Colombia undergoing mutation: from the concept of post-conflict to the pragmatism of the conflict

Abstract

This article aims to generate a critical notion of post-conflict in Colombia to advance the idea of a scenario undergoing transformation. The dynamics of security and conflict in Colombia were defined from the existence of a problem that transcended threat. The FARC-EP were a problem that later became securitized and scaled in the country’s security agenda. Consequently, it is necessary to warn, on the one hand, that the conflict does not finish with the end of the FARC-EP process and, on the other hand, there is a secondary effect but not less important: the change of this group gave rise to the mutation of security and conflict issues in Colombia, namely, the markets of violence, the dispute over the power voids in the territory, the armed collectivities arising from the FARC-EP dissidents and the social exclusion that ex-combatants face. Taking into account the above, the "post-conflict" concept is biased, ambiguous and distorted, which in itself represents a threat to the development of conflicts in the country.