Demobilisation and Reintegration in Colombia

Demobilisation and Reintegration in Colombia
Author: Francy Carranza-Franco
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 222
Release: 2019-02-04
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1351124625
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This book investigates demobilisation, disarmament and reintegration (DDR) in Colombia during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The six large peace processes and amnesties that took place in Colombia over this period were nation-led, providing an interesting case study for the wider DDR literature, which has historically focused on Africa and Asia. The continuous process of creating and demobilising illegal armed groups has been pivotal in building the Colombian state. Although the peace settlements and amnesties have brought renewed cycles of violence, they have also been key to the negotiation of democracy and citizenship rights for both ex-combatants and wider sectors of the population. Here the author analyses the role of DDR programmes in building state and citizenship. Comparing DDR during Alvaro Uribe’s presidency and the peace process with the FARC guerrilla under the presidency of Juan Manuel Santos, the book draws on extensive fieldwork conducted with local authorities, officers on the ground and ex-combatants themselves. It details the process of creating and implementing DDR policy and explores the difficulties, challenges and security dilemmas ex-combatants may face in integrating within a post-conflict society in social, economic and political dimensions. Bringing us right up to date with the implementation of the FARC's peace process and the challenges ahead in the reintegration of ex-combatants under a new president, this book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of politics and development in Colombia, and to those with an interest in peace-building, state-building and DDR in other countries and conflicts.

Community Reintegration in Colombia

Community Reintegration in Colombia
Author: Andres Macias
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2011
Genre:
ISBN:
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This paper explores how reintegration strategies within disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) processes have evolved and tries to determine the reasons why, from an empirical point of view, a community reintegration approach is more likely to promote reconciliation in a war-torn society. After reviewing the current literature on DDR, its relation to social capital and reconciliation, and the conceptualization of community reintegration, the paper addresses the government-led DDR process in Colombia, thoroughly analyzing the JICA, “Project for the Support of Entrepreneurship and Employment for the Households of Demobilized Ex-Combatants and the Recipient Communities,” initiated in 2008. Personal and social profiles of the participants of the project, as well as individual surveys on specific topics, were used in the assessment. Two major findings could be identified from the empirical analysis of the project. On the one hand, the community reintegration approach encourages economic reintegration of a complete household and not only of one individual. On the other hand, such an approach supports the creation, and not only the reconstruction, of a new social capital where former combatants and their families may reintegrate into. In many occasions, ex-combatants have to settle down in places different from their hometowns and away from family and friends, making it impossible to reconstruct a social network that did not exist before. Economic reintegration of entire households and facilitating the existence of a strong social capital are elements that may indeed promote reconciliation in post-conflict situations.

The Para-State

The Para-State
Author: Aldo Civico
Publisher: University of California Press
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2015-11-24
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0520288521
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Since its independence in the nineteenth century, the South American state of Colombia has been shaped by decades of bloody political violence. In The Para-State, Aldo Civico draws on interviews with paramilitary death squads and drug lords to provide a cultural interpretation of the country’s history of violence and state control. Between 2003 and 2008, Civico gained unprecedented access to some of Colombia’s most notorious leaders of the death squads. He also conducted interviews with the victims of paramilitary, with drug kingpins, and with vocal public supporters of the paramilitary groups. Drawing on the work of Deleuze and Guattari, this riveting work demonstrates how the paramilitaries have in essence become a war machine deployed by the Colombian state to control and maintain its territory and political legitimacy.

Participation in Peacebuilding

Participation in Peacebuilding
Author: Meredith Maynard
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2016
Genre:
ISBN:
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Colombia and its civil and state institutions, including the Colombian Agency for Reintegration (ACR), have been implementing Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) programs for over a decade. Concurrently the largest peace talks in Colombia's history are reaching milestones in Havana, Cuba. Participants in the ACR's programming include former adult and child combatants of most of Colombia's illegal armed guerrilla and paramilitary groups. Independent research through semi-structured interviews in Bogotá and Medellin, Colombia was conducted to examine levels of internal beneficiary participation within the Colombian Agency for Reintegration's (ACR's) programming, as well as the ability of ACR programs to meet participants' needs and contribute to the progressing peace process in Colombia. Active participants and former participants in the reintegration process, and ACR staff were surveyed through interviews for quantitative and qualitative data analysis. Findings demonstrate moderate levels of participation from participants, a moderate to high level of participant needs satisfaction, and a high perception of stigma felt by the reintegrated population. Recommendations were given to increase beneficiary participation within program development initiatives and to increase programs' structural flexibility to meet participants' needs more effectively. The main findings support general development literature in that increased input and ownership from stakeholders in programming leads to more efficacious results. Participation in peace processes in Colombia and on a global scale, increases stakeholder satisfaction and can lead to more sustainable, long-term peace.