For Immediate Release, December 3, 2013
Contact: Allison Sturma, asturma@usip.org

(Washington) – Virginia Bouvier, a senior program officer and Colombia program lead at the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP), is available to comment on Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos’ visit to Washington. Bouvier is the editor of Colombia: Building Peace in a Time of War.

Highlighting the most pressing issues on President Santos’ agenda for meetings with President Obama and other policy leaders, Bouvier commented:

No issue will be as important in these meetings as the current peace negotiations under way in Havana for the last year.  The timing of this meeting could not be more fortuitous.  The talks between the Colombian government and the FARC in Havana are moving steadily forward, and provisional agreements have been reached on two of the agenda items--agrarian development and terms for political participation.  Three substantive topics--victims’ rights and reparations, the terms for ending the conflict, and illicit crop cultivation and drug trafficking-- remain on the peace agenda.

Examining a potential role for the U.S. she added:

Santos has sought from the beginning of the year-long peace process to maintain Colombian ownership of the process. Cuba and Norway have served as guarantors of the process, and Venezuela and Chile have accompanied the process, but there has been no international mediator. Nonetheless, there are a number of issues that may require further cooperation from the international community. These include drug policy; extraditions; demobilization; disarmament, reintegration and reconstruction; truth-telling; and transitional justice.

Bouvier is available for additional comment at vbouvier@usip.org or 202-429-3884.

Additional Resources

• Human Rights and the Colombian Peace Process, Congressional Testimony
  On October 24, 2013 Bouvier testified before the U.S. House of Representatives’ Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission
• Foreign Policy “Tables Turned”
  This November 27, 2013 piece looks at how two women could have significant impacts on the peace talks with the FARC.

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