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$1.50
February 2000
The Colombian Dilemma
After half a century of fighting, can a fragile peace process succeed?
By Adam Isacson*
(Part one of two -- see also “Getting in Deeper,” published February 2000)
At first, it sounds all too familiar. A
Latin American country is plagued by
inequality, rural neglect and militarism.
A conflict includes Marxist guerrillas
and right-wing death squads, spurring
a refugee crisis. A struggling peace
process gets tepid support from Washington. Amid rapidly rising U.S. military aid, concerns grow over the spread
of instability to regional neighbors.
For those who recall the Reagan
Administration’s adventures in Central
America, much about Colombia can inspire eerie feelings of déjà vu. But the
similarities do not run very deep.
Colombia’s decades-old conflict and
the effort to end it are far more complicated than the violence El Salvador,
Guatemala and Nicaragua suffered
during the 1980s. In fact, perhaps only
the Middle East rivals Colombia’s conflict for complexity.
The hemisphere’s fourth most popuof peace and war. Clockwise from upper left: FARC leader Manuel Marulanda speaks with
lous country, Colombia has about one- Images
President Andrés Pastrana; thousands in downtown Bogotá demand peace; some of the 1.5 million
third more people than all seven Cen- Colombians driven from their homes in the past decade; FARC fighter after a November 1999 battle.
tral American nations put together. Colombia’s land area vate armies more than shadowy groups of killers – and
are somewhat independent of the army. While the viois expansive enough to accommodate all of Central
America twice over, with enough room left over to fit an lence has forced millions from their homes, the overwhelming majority are not refugees but “internally disadditional four El Salvadors. Unlike the groups in El
placed persons,” moving within the country instead of
Salvador’s FMLN and Guatemala’s URNG, Colombia’s
crossing borders, living in terror and receiving no sigthree guerrilla groups fight separately (even confronting
each other at times), violate human rights frequently, and nificant aid. The government seeks to bring guerrillas to
the negotiating table, though a series of peace processes
are held in low esteem by most citizens. The paramiliover the past eighteen years offers few helpful models.
tary death squads operate in the open – resembling pri*CIP interns Chris Buck, Angélica Cotrino and Nancy Manson made several
With the exception of the United States, no foreign source
key contributions to this report’s design and content.
A Publication of the Center for International Policy
2
arms the combatants; instead, the drug trade pervades,
corrupts and finances all sides. On deeper examination,
this conflict – the Western Hemisphere’s oldest and most
brutal – bears only a passing resemblance to Central
America.
An old war re-escalates
As in Central America, though, Colombia’s conflict
owes much to a history of social injustice and government neglect. At no time since the Spanish conquest has
the Bogotá government exercised authority over much
of the nation’s territory. Since long before the emergence
of guerrilla groups, Colombia – particularly rural Colombia – has resembled less a cohesive state than a patchwork of fiefdoms ruled by local bosses. The essential
unit of power has long been the army brigade, guerrilla
front, paramilitary “self-defense” association, or departmental political party. The rule of law – the guarantee
that justice applies to all without regard to wealth, political power or capacity for violence – has been virtually
nonexistent. The result has been a Hobbesian “war of
all against all” in Colombia’s countryside. Violence, which
raged out of control at the turn of the last century, flared
up again in 1948 – the onset of a period known as “la
violencia” – and has not ended yet.
As recently as the early 1990s, even many very able
U.S. analysts viewed Colombia’s disorder as a “narco”
issue, dismissing the simmering conflict with Marxist
revolutionaries as a cold-war anachronism doomed to
fade away. Since then, however, the fighting has intensified alarmingly. While Central America was ending its
cold-war conflicts and seeking to reconcile its societies,
Colombia’s two largest guerrilla groups, the FARC and
ELN, were growing in strength, as were rightist
paramilitaries. The FARC grew from about fifty fronts
and 12,000 members in 1990 to sixty-one fronts and
17,000 members today; the ELN grew from about
twenty-two fronts and 2,500 members to thirty fronts and
4,500 members; and paramilitary groups grew from several hundred members to about 5,000 today.
The combatants’ links to the drug trade
This growth owes less to the groups’ innate appeal
than to their ability to finance themselves. Landowners,
drug traffickers, and the military have generously supported the paramilitaries since they were founded in the
1980s. The guerrillas have long financed themselves
through kidnapping, extortion and “taxes” on economic
activity in areas they control.
Beginning in the 1960s and 1970s, violence and unequal landholding pushed tens of thousands of peasants
into Colombia’s southern plains, a neglected, unpopulated
Colombia
Population: 39 million
Land area: 440,000 square miles, about the size of
Texas, New Mexico, and Arkansas combined
Per capita GDP: $2,500 (1997)
Security forces: 135,000 in Army, Navy (includes
Marines and Coast Guard), Air Force; 105,000 in
National Police
Military budget: $4 billion, 4.2% of GDP (1998)
swath of Amazon-basin jungle about the size of California. The Colombian government did not follow them,
leaving these small landholders without basic services,
credit, farm-to-market roads, or any semblance of a rule
of law. The newly arrived residents of this zone found
that no matter what crop they raised – rubber, yucca, oil
palm – the cost of inputs and the cost of bringing the
produce to market made financial losses inevitable. By
the 1980s, though, many discovered that if they grew
coca – a crop more commonly found at the time in Peru
and Bolivia – they had plenty of buyers offering good
prices and willing to haul it away themselves.
By the mid-1990s, the FARC guerrillas who controlled this southern zone (a control gained more by filling a vacuum than by conquest) were “taxing” this mainly
small-scale drug production, just as they charge levies
on legal production in their zones of influence. By Colombian Army and U.S. Southern Command estimates,
between one-third and two-thirds of FARC fronts and
between one-eighth and one-quarter of ELN fronts benefit financially from the drug economy, mainly through
taxation or payments for protection of drug laboratories.
According to a U.S. intelligence assessment the New York
Times cited in September 1999, Colombia’s guerrillas,
chiefly the FARC, gain between $30 million and $100
million per year from the drug trade, virtually all of which
appears to get plowed back into their war effort. This
generous new source of revenue financed the sharp
growth in guerrilla groups’ numbers and fighting ability
during the 1990s.
It did the same for paramilitaries, who now admit that
they also tax drug-crop cultivators in their own areas of
influence. But paramilitary groups’ ties to the drug trade
go still deeper. Though the term “narco-guerrilla” gets
used far more often than “narco-paramilitary,” drug dealers have been a part of the rightist groups’ history since
their creation.
In the early and mid-1980s, after years of guerrilla
extortion and taxation, many landholders in rural northern Colombia were willing to sell their properties at bargain prices. They had a ready set of buyers in the newly
rich leaders of Colombia’s young drug trade, who needed
legal investments with which to launder their ill-gotten
gains. In what some analysts have called a “reverse land
3
The Combatants
There are three sets of actors in Colombia's longstanding
conflict: guerrilla groups, paramilitary groups, and government security forces.
The Guerrillas
The FARC, or Colombian Revolutionary
Armed Forces, emerged
from leftist peasant selfdefense groups that organized
during
Colombia’s rural violence of the 1950s. The group formed in July
1964, following a repressed revolt of Communist peasants in the
Marquetalia region of Tolima department in central Colombia.
While the group’s strength has
ebbed and flowed over the years,
the FARC is currently at a historic
peak. Financed through extortion, kidnappings, and “taxes” on
drug cultivation, the group now
has about 17,000 members and
recently has handed the armed
forces some humiliating defeats. Number-two FARC leader “Mono Jojoy” with
number-one leader “Tirofijo”
The FARC’s sixty-one fronts are
led by a seven-member secretariat, among whom two leaders are
most prominent: Pedro Antonio Marín, alias “Manuel Marulanda”
or “Tirofijo” (“Sureshot”), the group’s paramount leader; and Jorge
Briceño, alias “El Mono Jojoy,” its chief military strategist. Briceño
is seen as the main hard-liner in the FARC, the guerrilla leader
least supportive of the peace talks the group has held with the
government since January 1999. The secretariat is also said to
include a more moderate “political” faction willing to pursue dialogue. This faction includes Raúl Reyes, the group’s de facto
spokesman, and Alfonso Cano, regarded as its chief ideologue.
The ELN, or National Liberation
Army, has about 5,000 members.
It was founded in 1964 by Cubaninspired intellectuals and radical
Catholic clergy.
The ELN has been weakened
somewhat by the 1998 death of
longtime leader Manuel Pérez,
and by concerted paramilitary attacks, mostly on civilians, in parts of northeast Colombia regarded
as ELN strongholds. The group frequently assaults the country’s
oil and energy infrastructure, though it also carried out two mass
kidnappings in 1999, on a hijacked plane and in a Cali church.
The group, now led by Nicolás Rodríguez, alias “Gabino,” says it
is willing to begin talks with the Colombian government, with an
agenda determined by a several month-long “convention” with
civil society leaders. This has been delayed by an ELN demand
that security forces first pull out of four municipalities in southern
Bolívar department, a highly conflictive area.
The EPL, or People’s Liberation Army, is a 500-member
splinter remnant of a Maoist group that signed a peace
accord and demobilized in 1991. Active in a few areas of
northern Colombia, the EPL carries out occasional terrorist attacks and kidnappings. The group’s leader, Francisco Caraballo, is currently in prison.
Paramilitary Groups
Right-wing paramilitary or “self-defense” groups began forming in the
mid-1980s as an anti-guerrilla strategy.
They expanded rapidly with assistance
from the armed forces and funding from
landowners (many of them drug dealers who laundered their profits by buying up farm and ranch land). The groups
chiefly target civilians they regard as their enemies’ “social base”;
today, they are responsible for nearly 80 percent
of all political murders and the majority of forced
displacements. Paramilitaries were declared illegal in 1989, and official state policy demands
that they be disbanded. They nonetheless operate with the support or acquiescence of local military personnel in many parts of the country (see
box on page 6). Combat between the military
Carlos Castaño
and paramilitaries is exceedingly rare.
Though somewhat decentralized, several groups have joined forces
within the “United Self-Defense Groups of Colombia” (AUC), led
by former Medellín drug cartel associate Carlos Castaño. While
most active in northern Colombia, the AUC has made inroads in
the south, particularly around Cali and in the FARC-dominated
coca-growing zone.
The AUC profits from the drug trade in areas it controls. “We finance
ourselves with what the coca growers produce, I have to recognize
this,” Castaño told the Colombian newsweekly Cambio in November 1999. “I charge them a 60 percent tax on what they earn.”
The Armed Forces
Colombia’s Army has 120,000
members, though a law excluding
high-school graduates from combat leaves only about 50,000 available to fight. The army is in crisis
after several years of battlefield
losses and widespread charges of
corruption and human rights abuse. While steps have been taken
to improve the force’s human rights record, serious concerns remain about impunity for abusers, collaboration with paramilitaries
and out-of-control intelligence units.
Under Armed Forces chief Gen. Fernando Tapias, a relatively moderate officer, the army is undergoing a reform aimed at ending its
largely defensive posture while increasing the number and readiness of combat troops. U.S. assistance is rapidly increasing, with
three new counternarcotics battalions to be operating by late 2000.
The105,000-strong National Police are under the jurisdiction of
the Defense Ministry. As the lead anti-drug force, they have until
recently received the bulk of U.S. assistance. Police Chief Gen.
Rosso José Serrano has helped his
cause by cultivating strong relationships with key Republican
members of Congress.
The 10,000-member Air Force
and 5,000-member Navy have
both counternarcotics and
counterinsurgency missions. U.S.
assistance to both is increasing. Army chief Gen. Jorge Enrique Mora and
Armed Forces chief Gen. Fernando Tapias
4
A fifty-year-old conflict
The assassination of populist leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán
ushers in “La Violencia,” a period of rural violence between
partisans of Colombia’s two main political parties, the
Liberals and Conservatives. La Violencia claims 200,000
lives in ten years.
The head of the armed forces, Gen. Gustavo Rojas Pinilla,
carries out Colombia’s last military coup.
Liberal and Communist peasant guerrilla groups form
alliances for self-defense. The resulting grouping, calling
itself “Liberales Comunes,” is the precursor for what is to
become the FARC.
Liberals and Conservatives end La Violencia by creating the
National Front, a power-sharing agreement that excludes
all other parties. The National Front arrangement lasts for
sixteen years.
The FARC is born after troops put down a Communist
peasant uprising in the Marquetalia region of Tolima department in central Colombia.
Cuban-inspired priests and students form the ELN, which
launches its first actions in the San Lucas Mountains of
southern Bolívar department in northeast Colombia.
The Maoist-inspired EPL forms during the latter half of
the 1960s.
A second wave of guerrilla groups emerges, including the
largely urban April 19th Movement (M-19), ANAPO,
Quintin Lame, and other small movements.
President Julio César Turbay implements a Public Security Statute giving the military much wider latitude for
action. Human rights violations skyrocket, but guerrilla
groups suffer few important losses.
President Belisario Betancur initiates the first peace process, negotiating a cease-fire with several groups.
Landowners and the military begin forming paramilitary
self-defense groups to combat the guerrillas.
M-19 guerrillas take over the Palace of Justice in downtown Bogota. Several justices die as the military storms
the Palace. The Betancourt peace process is over. The FARC
creats a political party, the Unión Patriótica. Over 2,000
members are killed over the next eight years.
President Virgilio Barco initiates a new peace process.
Paramilitaries continue to grow with government support.
Presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán is killed by Pablo
Escobar’s Medellín drug cartel.
The M-19 and several other groups agree to demobilize
and participate in the creation of the progressive 1991 constitution.
Talks with the FARC and ELN fall apart, and the government of President César Gaviria pledges “total war.”
reform,” a significant portion of landholdings in northern
Colombia became concentrated in the hands of a small
number of “capos” and cartel leaders. The drug lord-landowners, along with remaining farmers and ranchers,
adopted a new approach to the guerrillas’ intimidation
tactics, setting up well-paid vigilante “self-defense groups.”
With military-style weapons and uniforms, these groups
were created with heavy input from Colombia’s armed
forces. Though the paramilitaries attacked civilian populations far more frequently than guerrillas, the Colombian Army trained, equipped, and operated alongside them
until 1989, when they were declared illegal. Little or no
effort was ever made to enforce this ban, however, and
the groups’ relationship with the armed forces, though
pushed underground, remains strong today.
The most prominent paramilitary leader is Carlos
Castaño of the Campesino Self-Defense Group of
Córdoba and Urabá (ACCU). Castaño, a former associate of Medellín cartel boss Pablo Escobar, has brought
several of the larger regional paramilitary associations together under his loose direction within the United SelfDefense Groups of Colombia (AUC).
A human rights emergency
The armed groups’ growth meant that paramilitary massacres and intimidation – normally of defenseless civilians perceived to be the “social base” of guerrilla groups
– had become a daily occurrence by the mid-1990s. Mean-
Areas of greatest armed group activity
Catatumbo
Urabá Magdalena
Medio
Meta
Putumayo
President Ernesto Samper is implicated in a drug-money
scandal. Relations with the United States sour. Guerrilla
and paramilitary groups, fueled by charges on the drug
economy, expand rapidly and violence escalates.
Amid growing citizen clamor for peace, Andrés Pastrana
is elected and launches talks with the FARC. U.S. military
aid grows exponentially.
Map image © 1999 Microsoft Corp.
while the FARC’s newfound strength allowed it to deal
the Colombian military several humiliating defeats.
The violence now takes over 3,000 lives each year, at
least two-thirds of them civilian non-combatants, and displaces over 300,000. Fighting is at its fiercest in northern
Colombia, where paramilitary groups are strongest and
civilians are most often targeted. The most conflictive parts
of the north are Urabá, a banana-growing region near the
Panama border; the Magdalena Medio, a section of the
Magdalena River valley in north-central Colombia near
the oil town of Barrancabermeja; and Catatumbo, a drugproducing region near the Venezuelan border. The FARC
generally holds sway in the southern jungle and coca region, though Castaño’s AUC has made inroads. Some of
the most intensely contested areas in the south are Meta
department, at the edge of the Amazon plains southeast
of Bogotá, and Putumayo department, in the far south
near the Ecuadorian border. Putumayo, the site of much
coca production, hosts a recently created U.S.-funded Colombian Army counternarcotics unit, and is a chief destination of a proposed U.S. military aid package for 2000
and 2001 (see CIP’s publication Getting in Deeper).
The paramilitaries, which routinely use massacres, extrajudicial executions, and forced disappearances as battlefield tactics, are now responsible for over three-quarters
of all human rights violations (see box on page 6). Guerrillas, responsible for about twenty percent of political
killings, routinely execute or massacre civilians whom
5
they regard as their opponents, and carry out numerous
indiscriminate attacks on civilian populations – at times
with inaccurate makeshift bombs that claim many noncombatant victims. The Colombian security forces,
hunkered down in a defensive posture and fighting only
in response to guerrilla attacks, have seen their share of
abuses drop from half of the total in the early 1990s to
about two percent today.
Though military leaders are fond of citing this twopercent figure, it fails to take into account continuing cooperation with paramilitary groups. Official policy calls
for combating the right-wing groups, but military-paramilitary collaboration is common at the brigade and battalion levels. This cooperation rarely involves soldiers and
“paras” openly working side-by-side on maneuvers
against civilian populations. Instead, the security forces
share intelligence with paramilitary counterparts, quietly
provide transportation, vacate zones where abuses are to
take place, and look the other way while they occur. This
arrangement allows the military’s hands to appear clean
amid an exceedingly dirty war.
The two percent figure fails to take into account widespread impunity for known military abusers. Though four
particularly notorious generals have been fired recently
for cooperation with paramilitaries, prosecutions – particularly of higher-ranking officers – are rare and quite
dangerous for the prosecutors involved. The oft-cited two
Areas of greatest drug cultivation
Areas of greatest internal displacement, 1998
Map image © 1999 Microsoft Corp.
Map image © 1999 Microsoft Corp.
6
Responsibility for human rights violations
A shrinking military share...
...but behind the percentages, complicity continues
Source: Colombian Commission of Jurists
Political Killings
percent also leaves out the shadowy role of military intelligence, concentrated in the Bogotá-based 13th Brigade,
which is widely suspected of eavesdropping on activists,
academics and journalists, issuing threats, planning
kidnappings, and carrying out assassinations.
It is especially tragic that some of Colombia’s most
acutely threatened people are those who dare to work to
end or to humanize the conflict. The country has been
shocked and saddened by a relentless series of attacks on
peace activists and human rights defenders (see box on
this page). Many of Colombia’s most brilliant and effective human rights workers, scholars, journalists, labor leaders and jurists can now be found overseas, forced to leave
their homes by threats and intimidation.
This senseless campaign of attacks does more than just
weaken its victims’ organizations and movements. It also
“Some government officials claimed that the military’s ties to paramilitary groups were severed and cited the low percentage of violations
credited to state forces acting alone. However, the percentage does not
reflect state forces that routinely assisted paramilitary atrocities. Indeed, cooperation between army units and paramilitaries remained commonplace.... Repeatedly, paramilitaries killed those suspected of supporting guerrillas, then delivered the corpses to the army. In a process
known as “legalization,” the army then claimed the dead as guerrillas
killed in combat while paramilitaries received their pay in army weapons.... The debate over percentages also leaves unaddressed continuing
criminal activity by military intelligence, which government investigators linked to a string of high-profile killings and death threats, including the August murder of humorist Jaime Garzón. Although the brigade
that centralized military intelligence was reportedly dismantled in 1998
because of human rights crimes, government investigators believe intelligence agents continued to threaten, kidnap, and kill.”
-- Human Rights Watch World Report 2000 (www.hrw.org/hrw/wr2k)
closes whatever political space is available for the many
Colombians who hold reformist views but favor neither
Marxism nor violence. By keeping Colombia’s “peaceful left” from participating in the political system, threats
and attacks in fact benefit guerrilla groups by making them
the only viable option for many who seek change.
A regional problem?
While guerrilla takeover or “failed state” scenarios are
decidedly farfetched, the out-of-control violence easily
makes Colombia the most unstable country in the Andean
ridge. This is an unhappy distinction in a region that has
rather suddenly become one of the world’s most troubled.
Colombia’s neighbors are in only slightly better shape,
with enormous problems of their own. Economic turmoil
has overwhelmed Ecuador and Venezuela, contributing
to a January 2000 coup in Quito and the election in
Human rights defenders and peace activists: the most dangerous jobs
group. The four were later released.
Colombia’s conflict is only occasionally fought on battlefields. In
- The February 1999 murder of two workers from the Bogotá-based
fact, civilian non-combatants are the most frequent targets of the
Committee in Solidarity with Political Prisoners.
violence. In an especially cruel twist, some of the most threatened
- The May 1999 AUC kidnapping of Piedad Córdoba, head of the
Colombians are those who defend human rights and actively work for
Senate’s human rights committee. She was later released.
peace. Though they oppose violence and take no sides in the conflict,
- The August 1999 murder of television humorist Jaime Garzón,
non-governmental activists, journalists, academics, and others
who lampooned the military and had acted as a go-between in
who seek to end or humanize the war find themselves under
peacemaking and kidnapping-resolution efforts.
immense threat.
- The September 1999 killing of former peace
Among the many high-profile attacks that
negotiator Jesús Bejarano on the grounds of the
have shocked the country in the last few years:
National University in Bogotá, where he was a
- The October 1996 murder of Josué Giraldo of the
Meta Civic Committee for Human Rights (almost Sen. Piedad Córdoba professor.
- The kidnapping and presumed murder by the
all human rights workers in the southern departJosué Giraldo ment of Meta have been killed).
AUC of peasant activists Edgar Quiroga and
Gildardo Fuentes in November 1999.
Jaime Garzón
- The May 1997 killing of Mario Calderón and Elsa
- The December 1999 shooting of National
Alvarado of the Jesuit-run Center for Research
University professor Eduardo Pizarro, a renowned
and Political Studies (CINEP) by armed men who
peace analyst. Pizarro survived the attempt.
burst into their Bogotá apartment.
The campaign of terror against human rights
- The February 1998 murder of Jesús María Valle
Jesús María Valle
defenders has not only spread a climate of fear; it
Mario Calderón of the Medellín-based Héctor Abad Gómez
has also made it difficult to get information about Jesús Bejarano
Human Rights Committee.
state involvement in human rights abuse. Many
- The April 1998 assassination of lawyer Eduardo
parts of the country have now been cleared of the
Umaña in his Bogotá home.
few brave individuals who had denounced abuses.
- The February 1999 kidnapping of four workers
One such informational “black hole” is the
from the Medellín-based Popular Training
Putumayo region of southern Colombia, the
Institute by Carlos Castaño’s AUC paramilitary
Eduardo Pizarro
Elsa Alvarado
Eduardo Umaña destination of much U.S. military aid.
7
Colombia’s borders
While Colombia’s neighbors do not view the conflict as an immediate threat to their security, occasional spillovers of instability -- fighting,
kidnapping and extortion, and refugee flows -- do create additional problems for already-troubled states. Reactions have ranged from
troop deployments to assistance for peace efforts. The United States, meanwhile, maintains a regular military presence in the area.
Panama (175 miles)
Venezuela (1,300 miles)
Just across the border from Panama is Urabá, one of Colombia’s most highly conflictive
regions. FARC and paramilitary violence occasionally spills into armyless Panama’s
densely jungled Darién
region. Over 7,000
refugees have crossed
this border since 1995.
Though the impassable Darién shields the
Panama Canal, concerns emerged after a
FARC attack in Juradó
on December 12, 1999,
two days before the canal handover ceremony.
Guerrilla extortion of Venezuelan landowners brought a big military presence to bases in
Guasdualito and La Fría. Over 18,000 refugees have crossed since 1995, including 600 sent
back from Casigua after fleeing paramilitaries in June 1999. The
Serranía de Perijá is a
poppy-growing region
straddling the border.
The FARC killed 3 U.S.
activists in Arauca in
March 1999. Aruba
and Curacao host a
U.S. military antidrug “forward operating location.”
Like Panama, this border is a route for smuggling weapons into
FARC-held areas. Over
12,000 refugees have
crossed since 1995. Its
border conflict with
Peru over, Ecuador is
sending troops to
Sucumbíos department, where the U.S.
and Ecuador have carried out several joint
military exercises. The
U.S. maintains a counter-drug “forward operating location” at Manta. A U.S.-supported
Colombian Army counternarcotics battalion is based in nearby Tres Esquinas.
Peruvian President
Alberto Fujimori, a
critic of Pastrana’s
peace strategy, has sent
4,000 troops to the border to protect against
guerrilla incursions,
which in fact are relatively infrequent. A
new U.S.-supported
Colombian Navy Riverine Brigade is based
at Puerto Leguizamo.
Map images © 1999 Microsoft Corp.
The U.S. military has a
semi-permanent training presence at Iquitos, and maintains a ground-based radar site in
Leticia. Refugee flows are lighter in this largely unpopulated zone.
Ecuador (320 miles)
Peru (675 miles)
Caracas of Hugo Chávez, a populist former coup plotter
whose democratic credentials remain uncertain. Peru’s
semi-dictatorial president, Alberto Fujimori, hopes to expand his term by five years in this year’s elections amid
an advanced deterioration of democratic institutions.
Panama is in its first year “on its own,” with no armed
U.S. presence on its soil and complete responsibility for
the management of its canal.
While it is highly unlikely that, in the memorable words
of Indiana Republican Rep. Dan Burton, “the entire northern tier of South America could be lost to narco-guerrillas
and traffickers,” Colombia’s turmoil does affect its troubled
Andean neighbors. The border areas Colombia shares with
Panama, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, and (to a lesser extent) Brazil have played host to refugee flows, guerrilla
and paramilitary incursions, kidnapping and extortion, and
infrequent combat.
While not fundamentally threatening its neighbors’ stability, the spillover of Colombia’s violence has led to a
greater military presence in border areas and has soured
relations between the Pastrana government and some regional leaders. Venezuela’s President Chávez has voiced
support for Colombia’s peace process but has angered
Colombian officials with overtures to the FARC and ELN.
Meanwhile, Venezuela stations between 15,000 and
20,000 troops along its border, at 100 border posts and
two large bases known as “theaters of operations.” Peru’s
Fujimori has been harshly critical of the Pastrana
government’s peace effort – most notably in a February
1999 speech at the Inter-American Defense College in
Washington – and has deployed 4,000 troops to the border area since early 1999. Many of these troops had been
stationed at the Ecuadorian border before the two countries’ 1995 conflict was resolved, and many observers
view Fujimori’s invocation of a new external threat as an
appeal for domestic support in advance of the 2000 elections. In Panama’s unpopulated Darién region, where the
FARC had taken “rest and relaxation” for years, the 1990s
paramilitary offensive across the border in Urabá has increased violence and refugee flows. Panama, which formally abolished its army in 1994, has increased its police
presence in the border area to over 2,000, while some
have called for re-militarization “to protect the canal” – a
long walk away from the border through the roadless
Darién – from Colombia’s violence. Ecuador’s government, caught up in its own political and economic crisis,
has stationed 3,000 troops near the border. Meanwhile
the United States maintains some military presence in the
border zones at radar sites, newly established counterdrug “forward operating locations” in Aruba, Curacao,
and Ecuador, a Peruvian riverine operations school in the
Amazon port of Iquitos, and through numerous Special
Forces joint training deployments.
8
Talking peace
Despite the escalating conflict, human rights crisis and
concerns for regional stability, there is some reason for
guarded optimism. As their country’s conflict spun out of
control in the 1990s, Colombian citizens did not remain
passive or intimidated. In the past few years, movements
calling for a national peace process and promoting locallevel conflict resolution have proliferated impressively.
While civil society played almost no role in past negotiations with guerrilla groups, national organizations get
much of the credit for ushering in the peace process that
began in 1998 and continues today (see boxes on this
page and page 9). These groups’ strong push for a negotiated solution has given the Colombian state the political
cover it needed to take the difficult step of initiating talks
with guerrilla groups.
Street protests, assemblies, “votes” for peace, direct
negotiations with armed groups, and other tactics revealed
the Colombian people’s deep exhaustion with the fighting, making the search for a negotiated settlement a central issue in 1998 presidential elections. Conservative party
candidate Andrés Pastrana, who made peace a centerpiece of his platform, was elected partly because FARC
leaders indicated during the campaign that they were most
open to negotiations with a Conservative government.
Pastrana followed through quickly on his promise to
pursue talks with the guerrillas, traveling to the mountains of Colombia while still president-elect for a meeting
with FARC leader Manuel Marulanda. By October 1998
Pastrana had secured a FARC commitment to talk peace,
a feat he accomplished largely by agreeing to a controversial guerrilla pre-condition: the pullout of security
forces from five municipalities in the southern departments
of Meta and Caquetá (see map on page 4). This zone was
considered FARC-held territory long before the November 1998 troop withdrawal; military units of less than company strength rarely ventured more than a mile from their
base in the largest town, San Vicente del Caguán (pop.
15,000). The 16,200 square-mile “clearance zone” (about
twice the size of El Salvador) has hosted all subsequent
talks between government and FARC representatives.
The talks began on January 7, 1999 with a ceremony
in San Vicente del Caguán. The unexpected absence of
FARC leader Marulanda – who claimed that security concerns kept him away from the event – augured the difficult year ahead. Though chief government negotiator
Víctor Ricardo and other government representatives met
frequently with FARC counterparts, the talks made little
substantial progress in their first year.
A FARC demand that the government break army-
Hope for peace?
In a non-binding ballot during municipal elections, 10 million Colombians “vote” for a peaceful end to the conflict.
Thousands of Colombians take to the streets to demand
peace. The protests are the largest in Bogotá in decades.
Newly-elected President Andrés Pastrana travels to rural
Colombia to meet with FARC leaders.
The ELN signs an agreement in Mainz, Germany, with
forty Colombian business and civil-society leaders. The
accord commits the ELN to finding a peaceful solution to
the conflict, particularly through a “convention” with civilsociety and government leaders at some future date.
A group of labor, business and civil-society leaders meets
with paramilitary leader Carlos Castaño. The resulting
“Nudo de Paramillo Accord” expresses paramilitary support for an eventual peace negotiation and for an end to
attacks on civilian populations.
Civil-society groups host a “Permanent Assembly for
Peace” in Bogotá. The event draws more than three times
the expected number of participants.
Security forces pull out of five municipalities in southern
Colombia so that talks with the FARC may occur. The
“clearance zone,” where the FARC are the only armed presence, hosts all subsequent talks with the government.
At a meeting in Cartagena of the hemisphere’s defense
ministers, U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen signs an
agreement for closer U.S.-Colombian military cooperation.
At the Colombian government’s request, U.S. diplomats
meet in Costa Rica with FARC representatives.
Formal peace talks begin between the government and
FARC. “Tirofijo,” however, fails to appear at the opening
ceremony.
The FARC “freezes” the peace dialogue until April 20.
Talks will not continue, a guerrilla communiqué states,
until the government acts against paramilitary groups.
Peace discussions begin in Caracas, Venezuela between
the government and the ELN. ELN leaders demand a demilitarized zone similar to that granted to the FARC. The
government refuses, and talks with the ELN go nowhere.
Over the next several months, the ELN carries out several
mass kidnappings and attacks on energy infrastructure.
Three U.S. indigenous-rights activists are murdered by
FARC guerrillas in the eastern state of Arauca. The FARC
admits to the crime but refuses to turn over the killers. The
U.S. government cuts off all contact with the FARC.
President Pastrana meets with FARC leader Marulanda
for six hours. Pastrana leaves the meeting believing that
Marulanda agreed to an international verification commission in the demilitarized zone, a commitment that the
FARC denies having made. Disagreement over verification
delays the talks from July to October.
FARC and government officials agree on a joint agenda for
formal negotiations, a stage that past talks with the FARC
were unable to reach.
Minister of Defense Rodrigo Lloreda abruptly resigns, citing disagreement over Pastrana’s handling of the peace
process with the FARC. In Colombia’s worst civil-military
crisis in years, dozens of generals and colonels turn in their
resignations, which are not accepted.
A five-day FARC offensive further dampens Washington’s
enthusiasm for the peace process. U.S. “Drug Czar” Barry
McCaffrey proposes $1 billion to fight the drug war.
President Pastrana visits the United States to promote the
“Plan Colombia,” a $7.5 billion proposal to end the conflict, curb narcotrafficking, and revive Colombia’s economy.
As talks with the FARC re-start, up to 12 million Colombians take to the streets to demand an end to the fighting.
Several peace and human rights groups organized this
nationwide protest against kidnappings and the conflict.
The FARC announces a holiday cease-fire, calling off military operations until January 10, 2000.
The Clinton Administration proposes a $1.6 billion, twoyear package of assistance for Colombia.
FARC leader Marulanda pays a surprise visit to the site of
the talks and voices optimism about imminent formal
negotiations.
Major civil-society peace initiatives
REDEPAZ (Network of peace initiatives)
Created in 1993 as an effort to coordinate the many peace proposals emerging at the local and regional level. With UNICEF, Redepaz
organized the Nobel Peace Prize-nominated “Children’s Mandate
for Peace” in 1996, in which 2.7 million children cast a symbolic vote
for an end to the conflict. During municipal elections a year later, 10
million people cast votes for a “Citizen Mandate for Peace,” a nonbinding ballot measure expressing support for a negotiated end to
the conflict.
National Conciliation Commission
Since 1995 the Catholic Church and other civil society organizations have presented peace proposals and carried out active conflict-resolution efforts with armed groups.
Permanent Assembly of Civil Society for Peace
An effort begun in 1996 by the National Conciliation Commission,
the Permanent Assembly met in Bogotá in 1998 and Cali in 1999.
Both gatherings drew nearly 5,000 people. The Permanent Assembly, together with other groups, organized an October 1999 protest
in which up to 12 million Colombians said “No Más” to the fighting.
National Peace Council
Created by law in 1997, the council is a civil society advisory body
for government peace policy. It was created in an attempt to make
peace a permanent state policy, beyond the initiative of a single
presidential administration, and to improve communication between
the government and civil society. President Pastrana has rarely convened the council.
paramilitary linkages froze the talks between January and
April 1999, and a dispute over international monitoring
of the “clearance zone” brought an impasse between July
and October 1999. Large-scale FARC offensives in July,
November and December – in which the Colombian military actually scored key victories – cast a pall over the
process by spreading doubt about the guerrillas’ will to
pursue a peaceful solution. Doubts about the FARC’s sincerity were compounded by allegations of human rights
violations and other excesses in the demilitarized zone.
For its part, the Colombian government has faced criticism for managing the peace process in a very closed
fashion, allowing very little input from civil society and
even key government officials viewed as outside President Pastrana’s inner circle. Though they normally do not
suggest other courses of action, some critics have also
attacked the government for making what they regard to
be “naive” concessions to the guerrillas.
The process has nonetheless advanced farther than
previous attempts to talk with the FARC. In May 1999
both sides agreed on a twelve-point agenda, providing a
structure for formal negotiations (see box on page 10).
Negotiators are to reach agreement on a specific set of
reforms, such as agrarian policy or the military’s role, before moving to the next – a structure familiar to those
who recall the Salvadoran and Guatemalan peace processes. During 1999, however, the talks’ difficult progress
kept them from passing from procedural questions to the
“substantive phase” of negotiated reforms foreseen in the
twelve-point agenda.
9
Signs of a possible turnaround have surfaced in early
2000. The year began with the guerrillas’ declared “Christmas truce,” a twenty-day cease-fire that was the FARC’s
first since 1989. Shortly after talks resumed on January
13 Marulanda made a rare appearance at the site of the
dialogues, where he voiced optimism that the substantive
negotiations would soon begin. Both sides agreed to start
the negotiating agenda with a discussion of the country’s
economic model, and at the beginning of February three
FARC leaders paid an unprecedented visit to Scandinavia
to learn about those countries’ mixed economies.
President Pastrana has made substantially less progress
toward dialogue with Colombia’s other armed groups.
Both government and civil-society representatives have
met several times with ELN leaders, most recently in
Havana and Caracas, with no significant breakthroughs.
The ELN hopes to develop its negotiating agenda through
a nine-month “convention” with civil society leaders, but
the Colombian government has resisted the group’s demand that its convention take place in a separate ELN
“clearance zone.” While government representatives say
they are open to the idea, they disagree with the rebels’
chosen zone of southern Bolívar department, a part of the
highly conflictive and strategic Magdalena Medio region
in northeastern Colombia. Once an ELN stronghold,
southern Bolívar has lately been overrun by paramilitaries,
FARC units, and drug producers. A rash of high-profile
ELN attacks followed the government’s denial: an April
1999 airplane hijacking, the kidnapping of a Cali church
congregation in May, and bombings of hundreds of electrical pylons, forcing power rationing in major cities.
Though Carlos Castaño has told reporters that he is
interested in negotiations, Colombian government policy
dictates that the paramilitaries are not to be treated as “political actors” – in other words, Bogotá will negotiate with
them the terms of their disarmament, but talks would not
pursue an agenda of social reforms.
The challenges ahead
The road ahead for Colombia’s peace effort will be
difficult and long. The process has been underway for
more than a year, and by now all observers realize that it
will likely take several more. Nearly all also agree, though,
that Colombia’s conflict cannot be “won,” and that the
present process is the country’s best chance to avoid an
almost unthinkable plunge into further bloodshed.
The challenges ahead are daunting. The FARC has
made clear that it will not consider a cease-fire until a
substantial number of agenda points have ended with
agreements. For the foreseeable future, then, both sides
will continue the difficult task of talking peace amid regu-
10
lar fighting.
While most peace processes end with the disarmament
of opposition groups, both of Colombia’s guerrilla groups
are very reluctant to turn in their weapons and attempt a
new existence as political parties. Their reluctance is somewhat justified by the sad examples of Colombian guerrilla groups that demobilized in the past, only to fall victim to the ongoing campaign against the country’s “peaceful left.” The Patriotic Union, a political party that the
FARC established in 1985, did well in elections, but by
1992 a systematic campaign of assassination had claimed
the lives of between 2,000 and 3,000 party leaders and
members. The M-19 guerrilla group, which became a
party in the early 1990s and helped write Colombia’s 1991
constitution, lost many of its leaders and exists today only
as a marginal political force.
The success of the peace process will also depend on
all sides’ ability to overcome their own divisions. A fracture is widely acknowledged to exist within the FARC
leadership between a “political” wing that is willing to
pursue the group’s goals through negotiations, and a “military” wing focused on furthering its battlefield gains.
Colombia’s political establishment is similarly divided
between those willing to make compromises to end the
fighting and hard-liners who would yield very little.
Colombia’s civil-society peace movement suffers from
its own divisions as well. Despite many earnest and welldesigned efforts to coordinate strategies, civil society remains an amorphous mass unable to speak with one voice.
Consensus does not go much further than agreement that
a political solution is the best way out of the conflict, and
that civil society must somehow participate. Two of the
most divisive areas of disagreement are how (or whether)
to incorporate paramilitary groups in the process, and
whether a peace agreement would be acceptable if human rights abusers are granted amnesty.
The United States’ relationship to Colombia’s peace
process is another big factor, one complicated by
Washington’s overwhelming emphasis on counternarcotics and a spreading belief that guerrilla groups are a
regional security threat. U.S. support was beyond question at the outset of Pastrana’s peace effort; in December
1998 U.S. diplomats even took the bold step of meeting
with FARC representatives at the Colombian
government’s request. Since then, however, Washington’s
rhetorical support for the peace process has been undercut by officials’ public second-guessing of President
Pastrana’s strategy, by a refusal to meet again with the
guerrillas following their March 1999 murder of three U.S.
indigenous-rights activists, and by an aid proposal that
would add about $1.3 billion in new military and police
The agenda for negotiations with the FARC
1.
2.
A Negotiated Political Solution
Protection of Human Rights as a Responsibility of the State
2.1
2.2
2.3
3.
An Integrated Agrarian Policy
3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
3.5
3.6
4.
5.5
5.6
5.7
5.8
Reform of political parties and movements
Electoral reforms
Equal opportunity for the opposition
Equal opportunity for minorities
Mechanisms for citizen participation
Reform of the State
8.1
8.2
8.3
8.4
8.5
9.
Judicial system
Control institutions
Mechanisms to fight corruption
Drug trafficking
Political Reform To Broaden Democracy
7.1
7.2
7.3
7.4
7.5
8.
Revision of the economic development model
Income redistribution policies
Expansion of internal and external markets
Stimulating production through small, medium and large-scale private
enterprise
Cooperative support for the economy
Stimulation of foreign investment that benefits the nation
Social participation in economic planning
Investment in social welfare, education and scientific research
Judicial Reform, Fighting Corruption and Drug Trafficking
6.1
6.2
6.3
6.4
7.
Natural resources and their distribution
International treaties
Protection of the environment based on sustainable development
Economic and Social Structure
5.1
5.2
5.3
5.4
6.
The democratization of credit, technical assistance, and market access
Redistribution of unproductive land
Recuperation and distribution of land acquired through drug-trafficking and
illegal enrichment
Stimulating production
Integral ordering of territory
Illicit crop substitution and alternative development
Exploitation and Conservation of Natural Resources
4.1
4.2
4.3
5.
Fundamental rights
Economic, social, cultural, and environmental rights
International human rights treaties
Congressional reform
Administrative reform to improve the efficiency of public administration
Decentralization and strengthening of local power
Public services
Strategic sectors
Respecting International Humanitarian Law
9.1
9.2
9.3
9.4
No child involvement in the conflict
Land mines
Respect for the civil population
Respect for international agreements
10. The Armed Forces
10.1
10.2
10.3
10.4
Defense of sovereignty
Protection of human rights
Combating self-defense groups
International treaties
11. International Relations
11.1
11.2
11.3
11.4
Respect for non-intervention and free self determination
Latin American regional integration
Foreign debt
Treaties and international state agreements
12. Formalizing the Agreements
12.1
Democratic instruments to legitimize the agreements
assistance over the next two years. U.S. policymakers,
not known for their long attention spans, have meanwhile
been voicing impatience at the talks’ slow progress.
The role of the rest of the international community also
remains unclear. European countries and Colombia’s
South American neighbors are on the whole more supportive of the peace process and less interventionist in
their approach than Washington. Most are currently playing quiet, though often constructive, roles. The United
Nations could play a very important mediation role, as it
did for Central America’s peace process, but neither the
FARC nor the Colombian government has so far shown
much enthusiasm for its involvement. The UN is nonetheless making crucial contributions through the Bogotá
field offices of its High Commissioner for Human Rights
and High Commissioner for Refugees, while the appoint-
11
For more information
On the Internet:
- The Peace Process in Colombia, by the Center for International Policy:
www.ciponline.org/colombia
- Visit the web pages of the organizations listed at right...
In Spanish:
- Colombia En Paz, site of several pro-peace NGOs: www.colombiaenpaz.org
- CODHES, organization researching internal displacement: www.codhes.org.co
- UN High Commissioner for Human Rights field office: www.hchr.org.co
- Presidency of Colombia, with a good peace process page: www.presidencia.gov.co
- Embassy of Colombia in Washington: www.colombiaemb.org
- Colombian Army: www.ejercito.mil.co
- FARC: burn.ucsd.edu/~farc-ep ELN: www.voces.org
- Paramilitaries (AUC): www.colombialibre.org
- El Tiempo newspaper: www.eltiempo.com El Espectador newspaper:
www.elespectador.com El País newspaper: www.elpais-cali.com
Cambio magazine: www.revistacambio.com Semana magazine: www.semana.com
ment of Norwegian diplomat Jan Egeland as the secretary-general’s first special representative for Colombia is
a very promising development.
Peace in Colombia remains a long way off, and the
coming months and years will bring new disappointments,
frustrations, and atrocities. While what lies ahead may
make the Salvadoran and Guatemalan processes look easy,
the news is not all bad. The mere fact that civil society is
participating – and that this participation is growing – is
very encouraging, as it was an ingredient missing from
past peace talks. Another new element is a more engaged
Other U.S. organizations working on Colombia policy:
- The Latin America Working Group, 110 Maryland Ave NE, Box 15, Washington DC
20002; (202)546-7010, www.lawg.org
- The Washington Office on Latin America, 1630 Connecticut Ave NW, 2nd Floor,
Washington DC 20009; (202) 797-2171, [email protected], www.wola.org
- U.S.-Colombia Coordinating Office, 1630 Connecticut Ave NW, 2nd Floor, Washington
DC 20009; (202) 232-8090, [email protected], www.igc.org/colhrnet
- Human Rights Watch/Americas, 1630 Connecticut Ave NW, Suite 500, Washington DC
20009; (202) 612-4321, www.hrw.org
- Amnesty International/USA, 304 Pennsylvania Ave, SE Washington DC 20003; (202)
544-0200, [email protected], www.amnesty-usa.org
- Colombia Support Network, PO Box 1505, Madison WI 53701; (608) 257-8753,
[email protected], www.igc.org/csn
- U.S. Committee for Refugees, 1717 Massachusetts Ave NW, Suite 701 Washington DC
20036; (202) 347-3507, www.refugees.org
- Resource Center on the Americas, 3109 Minnehaha Ave S, Minneapolis, MN 55406;
(612) 276-0788; [email protected], www.americas.org/country/colombia
international community, both governmental and nongovernmental, that will pressure for humanization of the
conflict, offer technical and economic assistance, and play
a conflict-resolution role. Also new is the presence of a
government in Bogotá that has proven its willingness to
make sacrifices and politically unpopular moves to bring
its opponents to the table. Despite the formidable obstacles
it faces, then, there is cause to be optimistic about
Colombia’s peace process, to believe – as many do – that
this will be the process that eventually ends the fighting.
CIP thanks the Compton Foundation and the General Service Foundation for
the generous support that made this report possible.
New publications from the Center for International Policy
Just the Facts
1999 Edition
National
Insecurity
A civilian’s guide to U.S. defense and
security assistance to Latin America
and the Caribbean
By Adam Isacson and Joy Olson
U.S. Intelligence After The Cold War
Edited by Craig Eisendrath
A project of the Latin American Working
Group in cooperation with the Center for
International Policy
252 pp. December 1999, price $18.95
(Paperback)
Just the Facts provides more information than ever before available about U.S.
military aid to Latin America and the Caribbean, and is an essential resource for
anyone trying to understand the United States’ complex military relationship with the
hemisphere. This book details dozens of programs and activities that the U. S.
government carries out with the region’s security forces, including arms transfers,
training programs, exercises, deployments, counternarcotics operations, military bases,
and a surprisingly wide variety of “military-to-military contact” programs.
Just the Facts offers an up-to-date look at the defense and security assistance package
going to every Latin American country. The study also provides a thorough overview of
the security assistance process, explaining complex laws and procedures in plain
English. The book is a useful tool for scholars, activists, government oversight
personnel, and citizens worldwide seeking greater transparency and fuller knowledge
of the United States’ defense and security activities in the hemisphere.
The new edition’s most surprising findings concern the scope of the U.S. military’s
overseas training activities. In 1998, the study finds, the United States trained at least
9,867 - and possibly many more – military and police personnel from Latin America
and the Caribbean. The majority of this training takes place outside of the United States,
with more that half carried out by Green Berets, Navy SEALs and other Special Forces
units. The School of the Americas, the famous symbol of Cold War-era U.S. training
of Latin American militaries, today accounts for less than 10 percent of all trainees.
In all, Latin American personnel attended 104 U.S. military training institutions in
1998. Meanwhile, the presence of U.S. troops remains high, with nearly 50,000
deploying to the region in 1998 and more expected in 1999.
A Project of the
Center for International Policy
296pp. January 2000, price $34.50
(Hardback)
“The distinguished contributors to this book present a
wide range of perspectives from which to assess our
intelligence system. Their decades of public service
command tremendous respect. Their views break new ground and demand the
attention of the White House and of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. This book
should be required reading by all congressional committees concerned with
intelligence policy, surveillance, and appropriations, and by all Americans.
—from the Foreword by Senator Tom Harkin
In National Insecurity ten prominent experts describe, from an insider perspective,
what went wrong with the U.S. intelligence system and what needs to be done to fix it.
Drawing on their expertise in government administration, research, and foreign
service, they propose a radical rethinking of the United States’ intelligence needs in
the post-Cold War world. In addition, they offer a coherent and unified plan for
reform that can protect U.S. security while upholding the values of our democratic
system.
Contributors: Roger Hilsman, former Assistant Secretary of State, advisor to
President Kennedy, and author of The Cuban Missile Crisis; Melvin A. Goodman,
former division chief and senior analyst at the CIA’s Office of Soviet Affairs; Robert
E. White, former U.S. ambassador to El Salvador and Paraguay and president of the
Center for International Policy; Robert V. Keeley, former ambassador to Greece,
Zimbabwe and Mauritius; Jack A Blum, chief investigator for Senator Church’s
Senate Foreign Relations Committee and for the Senate investigation of the IranContra scandal; Kate Doyle, analyst at the National Security Archives; Alfred W.
McCoy, author if The Politics of Heroin; Robert Dreyfuss, a journalist who publishes
regularly on intelligence matters; Pat M Holt, former chief of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee and author of Secret Intelligence and Public Policy; and the
editor.
12
IPR Colombia
Center for International Policy
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A Publication of the Center for International Policy
© Copyright 2000 by the Center for
International Policy. All rights reserved.
Any material herein may be quoted
without permission, with credit to the
Center for International Policy. The
Center is a nonprofit educational and
research organization focusing on U.S.
policy toward the developing world and
its impact on human rights and needs.
Staff:
Robert E. White, president
William Goodfellow, executive dir.
Landrum Bolling, senior fellow
Frick Curry, fellow
Kathleen Donahue, fellow
Craig Eisendrath, senior fellow
Melvin A. Goodman, senior fellow
Adam Isacson, senior associate
Clarrisa Kayosa, associate
David Lochhead, Ploughshares
fellow
Nita Manitzas, associate
James Morrell, research director
Jim Mullins, associate
Paul Olweny, associate
Caleb Rossiter, senior fellow
Jolene Smith, director of operations
Wayne S. Smith, senior fellow
Karen Turney, program assistant
Kimberly Waldner, associate
Chris Buck, intern
Angélica Cotrino, intern
Nancy Manson, intern
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