Context
Colombia is a country with two faces: a steady economic growth, a growing middle class in modern cities, resource wealth, a stable economic policy with international orientation face the extreme social inequality, which fuels an armed conflict since more than 50 years, claiming human lives on a daily basis.
Despite the improvements in the provision of state services there still is a permanent humanitarian crisis: The national register of victims of the armed conflict by now has registered more than 8,6 million of victims. In this context, the Victims and Land Restitution Law from 2011 presents one of the most ambitious legislative proposals of the Colombian government. After more than four years of negotiation, the national government and the former guerrilla Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-Ejército del Pueblo (FARC-EP) in November 2016 signed a peace agreement. The FARC-EP laid down their arms and reconstituted as a political party. At the same time, from February 2017 until January 2019, official negotiations took place between the Colombian government and the second largest guerrilla, the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN).
In 2004 Colombia asked the Organization of American States (OAS) to provide assistance for the country’s peace process. This request led to the establishment of the OAS Mission to Support the Peace Process in Colombia (Spanish acronym MAPP/OEA). In the beginning, the aim of this international peacekeeping mission was to support Colombia’s justice and peace process. In 2010, the mandate was extended to include support for the land restitution process and implementation of the Victims and Land Restitution Law.
During its current mandate (2017-2022), the mission promotes peace construction in the region, supports the monitoring of peace policies („Justice and Peace Law", „Victims and Land Restitution Law", etc.) and shall contribute to their development. The main objective of the mission is to obtain incidence on the design and implementation of peace policies, to provide concrete information for decision making by observation and analysis of territorial contexts and to contribute to the reinforcement of state capacities.
Objective
MAPP/OEA has more financial support for its victim protection work and is making an important contribution to the management of the violent conflict, especially regarding the monitoring and regional implementation of the peace agreement.
Approach
The international community pays into a fund to facilitate the work of MAPP/OEA. In 2018 funds were received from Canada, South Corea, Norway, the Netherlands, the UK, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the USA and Turkey as well as from Germany. This money is used to support MAPP/OEA’s general mandate and all the associated activities. BMZ has a financing agreement in place with MAPP/OEA.
Since 2015 financial contributions have been paid directly into this basket fund. Germany’s contribution in 2018 amounted to one million euros, thus taking the country’s total contribution since the project started in 2008 to 6.5 million euros.
Results achieved as far
The mission has positioned itself as a strategical actor in the process of local, regional and national peace construction. Its work is highly valuated by the Colombian government, which is reflected by the prolongation of its mandate. The work of the mission during its current mandate concentrates on the following three topics, in which significant porgress could be achieved.
Peace Construction:
Individual and collective victims of the armed conflict (especially ethnic communities and peasants) dispose of improved acces to their land and reimbursement rights.
State institutions and local initiatives are strengthend in the area of peace education and peaceful conflict transformation.
Civic organisations have participated in the negotiations between the colombian government and the guerrilla group Ejercíto de Liberación Nacional (ELN). The mission was significantly involved in the elaboration of this participative method.
Transitional Justice: The state institutions assigned with transitional justice dispose of concrete means for the implementation of the Integral System of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Non-Repitition, as well as of recomendations for the closing of the processes under the Justice and Peace Law. To this, the mission has contributed with strategical documents containing important observations and recomendations on the implementation of the means of transitional justice and macro-criminality.
In five national dialogue forums on inter-judicial coordination, indigenous communities and state institutions discuss the strengthening and application of indigenous jurisdiction, as well as the harmonisation with conventional jurisdiction and transitional justice.
Developments and dynamics in the regions:
The colombian institutions improved their handling of the security situation in the regions in which the mission is present. Furthermore, the institutions have improved knowledge about territorial, social conflictivities and develop effective strategies on handling this conflictivities. Either is possible due to the periodic analysis and monitoring reports, the mission produces about the regions in which it is active.