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17/05/2017

Relationship between conflict and postconflict: Colombia and the Peace Accords (DIEEEA25-2017)

Colombia's civil war is the oldest in America. An endless war for several generations of Colombians, in which more than a quarter of a million people have killed and some six million Colombians have displaced from their homes. Terror has marked the daily life of Colombia for three-quarters of a century.

The peace process between the government and the FARC, initiated in 2012, allowed parties to sign an agreement in Cartagena on 26 September 2016. However, no civil war ends with the end of the armed conflict. Rafael Pardo, Colombian minister of post-conflict, believes that peace will take 15 years to reach the entire territory.

After a long and cruel civil war, the conflict of memory will remain for a long time because of its political character. Conflict in memory will create tensions because it will determine what needs to remember and what needs to forget. The civil war will become a place of memory.

The National Center for Historical Memory will have to tackle the difficult task of working with the memories of a society marked by the anguish of civil war. The product of the work of the CNMH will determine to what extent the historical memory demands the foundation of a new republic, its institutional reform or its consolidation.

Author: Andrés González Martín.

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