{"id":9739,"date":"2025-08-29T16:37:03","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T15:37:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/?p=9739"},"modified":"2025-08-29T16:40:42","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T15:40:42","slug":"lessons-from-colombia-negotiating-with-loyalist-paramilitaries-ni","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/lessons-from-colombia-negotiating-with-loyalist-paramilitaries-ni\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons from Colombia for Negotiating with Loyalist Paramilitaries in Northern Ireland"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Dr Andrew Thomson<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The British and Irish governments, via the Independent Reporting Commission, will reportedly<\/a> appoint an interlocutor in August 2025 to explore the possibility of a \u201cprocess of engagement\u201d to \u201ctransition\u201d or \u201cdisband\u201d paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland<\/a> that have remained active post-Good Friday Agreement (1998). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What lessons can the Colombian case provide, particularly in engagement with so-called \u201cpro-state\u201d paramilitary groups?  The Colombian government has negotiated the demobilization and reintegration of the right-wing \u201cpro-state\u201d paramilitary AUC in 2003-2005, but many successor paramilitary and criminal groups re-emerged and continue to operate in Colombia. The government also negotiated the collective \u201cnormalization\u201d of the country\u2019s main communist-inspired insurgent organisation, the FARC, culminating in a 2016 peace agreement, but some dissident FARC groups continued to fight (both those that never signed up to the 2016 agreement and those that abandoned it).  Currently, the Petro government has vowed to negotiate \u201cTotal Peace<\/a>\u201d with various armed groups including the insurgent ELN (with whom the government has not previously reached any agreement), dissident FARC groups, and a constellation of successor right-wing paramilitary factions and organized criminal gangs.  The present situation in Colombia has some parallels with Northern Ireland including the sustained presence of armed groups post-conflict\/post-peace agreements and their increased engagement in organised crime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  1.  \u201cPolitical\u201d or \u201cCriminal\u201d?<\/strong>  Debates<\/a> in Colombia over categorising different armed groups as either \u201cpolitical\u201d or \u201ccriminal\u201d with all of the attendant considerations (such as the issues of recognising \u201ccriminal\u201d groups by giving them a platform), have influenced how<\/em> the Colombian government has approached engagement. Public and policymaking debates have treated \u201cpolitical\u201d and \u201ccriminal\u201d as mutually exclusive categories (assuming that the more \u201ccriminal\u201d a group is, the less \u201cpolitical\u201d it is and vice versa) and created fixed dichotomous approaches<\/a> to each (i.e. \u201cnegotiations for peace agreement\u201d with \u201cpolitical\u201d groups and \u201cdialogue for submission to justice\u201d for \u201ccriminal\u201d groups). Many groups, particularly those that want recognition and to receive enhanced benefits that may come with it, have rejected being categorised as \u201ccriminal\u201d<\/a> and have perverse incentives<\/a> to cast themselves as \u201cpolitical\u201d to pursue formal negotiations.  An interlocutor in Northern Ireland might avoid framing these issues in binary terms, recognizing both paramilitaries\u2019 troubles-era legacy and their involvement in organized crime to pursue more cross-cutting forms of engagement to encourage disbandment.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n