start date of the colombian armed conflict

In September, days before Pope Francis’ visit to Colombia, the parties agreed to hold a bilateral ceasefire between October 2017 and January 2018. In February 2017, the government and the ELN started peace talks in Quito, Ecuador, after more than two years of exploratory negotiations.

Perpetrators of these abuses are rarely held accountable. Human rights defenders, trade unionists, journalists, indigenous and Afro-Colombian leaders, and other community activists face death threats and violence, mostly from guerrillas and successor groups. Violence associated with the conflict has forcibly displaced more than 7.7 million Colombians since 1985, generating the world’s largest population of internally displaced persons (IDPs). However, civilians continue to suffer serious abuses by the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas and paramilitary successor groups that emerged after a demobilization process a decade ago. In June 2017, the United Nations mission in Colombia verified that the FARC had handed over its weapons and demobilized. At time of writing, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, the judicial system the parties created to try wartime abuses, had yet to be put in place. The agreement provides a historic opportunity to curb human rights abuses, but its justice component contains serious shortcomings that risk letting war criminals escape justice. The government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) reached an agreement in 2016 to end their 52-year armed conflict.

Start date of the colombian armed conflict