Internal Armed Conflict in Colombia: A Historical Review of Six Decades of Violence and the Complexities of its Changing Dynamics

Colombia has a long history of violence with more than 60 years of an uninterrupted internal armed conflict, which has cataloged it as one of the nations with the highest crime rates in the world. However, political willingness made possible, after several attempts, the consecution of a peace agreement in 2016, which ended one of the oldest guerrillas in the western hemisphere. However, there is still active one more guerrilla, and several organized armed groups are also operating throughout the country, creating on the one hand, a panorama of local uncertainty due to the instrumentalization of communities, national concern caused by the expansion of the insurgent actors, and international awareness regarding human rights protection. But on the other hand, it has opened new opportunities to initiate peace talks, negotiate subjugation scenarios, and strengthen the State’s sovereignty. In that sense, this thesis aims to describe the history of the internal armed conflict until the achievement of the peace agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC-EP, followed by a mapping of remaining and emerging violent actors, to finally demonstrate whether the human rights situation in Colombia has improved in a context of transition to peace or whether, on the contrary, it has deteriorated due to new dynamics of violence.