While a positive step in negotiations between warring parties, what are the limits of uncovering the dark truths of Colombia's conflict?
Will Colombia force its military to face up to its past human rights abuses?
The unilateral ceasefire signed by the FARC last December is a historic and positive step towards a permanent peace, but questions remain. From openDemocracy.
A catalogue of sexual violence has accompanied the armed conflict in Colombia. The peace talks must not brush it under the carpet.
Now that the main potential impediment to a peace deal–a change in government–is out of the picture, it is time to start tackling other threats, not just to securing the agreement, but also to its implementation.
While transitional justice initiatives have traditionally shied away from dismantling the system, Colombia's Justice and Peace Law has taken the first steps towards exposing the political and economic roots of paramilitarism, and the deep state tangled around them. Español.
The third point of agreement reached in the Havana negotiations may finally pave the way for the gradual end to the “war on drugs”, and defuse one of the issues – the drug trade – that has most hindered peace in Colombia.
A new transparancy law guarantees Colombian citizens greater access to information on public spending, but corruption in the defence sector and links to organised crime still remain obscured, and matters of 'national security' are exempt altogether.
Casualty recording has redefined efforts to protect civilians in conflict, and provide aid and accountability to victims of violence. But with an absence of political will to respond to conflict, what good are the numbers?
The Santos regime finally (and illegally) removed one of the few honest politicians in Colombia—the democratically elected, socialist Mayor Gustavo Petro—from office last Thursday, after only two years of a full four-year term of office.
As on-going peace talks in Havana address narco-trafficking amidst Colombia's continued economic growth, remnants of the FARC are more likely to turn to what were once the very seeds of the rebel movements: social banditry.
El laboratorio del Plan Colombia ha ayudado a EE UU a desarrollar su modelo de "estabilización" para operaciones de contrainsurgencia. Con un potencial acuerdo de paz con las FARC en el horizonte, ¿cuál puede ser el futuro de las sobredimensionadas fuerzas armadas colombianas? English.
