B. Incorporating Inclusive Security in the Colombia-FARC Peace Process &
Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (Lesson #2589)
Observation.
People from various identity groups and populations have suffered in different ways throughout
Colombia’s past half century of war. The recent and historic peace process between the government
of Colombia and the largest leftist rebel group, the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-
Ejército del Pueblo (FARC-EP, or FARC), provides an opportunity for provisions for these various
groups to be taken into account during implementation of the peace accords – especially gender-
sensitivity in demobilization and reintegration processes.
Discussion.
Colombia’s 52-year armed conflict with the FARC has left over 220,000 dead and more than 5 million
people displaced. The FARC was one of several guerrilla groups founded by leftist peasants
following La Violencia, Colombia’s decade-long brutal civil war between Liberal and Conservative
political parties. In the mid-1960s, it originally operated as a self-defense force, concerned by
political exclusion, vast land inequality, and lack of state resources. By the 1980s, however, the
FARC began to use extortion, kidnapping, and the drug trade to finance its activities.
Myriad atrocities have occurred during the past half-century of the Colombian conflict by armed actors
on all sides of the conflict, producing emotional/psychological, moral, political, and sociocultural
damage. The impact of the Colombian conflict has been varied across various identity and population
groups, by gender, age, regional provenance, and ethnicity (including indigenous, Af