When the Colombian Congress approved the peace agreement with the country’s largest dissident guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), at the end of November 2016, the accord was hailed as a triumph: the long-awaited end to fifty
The mayor of Bogotá Gustavo Petro, a former M19 guerrilla, was released from his post and banned from holding public office for 15 years on December 9th following an accusation of mismanagement of Colombia’s capital city.
The Colombian government and the left-wing rebel group, the FARC, have been participating in peace talks for the last year in Havana, Cuba. The drug regulation plan was proposed by the FARC during these talks, now in the 19th round.
For the last 50 years, Colombia’s most prominent guerrilla group, the FARC or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, have fought violently for land reform and justice for the poor. Formed in 1964, the Marxist peasant movement has used violence to bring attention to their cause, which has mostly been funded by the lucrative drug trade. However, over the last year in Havana, Cuba, negotiators from both the FARC and the Colombian government have been meeting in an effort to end the 50-year war.
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) called a ceasefire with the Colombian military forces from December 15th, 2013 until January 15th, 2013, which gave hope to analysts observing the ongoing peace talks between FARC representatives and the Colombian gover
A great deal of media coverage has been devoted to the persistent instability in Colombia and ongoing negotiations between the FARC and the Colombian government. However, little attention is paid to the effects that this conflict has had on Colombia’s southern neighbor, Ecuador, and the tenuous relations between the two nations.
In Colombia, the search for political peace by the government has been paralleled by a search for the truth by the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC). Since the peace talks between the Colombian government and guerrilla group began, the latter of these two groups has called for the formation of a truth commission.
The presidential election in Colombia this past Sunday, May 25th, resulted in no official victor. As mandated by national law, a presidential candidate must win a majority vote of 50%.1 Thus, the two front runners, incumbent Manuel Santos and challenger Oscar Ivan Zuluaga, will compete in a June 15th runoff election after winning 25.6% and 29.3% of the vote, respectively.
On Sunday, incumbent Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos won re-election. Santos defeated his run-off opponent, fellow conservative Oscar Ivan Zuluaga 51% to 45%.1 His victory was a comeback in nature, after emerging from the first round 500,000 votes behind Zuluaga. Yet on June 15th, Santos won by almost one million votes.2
The last report of the Americas Barometer Insight Series, authored by Ana Maria Montoya, focuses on Colombians' perception of the conversion of the FARC into a political party.
