Colombia: Dynamics of pacification

The historic peace agreements with the FARC (2016) were an essential contribution to Colombia’s gradual pacification process, underway since the late twentieth century. This article assesses this process by discussing factors that have both aided and hindered it; in doing so, it also explains the persistence, and even in certain regions the resurgence, of violence following the agreements with the FARC. Factors that have aided pacification include: the successive peace processes and demobilizations of illegal armed organizations since the late 1980s; a number of progressive reforms introduced by successive governments in the context of these peace processes; and the revitalization of civil society, one of the main victims of the violence and terror. Factors that have hindered pacification include: anachronistic and clientelist centralism; the weak presence of the state in certain rural peripheries; and the ongoing presence of illegal economic sectors and criminal networks, in particular relating to cocaine trafficking. The challenges that must be overcome to consolidate “complete” pacification remain considerable for the government of President Ivan Duque (2018–2021).