Publications
Articles, publications, books, tools and multimedia features from the U.S. Institute of Peace provide the latest news, analysis, research findings, practitioner guides and reports, all related to the conflict zones and issues that are at the center of the Institute’s work to prevent and reduce violent conflict.
Women and Peace: A Special Role in Violent Conflict
In Liberia, women, excluded from talks to end the country’s civil war, besieged negotiators until they signed a deal. In Guatemala, where insurgents and the government each had a female delegate in talks, pressure from women put indigenous, gender and labor rights into an accord. In Northern Ireland, women placed the needs of victims and political prisoners on the agenda after winning a role in peace negotiations. Wherever there’s an effort to settle violent conflict, women’s involvement impr...
Colombia’s Peace Accord on the Missing
Forced disappearances are a legacy of Colombia’s half-century of internal armed conflict. They have affected the rural and urban poor, labor and peasant organizers, journalists, human rights defenders, politicians, and Afro-Colombian and indigenous leaders. Likewise, in the context of Colombia’s war, members of the military and guerrillas have also gone missing. This brief examines an agreement on the missing reached in October 2015 between the Colombian government and the Colombian Revolutio...
Colombia’s Peace Accord on the Missing (Spanish)
Las desapariciones forzadas son un legado de medio siglo de conflicto armado interno en Colombia. Afectan a sectores pobres en el campo y en los centros urbanos, trabajadores, campesinos y campesinas, periodistas, defensores y defensoras de los derechos humanos, políticos de la oposición y lideres y lideresas afro-colombianos e indígenas. Además, miembros de las fuerzas públicas y de la guerrilla han desaparecido en el contexto del conflicto armado colombiano. Este informe analiza un acuer...
Civil Society Under Siege in Colombia
This report is based on material gathered during and after a delegation visit to Colombia from February 14 to 20, 2003, organized by the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), to evaluate the effects of the internal armed conflict on Colombian civil society.
Investigación-Acción Participativa Liderada por Jóvenes para la Construcción de Paz en Colombia
El conflicto armado interno de Colombia ha durado más de 50 años y ha creado desigualdades y violencia en todo el país. El conflicto ha dejado más de 260,000 muertos y ha afectado a más de 8 millones de víctimas. Las y los jóvenes han sido una de las poblaciones más afectadas del conflicto.
Youth-Led Participatory Action Research for Peacebuilding in Colombia
Colombia’s ongoing 50-year internal armed conflict has created inequities and violence throughout the country. The conflict has claimed over 260,000 Colombian lives and affected over 8 million victims. Young people have been one of the most affected populations of the conflict.
Colombia Considers War and Memory
A breakthrough in peace talks last month between Colombia’s government and the country’s biggest guerrilla group cements the role of victims in the process and has been hailed as a possible model for resolving conflicts elsewhere. Yet after 50 years of violence, a political accord on how to deal with the millions victimized by the war is just the first step. Hardened, bitter memories will risk rekindling conflict. Colombian peacebuilders say the way forward depends on an effective justice sys...
Reconciliation as the Road to Durable Peace
Apology. Confession. Truth-telling. Forgiveness. These are elements of reconciliation, perhaps the most important underpinning for turning a violent conflict into durable peace. Yet building peace is complicated by a reality that human cultures have no agreed definition of reconciliation. Indeed many may resist it as an imposed Western value, USIP scholars said.
Q&A: Colombia, Guerrillas Reach Accord on Rights for Victims of War
Making a peace deal that accommodates the needs of the millions of civilians hurt by Colombia’s 50-year-old conflict has challenged negotiators since talks between the government and the nation’s largest guerrilla group began three years ago. This week, negotiators announced an agreement on victims, completing the fourth item on a six-point agenda that’s aimed at ending hostilities. USIP’s Virginia Bouvier, who was in Havana for the declaration on victims, said the latest accord is another hi...
Q&A: Colombia’s President Santos in Washington
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos meets President Barack Obama on Feb. 4 in Washington to commemorate the 15th anniversary of “Plan Colombia,” a U.S.-led effort that has provided about $10 billion to help the South American country’s security forces fight leftist guerrillas and drug traffickers. Virginia Bouvier, a senior advisor for peace processes at the U.S. Institute of Peace, who has led the Institute’s work on Colombia for the past decade, talks about Santos’s visit and the fast-mo...