Transitional Subjects:
The Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration of Former Combatants in Colombia
A key component of peace processes and post-conflict reconstruction is the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) of excombatants. DDR programs imply multiple transitions: from the combatants who lay down their weapons, to the governments that seek an end to armed conflict, to the communities that receive - or reject - these demobilized fighters. At each level, these transitions imply a complex and dynamic equation between the demands of peace and the clamor for justice. And yet, traditional approaches to DDR have focused almost exclusively on military and security objectives, which in turn has resulted in these programs being developed in relative isolation from the growing field of transitional justice and its concerns with historical clarification, justice, reparations and reconciliation. Similarly, evaluations of DDR programs have tended to be technocratic exercises concerned with tallying the number of weapons collected and combatants enrolled. By reducing DDR to “dismantling the machinery of war,” these programs have failed to adequately consider how to move beyond demobilizing combatants to facilitating social reconstruction and coexistence.
In turn, the growing literature on transitional justice tends to focus on the international and national levels; however, transitional justice is not the monopoly of international tribunals nor of nation-states. Indeed, a politics of scale indicates a need for understanding “transitional justice from below”; that is, for exploring how neighborhoods and communities also mobilize the ritual and symbolic elements of transitional justice to deal with the deep cleavages left - or accentuated - by civil conflicts.
In this research project, Praxis Research Associates are studying the individual and collective demobilization efforts in Colombia, convenced of the need to merge DDR and transitional justice processes. By locating disarmament, demobilization and reintegration within a transitional justice framework, policymakers and practitioners may help to strengthen that phase which has been the “weakest link in the DDR chain” - the reintegration of former combatants into civilian life. By incorporating local level transitional justice initiatives into DDR programs - and by expanding our unit of analysis and intervention beyond the individual combatant to include the neighborhoods and communities to which these warriors return - we believe we can reintegrate demobilized fighters into civilian life in a way which respects both the needs of these former combatants as well as those of the broader society.