Ficha Técnica

Título de la publicación: Negotiated Settlements and armed groups in Colombia. / Procesos de negociación y grupos armados en Colombia. Las FARC y AUC.

Autor o autores: Diana Torres

Tipo de estudio: Tesis

Año de publicación: 2008

Beneficiario Colfuturo Promoción: 2007

Idioma: Inglés

Título obtenido: Master degree in Political science. Conflict Resolution and Governance

Dirección de correo electrónico: dianatorresro@hotmail.com

Palabras claves: Armed groups, peace process, political violence in Colombia, FARC and AUC, armed conflict / Grupos armados, procesos de paz, violencia política, conflicto armado. FARC, AUC.

Resumen: 271 palabras

RESUMEN (Inglés)

The protracted nature of the Colombian conflict has allowed the emergence of numerous attempts for its
resolution (intense military offensives and different models of negotiation). Regarding the attempts of
negotiation, some of them have resulted in durable peace agreements while others have failed during
the process. For example, in 1991, the government negotiated the reincorporation into the political life of
the guerrillas M-19 and EPL, and recently in 2002-2007, the government held a peace process with the
AUC paramilitary group, which produced the demobilization of approximately 40.000 rebels. However,
the scenery of resolution with two remaining guerrillas (FARC and ELN) is different, after more than 26
years of failed negotiations and tough military offensives; it has not been possible to settle the conflict
with them. What explains the different results in the peace processes with the armed groups?

I suggest that in order to identify opportunities for negotiations and more effective peace processes,
states and third parties, should regard more seriously the character of the different armed groups
(motivation, leadership, strategies, social composition, organizational structure, etc). Therefore, by doing
a comparative analysis of the AUC and FARC peace processes, I found out that: 1. the type of violence
and financial sources are not determinant factors to reach a negotiated settlement with rebel groups. It is
false that is more difficult to negotiate with armed groups pursuing high benefits from war1, at least not in
Colombia. 2. That the degree of task cohesion, the group cohesiveness, and social support are
extremely relevant to the state engage and manage possible crisis and setbacks during the negotiations.
Armed groups are different and those differences have positive and negative impacts when negotiating
with them.

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