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.
Question And Answer
Amid a Changing Global Order, NATO Looks East
Colombia’s New Administration Raises Hopes for ‘Total Peace’
Hopes for lasting peace in Colombia are soaring. Last month, Gustavo Petro and Francia Márquez prevailed in Colombia’s runoff presidential election and will lead the country’s first-ever progressive government, as president and vice president, respectively. Their historic victory culminates an electoral cycle marked by a resounding rejection of Colombia’s establishment elites. Petro’s proposals for what he has coined “Total Peace” offer an ambitious approach to negotiating with armed groups, implementing prior peace accords, and pursuing national unity amid debilitating socio-political polarization. The country stands before an undeniable opportunity to lay the foundation to end its six-decade conflict, even if subsequent governments will have to sustain these efforts to truly reap the long-term benefits.
After a Year of Turmoil, Bolivia’s Election Offers Chance to Reduce Divides
Bolivians took part on Sunday in one of the country’s most decisive and historic general elections, in which the former governing party Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) and its candidate Luis Arce garnered a resounding victory. The vote culminated nearly 12 months of instability since elections in October 2019 led to allegations of fraud, followed by massive street protests and the departure of former President Evo Morales after nearly 14 years in power. Bolivia has not experienced a peaceful transition of power since 2002, but a window of opportunity has opened for the ethnically diverse Andean nation to emerge from the paralyzing polarization that has plagued it over the past years.
Colombia: U.S. Aids Peace by Lifting ‘Terrorist’ Label From FARC
The U.S. government has opened opportunities to strengthen the implementation of the fragile 2016 peace accord and stem rising conflict in Colombia by ending its designation of the former Colombian guerrilla movement, FARC, as a terrorist group.
Colombia’s Renewed Peace Talks with ELN Rebels Provide Historic Opportunity
As part of its ambitious “Total Peace” agenda, the new Colombian government recently restarted peace talks with the National Liberation Army (ELN), marking the first new negotiations since January 2019. And while this cycle of talks adopted the same agenda and process framework as the previous efforts, current President Gustavo Petro appointed a diverse and broad negotiations team in the hopes of generating early momentum and support. Petro intends to advance on partial accords as quickly as possible — building up to a comprehensive agreement before his brief four-year term in office is complete.
Will Colombia's 2018 Elections Imperil Peace?
The April 9 arrest and extradition request of former senior Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) commander and peace negotiator Jesús Santrich highlights the complex challenges Colombia faces in the implementation of the historic November 2016 peace agreement with the FARC. Over a year and a half since the signing of the agreement, Colombia finds itself in one of the most critical moments in its efforts to definitively put to rest over five decades of armed conflict that has left more than 8.5 million victims in its wake. Frustrations surrounding the mixed results in the implementation of the peace agreement are exacerbated by the natural uncertainty over the upcoming May 27 presidential elections and its policy impact.
Venezuela: Could the Coronavirus Threat Be an Opportunity?
Helping Venezuela resolve its political crisis will be vital to containing the potentially catastrophic COVID-19 pandemic there. A truce in the country’s power struggle is urgent, and last week’s U.S. proposal for a transitional government offers useful ideas, even for a naturally skeptical governing regime. Advancing them would benefit from mediation, perhaps by the Vatican or the United Nations, and will require cooperation among the major powers—the United States, Russia and China—involved in the crisis. If Venezuelans and outsiders can join against the common human threat of coronavirus, that could lay foundations for an eventual political solution to the decade of turmoil that has brewed the hemisphere’s worst humanitarian disaster.
Colombia Lawmakers Debate Peace Deal Challenges
The peace accord that halted a half-century of violent conflict in Colombia has reached a critical juncture. With the population almost evenly split over the terms of the 2016 agreement and a new government led by the party that opposed it, analysts and political figures see sustainable peace as increasingly endangered.
Central America: To Slow Refugees’ Flight, Reduce the Violence
The flow of asylum seekers from Central America’s Northern Triangle to the U.S. border stems from intense violence fueled by corruption, drug trafficking, gang culture and poverty, specialists on the struggling region said.
Is there a Negotiated Path to Democratic Coexistence in Venezuela?
The scale of the Venezuela crisis is unique in recent history, with wartime indicators of hunger, refugees, and human rights abuses but conventional violent conflict largely absent. At the heart of the crisis is a 20-year struggle between the Chavista regime and the democratic opposition, characterized for most of these two decades by each side attempting to eliminate the other from the political map. Negotiations are seen by most outside observers as the only way the conflict will definitively end and there have been consistent efforts to bring the two sides to the table, most recently in Barbados and Oslo in 2019.
Colombians Rally Online in New Movement for Peace
It began with a few supporters of Colombia’s 2016 peace agreement meeting at a Bogota cultural center. That gathering, in January of this year, soon led to the creation of a WhatsApp group—a platform to discuss how to how to defend the interests of peace amid concerns about the policies of the new government. By mid-July, a spontaneous citizens movement of thousands of Colombian leaders was making its voice heard. Its objectives: to strengthen popular support for the previous government’s peace deal with the rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and to support the peace process with the National Liberation Army (ELN).