a country as a leader of a Enterprise even as a person where is it that you want to go because if you don't know where you want to go you will never get there what are the three takeaways you'd like to leave the audience with today I just mentioned the three takeaways that I wanted to leave to the audience terrific president Santos thank you so much for our conversation today and thank you for your leadership thank you so much thank you and thank you for having me if you enjoyed today's episode and would like to receive the show notes or get new Fresh weekly episodes be sure to sign up

35:18 for our newsletter at 3 takeaway.com or follow us on Instagram Twitter and Facebook note that thre takeaway.com is with the number three three three is not spelled out see you soon at three takeaways tocom

Questions about this episode

What is discussed in "#93 From Hawk to Dove, Negotiating Peace after War: Former Colombia President Juan Manuel Santos"?

In order: 0:00 Harvard University; 10:00 Harvard University; 15:00 Jonathan Powell; 20:00 Rabin Doctrine, Climate Change; 25:00 Climate Change; 30:00 Climate Change, Conservation International, The Elders, Wildlife Conservation Society.

What is mentioned in this 3 Takeaways episode?

11 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Climate Change, Juan Manuel Santos, FARC, Harvard University, Rabin Doctrine, Shlomo Ben-Ami. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "#93 From Hawk to Dove, Negotiating Peace after War: Former Colombia President Juan Manuel Santos"?

The episode runs 36 min; the transcript is about 4,602 words in 28 timestamped sections.

More from 3 Takeaways

• All analyzed episodes
• Books mentioned on 3 Takeaways
• People mentioned on 3 Takeaways
• Topics mentioned on 3 Takeaways