By Cynthia J. Arnson and Jane Marcus

From the Introduction

Colombia enters the public mind in the United States when members of a drug trafficking cartel stage a spectacular act of terrorism, or when a major kingpin in the drug trade is captured or killed. Yet just as the sum total of Colombia cannot be reduced to the drug trade, so the nature of violence suffered by Colombians of all walks of life cannot be limited to that spawned by narcotraffickers.

Colombia has one of the highest murder rates in the world. Criminal violence, deemed "non-negotiable" violence by several conference panelists, by far accounts for the majority of the killing. Yet political violence of the "negotiable" type still claims thousands of victims each year: soldiers and guerrillas killed in one of Latin America's longest-running insurgencies, civilians murdered or disappeared by government security forces or paramilitary groups, civilians assassinated or kidnapped by guerrilla forces.

It is this "negotiable" violence, presumably within the power of government officials, guerrillas, and civil society to address, that served as the focus for the April 4, 1995, conference at the Wilson Center. Colombian government officials, in fact, expressed a keen interest in holding the kind of dialogue represented by the Wilson Center conference, which focused on the roots and current manifestations of, as well as possible solutions to, the twin outrages of war and human rights abuse.