ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic The full report is currently available in: French . EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS Crisis in the Central African Republic (CAR) is longterm and characterised by sporadic surges of violence against a backdrop of state disintegration, a survival economy and deep inter-ethnic cleavages. Armed groups (including the anti-balaka and the ex-Seleka) are fragmenting and becoming increasingly criminalised; intercommunal tensions have hampered efforts to promote CAR’s national unity and mend its social fabric. Unfortunately, the roadmap to end the crisis, which includes elections before the end of 2015, presents a short-term answer. To avoid pursuing a strategy that would merely postpone addressing critical challenges until after the polls, CAR’s transitional authorities and international partners should address them now by implementing a comprehensive disarmament policy, and reaffirming that Muslims belong within the nation. If this does not happen, the elections...

REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini The agreement on transitional justice reached by the government of Colombia and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and publicly announced yesterday in Havana is a major breakthrough in the four-year peace talks. In effect, it anticipates the termination of the 51-year armed conflict. In an unprecedented personal meeting, President Juan Manual Santos and the FARC’s maximum leader, Rodrigo Londoño Echeverry (‘Timochenko”), agreed that a final peace agreement would be signed within six months. The agreement establishes a “Special Peace Jurisdiction”, formed around courts that will be set up to try those considered to have been responsible for particularly the most serious and representative crimes committed during the conflict. Those who co-operate with this judicial system and acknowledge past wrongdoings would, if convicted, serve between five and eight years under special conditions that would in any case ensure effective restriction of the...