Violaciones a los derechos humanos de las mujeres en conflictos armados internos. Abordajes desde la literatura

In the last years of the 20th century, many countries in Latin America experienced internal armed conflicts in which violations of women’s human rights were a constant, especially those related to sexuality, reproduction and motherhood. This type of violence has been addressed in various literary works and this article will focus on three of them, the novels La hora azul, by the Peruvian writer Alonso Cueto; Los ejércitos, by the Colombian writer Evelio Rosero, and Roza tumba quema, by the Salvadoran writer Claudia Hernández. Based on the ideas of Rita Segato and Adriana Cavarero, I will analyze the way in which violations of women’s human rights have been fictionalized in the context of three internal armed conflicts.

Forced Displacement and Globalization in Latin America

Forced displacement in Latin America has dramatically increased in the twenty-first century. The vast majority of forced displacements in 2016 took place in high-risk zones characterized by low institutional reaction capacity, high levels of economic vulnerability, and high exposure to man-made and natural dangers. The new complexities of this old regional phenomenon demand that we revise our understanding of forced displacement and asylum seeking, as both are no longer exclusively caused by internal armed conflicts. Recent cases in countries such as Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras allow us to discern myriad factors driving forced displacements and diverse mobilities in the region, which could in turn bring another, deeper humanitarian crisis in Latin America. This contribution addresses these topics vis-à-vis the new forms of violence and displacement in the region.

Explaining How Human Rights Protections Change After Internal Armed Conflicts

Societies emerging from internal armed conflicts display surprising variation in the degree to which governments protect human rights. Employing new data on civilian victimization by both government and rebel forces, we find that the human rights climate of a post-conflict country is not simply a perpetuation of pre-conflict conditions, or the result of repressive regimes remaining in power. Instead, the treatment of civilians during conflict has an independent impact on post-conflict human rights protections (HRP). Analyses of ninety-six post-conflict periods (1960–2015) show that when governments systematically and extensively target civilians during counterinsurgency campaigns, post-conflict human rights conditions decline substantially compared to pre-conflict levels, even accounting for other predictors of human rights violations, including pre-conflict human rights conditions. This holds regardless of who is in power after conflicts end. These findings have implications for theoretical models of repression and conflict cycles, and for practitioners and policymakers aiming to restore and protect human rights after war.

Female Combatants in Postconflict Processes: Understanding the Roots of Exclusion

Research on contemporary internal armed conflicts has consistently shown that women are active in most armed insurgencies, in groups with varied ideologies, and in every region of the world. However, scholarship from feminist security studies shows that, not only are women still generally underrepresented in peace processes, but women affiliated with rebel groups in particular are more likely to be excluded from disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) efforts. Closing this gap is a necessary next step for improving the security of women. This article draws on feminist theory and feminist security studies literature to highlight four factors that contribute to the exclusion of insurgent women from DDR efforts: attributions of agency, gendered hierarchy within groups, the tendency to collapse complex intersectionalities, and the pressure for patriarchal reordering after conflict. Drawing on selected cases, I illustrate each of these factors at work and discuss the implications for female ex-combatants, policy-makers, and scholars.

Re-describing transnational conflict in Africa

ABSTRACTThis paper discusses the principal findings of a new integrated dataset of transnational armed conflict in Africa. Existing Africa conflict datasets have systematically under-represented the extent of cross-border state support to belligerent parties in internal armed conflicts as well as the number of incidents of covert cross-border armed intervention and incidents of using armed force to threaten a neighbouring state. Based on the method of ‘redescribing’ datapoints in existing datasets, notably the Uppsala Conflict Data Project, the Transnational Conflict in Africa (TCA) data include numerous missing incidents of transnational armed conflict and reclassify many more. The data indicate that (i) trans-nationality is a major feature of armed conflict in Africa, (ii) most so-called ‘civil wars’ are internationalised and (iii) the dominant definitions of ‘interstate conflict’ and ‘civil war’ are too narrow to capture the particularities of Africa's wars. While conventional interstate war remains rare, interstate rivalry using military means is common. The dataset opens up a research agenda for studying the drivers, patterns and instruments of African interstate rivalries. These findings have important implications for conflict prevention, management and resolution policies.

Business Actors, Paramilitaries and Transitional Criminal Justice in Colombia

Abstract∞ In internal armed conflicts, business actors often play an important role. Yet, their criminal responsibility is rarely addressed in transitional justice (TJ). This article presents a case study of the Colombian transition process with respect to the paramilitaries, which has resulted in hundreds of criminal investigations against business actors in the ordinary justice system. Nonetheless, the large majority continues in impunity. Based on qualitative interviews with public prosecutors, the article analyzes the main obstacles to holding them accountable, arguing that TJ processes should give more emphasis to the private-sector supporters of armed groups so as to prevent the recurrence of violence.