ABSTRACT
Colombia has been a democracy for most of the 20th century, has no ethnic or religious divides and it is ranked as a mid-level developing economy. Nevertheless, internal violence in the form of armed conflict has been a critical feature over the past decades. Seven left-wing guerrilla organisations emerged between the 1960s and the 1980s, along with a series of right-wing illegal forces, the so-called ‘paramilitary’. Through their armed struggle against the state, Marxist guerrillas aimed at redressing grievances related to inequality, social exclusion and the concentration of political power in the hands of a few, and proposed installing a socialist regime. Paramilitary forces, on the other hand – who grouped loosely as Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC) in 1997 – have sought to repel guerrilla influence and, as we now know, frequently served as natural allies of the state security forces in the battlefield. Five out of the seven guerrilla groups, the Movimiento 19 de Abril (M-19), the Movimiento Armado Quintín Lame (MAQL), the Ejército Popular de Liberación (EPL), the Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores (PRT) and the Corriente de Renovación Socialista (CRS) – totalling approximately 5,000 combatants – demobilised after peace negotiations in 1989-94 and temporarily became a ‘relevant political force’.1 While it is true that none of the original political movements they created ultimately survived democratic political competition, it is possible to argue that these guerrillas underwent a relatively successful political reintegration. Ever since their demobilisation, many have participated in policy-making and public debate through think tanks, NGOs, journalism and jobs in the public sector, and their sustained political engagement has contributed to strengthen liberal political ideas and human-rights norms in Colombia.2 Moreover, several former guerrilla leaders are currently key figures of the Polo Democrático (PD), a left-wing party with important public appeal created in 2003. Whether as groups or individually, guerrillas found space for legitimate political participation at the local and national levels and they did so despite the continuation of war waged by the remaining armed groups, the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) and the paramilitary.3
