Members of the Union Patriotica chant slogans in Medellin on the Day of Memory and Solidarity with the Victims of the Armed Conflict, April 9, 2015. 3000 members of this political wing of the FARC-EP formed during the 1985 peace talks were killed, decimating any possibility of political participation for the guerrillas. Photo: Caldwell Manners
How one views the prospects for peace in Colombia depends on how one understands the conflict and how one defines peace. There are many different stakeholders, each with competing and often conflicting interests.
The ongoing peace negotiations with the Colombian Government and left-wing FARC guerrilla insurgents in Havana, along with a more recent government commitment to enter into a separate talks with the ELN insurgents in Ecuador, are being celebrated both nationally and internationally as the imminent end to the fifty-year conflict in Colombia.