Chronicle of a failure foretold : the peace process of Colombian president Andrés Pastrana / Harvey F. Kline.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kline, Harvey F.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Colombia--Politics and government--1974-.

Colombia.

Politics and government.

Negotiation--Colombia.

Negotiation.

Peace.

Pastrana Arango, Andrés.

Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia.

Ejército de Liberación Nacional (Colombia).

Physical Description:

xi, 229 pages : illustrations, map ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Tuscaloosa : University of Alabama Press, [2007]

Summary:

Charts the progress and failure of Colombian President Andrés Pastrana's efforts to bring an end to sixty years of civil war. -- The civil war in Colombia has waxed and waned for almost sixty years with shifting goals, programs, and tactics among the contending parties and with bursts of appalling violence punctuated by uneasy truces, cease-fires, and attempts at reconciliation. Varieties of Marxism, the economics of narco-trafficking, peasant land hunger, poverty, and oppression mix together in a toxic stew that has claimed uncounted lives of (most often) peasants, conscript soldiers, and people who just got in the way. -- Hope for resolution of this conflict is usually confined to dreamers and millenialists of various persuasions, but occasionally an attempt is made at a breakthrough in the military stalemate between the government and the Marxist groups. One of the most promising such attempts was made by new Colombian President Andrés Pastrana at a time when the main rebel groups seemed receptive to serious dialogue. This book is an account of that effort at peace, accompanied at the outset by domestic and international support and hope, and yet doomed like so many others to eventual failure. -- Through interviews with many of the actors in this drama, as well as an understanding of the various interest groups and economic forces at work in Colombia, Dr. Kline charts the progress and ultimate failure of this effort, and thereby hopes to increase understanding of the causes of its lack of success. The importance of the resolution of the conflict to the region and to ordinary citizens of this troubled land cannot be overstated.

Contents:

Colombia before the presidency of Andrés Pastrana : the context for failure

The immediate context for the Pastrana negotiations : the government of Ernesto Samper (1994-1998)

The FARC negotiations begin : June 1998-January 1999

The first agreements of the FARC negotiations : January 1999-January 2001

The negotiations in 2001 : agreements on process but not on substance

The FARC negotiations end : January-February 2002

The ELN discussions through the Declaration of Geneva : September 1998-July 2000

The failure of the ELN discussions

Why the Pastrana peace process failed.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [213]-222) and index.

ISBN:

081731556X

9780817315566

0817354107

9780817354107

OCLC:

71243874