Join us for an afternoon of two panels and discussions, first examining the current situation in Colombia and then looking at the region in a comparative perspective. This event will be in Spanish and English, with simultaneous translation available in both languages.
Since April 28, tens of thousands of people have joined a massive protest against the Colombian government throughout the country. Despite being peaceful, mass mobilization has faced brutal repression by the police and the military.
As this current situation illustrates, the militarization of public security has become increasingly ubiquitous in several Latin American countries and the United States over the last years. Most democratic governments have charged the military and heavily armed police units with law enforcement during mass protests (e.g., Chile and currently Colombia) and purported states’ wars against drug cartels (e.g., Mexico and Colombia), street gangs (e.g., El Salvador), and private militias (e.g., Brazil). Although the armed forces in this region are sometimes trained to act with restraint and to respect human rights, the military and police have seized these opportunities to brutally repress citizens, commit gross human rights violations, collude with organized criminal groups, and engage in white collar corruption.
This online conference explores police brutality and law enforcement via state armed forces in Latin America and reflects upon their causes and implications, as well as the possibilities for security sector reform and institutional mechanisms for assigning responsibility. Situating the wave of militarization of public security across the hemisphere as well as within Colombia’s context, the panelists will address:
- The actors, conditions, and dynamics that facilitate a preeminent role of the police and the military in public security in Latin America.
- The structure, leadership, and training procedures in the military and police that enable gross human rights violations and brutal state repression.
- The implications of absent transitional justice mechanisms – including criminal accountability and security sector reform – during political transitions on large-scale and criminal war violence in post-conflict settings.
- The scope and depth of security sector reform in post-conflict societies.
This event is co-sponsored by the Department of Political Science of Icesi, the Cluster on Human Rights and Constitutional Law in the Law, Political and Social Science Department of Universidad Nacional de Colombia, the Institute for Legal Research (Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas - IIJ) of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, and the Notre Dame Violence and Transitional Justice Lab at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies.
For more information and to register, click here.