Realities and challenges of territorial peace in Colombia

The main objective of this paper is to answer the following question: What are the conditions and possibilities of territorial peace in Colombia? Given that the territorial dimension of peace constitutes one of the most important cornerstones of the Colombian government's peace agreement with the FARC and negotiations with the ELN, this paper attempts to describe the realities and challenges of local peace processes in Colombia. To achieve these aims, the dynamics of direct violence and structural violence in six regions of the country were analyzed. Quantitative data were drawn from 246 surveys of Colombian men and women mayors conducted from 2014 to 2015. To address direct violence, figures provided by the Observatory on Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law of the Office of the President and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime were used. Structural violence was analyzed based on official figures of the Department of Social Prosperity and the National Department of Statistics. The most relevant finding is that several regions of Colombia, especially in the south and in the east, the problem of direct and structural violence is particularly pressing. This situation is very likely to be one of the main challenges to consolidating the peace process negotiated recently with the FARC and which, quite possibly, will also take place with the ELN in the medium term.