Civil Society and Land in the Colombian Peace Accord. A Case Study of Alternative Approaches to Peace Building.

Abstract

The Colombian Peace accord is much praised due to its innovative frameworks of addressing victim’s rights and transitional justice, structural issues in the rural areas and the inclusion of a gender perspective. To what extent does the Colombian Peace Accord provides a new and different approach to peace building, a bottom-up approach addressing local consent and social justice? This thesis is a qualitative case study that focuses on the first agenda item on Comprehensive Rural Reform (CRR), which concerns the structural problems in the rural areas. My primary source of data has been in-depth interviews with civil society organizations in Colombia. The research is two-folded, the first part is an investigation of the mechanisms established for the participation of civil society. I found that the indirect participation though the National Forum on Comprehensive Rural Development involved a broad representation of civil society, but was perceived as insufficient by various actors in regards to inclusion, participation and local ownership in the peace process. The second part involves a comparison between the proposals from civil society organizations and the final content of the accord. I find that the needs and wishes of peasants have been more emphasized in the accord than the ones from the ethnic groups, and that various elements in the accord on CRR seem to respond to the rural populations’ demands for access to land and development. However, the issue of unequal access to land, which has been at the heart of the conflict for decades, is yet to be resolved though the peace accord on CRR.