ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a context for the DDR process of the Colombian government with the paramilitary, a description of it, a discussion of the political debates that characterized it and a quantitative analysis of some of its main implications. Colombia has suffered one of the longest internal conflicts in the world. In fact, the process was initiated hastily, way before the institutional framework for the reincorporation of the paramilitary members was devised. Successive Colombian administrations from 1982 until 2002 had combined genuine peace efforts which sometimes involved taking major risks and investing massive political and financial resources with yielding to the growing autonomy of the military and the privatization of security. The institutional framework for the paramilitary reinsertion was finally produced by the famous or infamous, depending on the political perspective Law 975 of 2005, known as Ley de Justicia y Paz.
