Arrangements of Convenience: Conflict, Crime and Security in Colombia's Borderlands

Annette Idler (Oxford) - Civil war scenarios with one rebel group fighting the government have become rare. Instead, we encounter situations with multiple violent non-state groups whose economic and political motivations are blurred as well as changing over time. Exposed to a decade-old armed conflict and geo-strategic for the global cocaine business, Colombia’s borderlands are paradigmatic for this convergence of conflict and crime. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in the violence-affected border regions of Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela, this talk will discuss how rebels, paramilitaries, gangs and criminals cooperate in these spaces, and what this means for security and peace-building.

Annette Idler is Director of Studies at the Changing Character of War Programme, Pembroke College, University of Oxford; Research Associate at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford; and Research Associate at the Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding, Graduate Institute Geneva. She also works as a consultand on issues related to conflict, organised crime and peacebuilding with a focus on the Andean region, particularly Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador.