Broken Promises: Why Ex-combatants Fight Again after Peace Agreements, a Case Study of Colombia

• In Event: Human and Military Security Issues in Developing Countries

Abstract

Why do some ex-combatants decide to return to organized violence after having signed a peace agreement with the government, while others inside the same organization do not? I try to answer this question by studying the divergent trajectories of ex-combatants and splinter groups after the Havana peace agreement signed between the FARC rebels (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and the Colombian state in 2016. Using process tracing, archival work, and semi-structured interviews, I show how external factors to the group (like government change, and slow and partial peace agreement implementation) can exacerbate internal divisions and fissures within the armed organization, leading to fracture and splintering in the aftermath of war. This has broader implications for how we conceptualize non-state armed actors. I argue that we cannot treat armed groups as unitary actors and should instead conceptualize them as organizations that can contain different factions and political, ideological, and strategic positions within, which in turn influence post-conflict behavior and peace-building outcomes.

Author

• Sebastian Tobon Palma, University of Illinois at Chicago