With Colombia's Congressional elections a few weeks away and presidential elections scheduled in May, peace has yet to be defined as a campaign issue. Yet the need for peace is more pressing than ever. This past year was marked by signs of regrouping among and between paramilitary and guerrilla forces alike, worrisome jumps in urban violence, displacement that has reached crisis proportions and is spilling over the borders, and a spate of troop movements and diplomatic sparring that threaten to unsettle the Andean region more broadly.
USIP's Virginia M. Bouvier argues that it is time for the United States to seek peace as a priority, and that peace and regional security should no longer be subsumed to other strategic interests in Colombia. Dr. Bouvier is the head of USIP's Colombia conflict team and senior program officer for Latin America in the Center for Mediation and Conflict Resolution.
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