Policy & Advocacy
Backgrounder on Colombia, November 2018
Backgrounder on Colombia, November 2018
The 2016 peace agreement between the Colombian government and FARC launched a complex implementation phase to integrate ex‑combatants, extend state presence to marginalized rural areas, and address the violence and impunity that fueled a fifty‑two‑year conflict that killed over 220,000 and displaced seven million.
- Peace implementation aims to promote just, equitable rural development, strengthen rule of law, and rebuild social fabric in regions long controlled by armed groups and illicit economies (narcotics, illegal mining, extortion).
- The initial plebiscite rejection led to a revised accord ratified by Congress, shifting the process from negotiation to implementation with historic potential to integrate excluded regions politically and economically.
U.S. role and assistance
- Since 2000, Plan Colombia invested over $10 billion mainly in counter‑narcotics and counterinsurgency, prioritizing military battalions, equipment, intelligence, and aerial fumigation to eradicate coca.
- Current priorities should pivot to supporting peace implementation: redirecting public investment to marginalized areas, sustainable rural economic alternatives, transitional justice, and demilitarizing the drug economy consistent with U.S. and Colombian security interests.
USCCB position and policy recommendations
- U.S. aid must balance security assistance with programs addressing root causes of conflict and must be conditioned on human‑rights standards.
- Support implementation of the Peace Agreement, including coordinated U.S.–Colombian engagement that avoids undermining negotiated reconciliations; extraditions of former combatants should not jeopardize agreed reconciliation and justice terms.
- Closely monitor demobilization and reintegration zones to protect ex‑combatants and ensure safety for human-rights and labor activists threatened by criminal groups.
- Increase development and humanitarian aid focused on extending democratic institutions, transitional justice, assistance for internally displaced persons, and sustainable environmental and rural resilience programs.
- Permanently end aerial fumigation, expand legitimate alternative development for impoverished farmers, and avoid policies that displace legal livelihoods or exacerbate health and environmental harms.