Colombia

Colombia is the only country in the Western hemisphere suffering a major internal armed conflict. The Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional (ELN)  and, especially, the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), have been challenging the Colombian Government for almost 50 years. Right-wing paramilitaries and a number of extremely violent criminal gangs complete a web of illegal armed groups. Drug trafficking has become the financial fuel that keeps this war going without any solution in sight.

Throughout recent decades the Government’s policy has been shifting back and forth between negotiations and a hard-line approach. Peace efforts with guerrillas collapsed in 2002 (FARC) and 2006 (ELN). Paramilitaries agreed to a demobilisation process in 2005 but many former combatants have joined new criminal gangs (Bacrim or bandas criminals). The Government’s main approach under President Uribe (2002–2010) was all-out war.

In September 2012, the Colombian government announced a new effort to negotiate with left-wing insurgencies. This is the fourth attempt in 45 years to reach a negotiated settlement of the war. While the announcement has spurred new hope, it can also lead to further frustration if people’s expectations are not met. Learning from failures in the past, the process needs new and creative thinking.

Some of the most challenging issues to address are:

• Transitional justice mechanisms must provide incentives to stop the armed conflict and at the same time limit impunity.
• Negotiations must be transparent and inclusive and therefore lead to implementable, transformative and sustainable agreements.
• The peace process must reach beyond negotiations and give all stakeholders a voice in the discussions on how to move to a peaceful society.
• Demobilisation strategies have to learn from past failures.

Achieving peace in Colombia

 
In order to achieve peace it is essential to find answers to key questions, such as:

• What would a new process of negotiations look like?
• Who would negotiate?
• What would be negotiated?
• And, what other than peace negotiations is needed to bring peace?

 
Conciliation Resources strongly believes that the very societies that suffer from armed conflict are also the ones that will find the appropriate solutions:
 

• Women’s organisations have successfully documented the gendered dimension of conflict and the real dimensions of violence against women. They are strongly advocating for their role in any future decision-making. Their analysis and advocacy is suggesting a different approach to the overall goal of eliminating all forms of violence.
   
• Indigenous groups have been disproportionately affected by armed conflict and have long been protesting against the violence by all involved in the conflict, including state-sponsored violence. Indigenous groups like the Asociación de Cabildos Indígenas del Norte del Cauca, ACIN, have a strong community organisation that has maintained peaceful mass mobilisations throughout the years and is a source of inspiration for Colombian society at large.
   
• Rural communities have established ‘peace zones’ to prevent armed actors from conducting war in their territories. They often are part of innovative municipal assemblies that challenge traditional politics and become a reference for stronger and more responsive democratic institutions.

 
All these groups (and many others) have concrete suggestions on how to address the conflict and improve human rights and democracy.