Civico, Aldo

Negotiations with the ELN ¿a missed opportunity?

LFLACSO-01-Civico.pdf (410.59 KB)

Drawing on dozens of interviews and on direct observations between August 2005 and February 2008, this article provides useful insights for the process based on an examination of the main events of the negotiation and concludes with an emphasis on the need for a credible third party in the event that a negotiation process is resumed some time in the future.

Ortiz, Román D.

The FARC: a terrorist organization with no strategic way out?

LFLACSO-02-Ortiz.pdf (364.35 KB)

The study of the FARC is plagued by the difficulties faced by security analysts when they try to anticipate events and foresee the evolution of the strategic scenarios. Specialists devoted to the study of terrorism and particularly the FARC have been shown up many times by reality's amazing capacity to exceed predictions, either as the result of underestimating the catastrophic nature of certain threats, or because of a failure to identify the vulnerabilities of an apparently invin¬cible adversary.

Echeverri González, Darío Antonio

Difficulties and opportunities with the humanitarian agreement with the FARC: the role of the catholic church

LFLACSO-03-Echeverri.pdf (331.94 KB)

Colombia as a nation is seriously concerned about the condition of those who have been deprived of their freedom and find themselves in precarious health. We believe the reports that state that the mental health of some of the members of the military, kidnapped more than 10 years ago by the armed group known as the FARC, is deplorable and outrageous. Monsignor Luis Augusto Castro Quiroga seeks whatever media opportunity might exist to send the FARC-EP an urgent message from the Colombian Catholic Church.

Pardo, Rodrigo

Changes in the Andean Region and foreign policy alternatives for Colombia

LFLACSO-04-Pardo.pdf (371.88 KB)

This essay will focus on the international aspects of the Colombian armed conflict. If, in the 1990s, especially during the governments of Presidents César Gaviria and Ernesto Samper, Colombia's foreign policy was determined by the domestic struggle against drug trafficking, there is no doubt that during the administrations of Presidents Andrés Pastrana and Álvaro Uribe, it is the armed conflict that has taken on the determining role in foreign policy. During the government of President Pastrana, the search for allies to make feasible the negotiations with the FARC in El Caguán was described as diplomacy for peace. And during the government of President Uribe, as a result of the domestic shift toward the democratic security policy to combat the FARC, foreign policy has been transformed into a search for allies to win the war

González, Eduardo

The peace policy in Colombia

LFLACSO-05-Gonzalez.pdf (437.42 KB)

The democratic security policy implemented by President Uribe includes as one of its essential components a policy toward peace. That policy to date has resulted in the demobilization of 46,757 members of illegal armed groups, nearly ten times the number of members of armed groups who laid down arms between 1990 and 1998 during the previous government's most intensive efforts to achieve peace in the county.

Ciurlizza, Javier

Peace in Colombia from the perspective of transitional justice

LFLACSO-06-Ciurlizza.pdf (517.83 KB)

The passage of Law 975, known as the Justice and Peace Law, could have been interpreted as marking the beginning of a transitional justice process in Colombia. It combined the basic elements constituting a transition: a political agreement (the Ralito Pact), a social demand for historical truth and justice, a commitment to reparations for victims, the creation of special transitory mechanisms, and initiatives for social reintegration and demobilization, acknowledging the central tenet of victims rights. Three years after the passage of the law, different sectors in Colombia expressed serious doubts about the kind of transition taking place in Colombia and, in many cases, openly questioned whether a transition worthy of the name was was taking place at all.

Ronderos, María Teresa

Paramilitary ties to regional and national politics

LFLACSO-07-Ronderos.pdf (493.52 KB)

The phenomenon of parapolitics, according to the most important research on the subject carried out by the Nuevo Arco Iris Corporation, involves the transformation of local politics following the violent expansion of paramilitarism between 1997 and 2003. The research carried out by the Corporación Nuevo Arco Iris finds that this transformation in local politics took place in 12 departments. Essentially, the traditional parties that had been operating in these departments disappeared and new political actors and parties arose.

Garzón, Juan Carlos

Definition and stages of rearmament

LFLACSO-08-Garzon.pdf (498.14 KB)

The last demobilization of the Colombian United Self-Defense Groups (AUC) took place in mid-August 2006 in the municipality of Unguía (Chocó), with the surrender of weapons by the Norte Medio Salaquí Front of the Élmer Cárdenas Bloc. This represented the conclusion of a process that involved 29,740 men and 1,911 women, for a total of 31,651 demobilized members of the AUC. The only front that did not participate in the demobilization process was the Cacique Pipintá Front that was part of the Central Bolívar Bloc. This group was supposed to demobilize on 15 December 2005 along with the Héroes y Mártires de Guática Front but the group%u2019s members failed to appear in the zone that the government had designated.

McDermott, Jeremy

Going back to crime: drug trafficking and emerging criminal gangs

LFLACSO-09-McDermott.pdf (460.27 KB)

This article is less abstract than the preceding ones and focuses on drug traffickers and the different elements of the drug trade they represent. My main argument is that the demobilization of the United Self-Defense Groups of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, AUC) is heralding a new chapter in the Co¬lombian drug trade. The old generation of traffickers linked to the AUC has been removed from the drug trafficking equation: many of the central players have been killed or extradited to the United States. At the same time, the FARC has been further hit by the Colombian security forces; the most notable incident was the July 2008 rescue of 15 hostages, among them the French-Colombian citizen and former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt. The situation has changed dramatically, but, as I will demonstrate, drug trafficking continues.