International Crisis Group

The Day AfterTomorrow: preparing for peace in Colombia | Jean-Marie Guéhenno

Speech to theUniversidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia

It is a particularpleasure to be here with you today in Colombia, and at the Universidad de los Andes, one of the most important academic centres of Latin America. From my own experience as a policy maker, a peacekeeper, and in academic settings I have a great appreciation of the contributions that can be made to the pursuit of peace by academic institutions.

The organisation I now head, the International Crisis Group, has a simple goal: we want to save lives by persuading policy makers to calm conflicts before they boil over into war. Once that war is present, we develop policy advice that draws on fine-grained, field-based analysis to help bring the killing to an end. And when peace and conflict-resolution opportunities appear, we firmly support them. Colombia is naturally a candidate for this third perspective. We have been present here since 2001, and publish reports and conduct advocacy that we hope contribute positively to Colombia’s own effort to bring decades of violent conflict to an end, and build sustainable peace.

FULL SPEECH

Photo: Mauricio Salinas Rozo/ Faciso / Uniandes

Source: crisisgroup.org