Ana Cristina Mejia

Negotiating Peace Ana Cristina Mejia

The FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) were formed in 1964 and for more than 50 years were at war with the Colombian government and its people. However, starting in 2012, the government and the FARC sat down to negotiate a "stable and lasting" end to the conflict (as then President Juan Manuel Santos described the goal). Despite much optimism at the beginning, the process took four years to get to a signed agreement and another 9 months before the guerrilla handed over the last of their arms. This book is a unique, week-by-week diary of how the two sides accomplished this and how the third-party in the equation, Colombian civil society, reacted to events that often seemed beyond its control. The failure to ratify a draft agreement in a referendum showed just how important this third factor proved to be. The book's purpose is not to write a history from the perspective of the future, but to paint a real-time picture of what was happening at the time, with the emotions at the time, with the names at the time (alias 'Timochenko' not 'Rodrigo Londoño') and with just the information available at the time. "Negotiating Peace" will help the reader understand the process, how Colombia got to where it is today, providing a case study of the resolution of the most prolonged guerrilla war of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.