Abstract
This chapter deals with the demobilization process of the Colombian paramilitary groups, begun in 2003 by the government of Alvaro Uribe Vélez and ending in early 2006 with the disarmament of more than 31,000 fighters. After describing the short term effects of the process—a general decrease in the level of violence and a reduction in the number of human rights violations—the author seeks to explain the difficulties that are beginning to appear and undermine the long-term process. Various hypotheses are considered: the “warrior habitus” of the paramilitaries, which renders them incapable of other than war-like activity and a “brutalization” of Colombian society. The author believes that it is the permanent presence of narco traffic networks in Colombia that explains the creation of new armed groups and the restructuring of old ones; furthermore, that the failure of the DDR process is evidence of the infiltration of Colombian society and its political system by paramilitaries.
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Notes
Cinep, Deuda con la humanidad, paramilitarismo de Estado, 1988–2003 (Bogota: Banco de datos Cinep, 2004).
G. L. Mosse, De la Grande Guerre au totalitarisme. La brutalisation des sociétés européennes (Paris: Hachette, 1999).
An expression coined by John Horne, “Démobilisations culturelles après la Grande Guerre”, in 14–18, Aujourd’hui, Today, Heute (Paris: Éditions Noésis, 1998), pp. 45–53. Cultural demobilization describes an evolution which occurs at both a group and individual level and whose main components include the move away from violence, the rise of the pacifist ideal, and the rehabilitation of the enemy.
N. Springer, Desactivar la guerra. Alternativas audaces para consolidar lapaz (Bogot a, Aguilar, 2005), 316–317.
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Fundación Seguridad y Democracia, Alfredo Rangel (ed.), La batalla perdida contra las drogas: legalizar es la opcion? (Bogota: Intermedio, 2008), 18.
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© 2012 Nathalie Duclos
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Daviaud, S. (2012). Paramilitary Demobilization and the Return of Violence in Colombia. In: Duclos, N. (eds) War Veterans in Postwar Situations. The Sciences Po Series in International Relations and Political Economy. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137109743_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137109743_5
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
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