By International Crisis Group

What’s new? Violence, coca production and drug trafficking have spiked along Colombia’s Pacific coast since the 2016 peace agreement between the government and FARC guerrillas. New and old armed groups battle for control over communities, territory and illegal business, triggering ongoing displacement and low-intensity warfare. Why does it matter? Long one of Colombia’s poorest and most peripheral regions, the Pacific’s struggles highlight huge difficulties in improving security without addressing economic and political roots of armed group recruitment and the co-option of communities by organised crime. What should be done? Instead of depending on a counter-insurgency strategy or a “kill/capture” policy to dismantle armed groups, the Colombian government should prioritise building a stable, trustworthy civilian police and state presence, demobilising combatants, fulfilling its peace accord promises on local development and coca substitution, and furnishing educational opportunities for local people.

Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2019. 51p.