⚠️For the last three years, we @crisisgroup have warned about a deterioration in #Colombia’s conflict that risked sparking a new cycle of war.

We are very concerned that moment is now. Escalations on various frontlines have taken the conflict to a very dangerous inflection point

In just the last four days, astounding levels and types of violence have harkened back to a much darker time of conflict:

House-to-house assassinations, thousands fleeing by foot, mass kidnappings, levels of combat between armed groups that leave scores dead and more wounded.

#Colombia’s bid to open talks with organized crime – part of a broader policy of dialogue with all armed structures in the country – is running up against a growing number of legal and political obstacles.

Short 🧵 on where talks stand with the largest group the Gulf Clan (AGC) Total peace is, first and foremost, about reducing violence in the countryside.

AGC is key: they wield enough power to have shut down much of the Atlantic coast & several medium-sized cities during an armed strike last year.

https://twitter.com/dickinsonbeth/status/1523680741586259968

"Las mujeres son las que más riesgo corren. Viviendo en medio del conflicto, la violencia siempre nos va tocar," me dijo una lideresa Araucana

Hoy #DiaDeLaMujer, es momento de destacar los múltiples violencias que afectan a ♀️ en el marco del conflicto 1/
crisisgroup.org/es/latin-ameri… Dentro el #reclutamiento de menores, "la tendencia es feminina" nos contó un oficial de seguridad.

Por engaño, por llenar sus estómagos, por la promesa de afectividad dentro un contexto donde no la hay en la casa, los grupos armados & criminales están llevando niñas a las filas

Estuvimos @ICGlatam en Bruselas 🇪🇺 la semana pasada para presentar nuestra análisis de la paz total #Colombia

Mientras que la política busca reducir la violencia, lo que observamos en campo es un recrudecimiento del conflicto contra los más vulnerables👇

crisisgroup.org/es/latin-ameri… Algunas observaciones de la visita con la Union Europea:

1) La implementación del acuerdo de paz 2016 sigue siendo la prioridad para la comunidad internacional - y la fundación sobre lo cual Colombia puede construir cualquier nueva paz, total o parcial

Some reasons that @petrogustavo's victory today in #Colombia is historic. 🧵 These are not normative judgments, but realities after a half century of conflict and all that it entailed.

1. Fear & stigmatization of the political left is no longer a winning campaign strategy. 2. Day-to-day concerns now dominate #Colombia political debate - inequality, lack of opportunity, rural development. The conflict-and fear of its existential threat to Bogota-are moved to the back burner

3. Diversity is not a liability but an asset, politically.

When I asked a youth leader in Quibdó what daily life is like, she put it this way:

“Our challenge here is to make it through the day alive.”

In January alone, at least 14 youth were murdered in Quibdó, a city of just 120,000.

Brief thread🧵about our recent @crisisgroup visit There are two conflicts in Chocó today.

One is ongoing since 2017: btwn ELN and Clan del Golfo for territorial control. The AGC is winning.

Two is even more alarming: the fight by the AGC to cement its presence in the fabric of society. Consolidation, purging of resistance.