Introduction

For more than fifty years, the Colombian society has endured a brutal civil conflict involving a myriad of actors -i.e. the Government, Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia - Ejército del Pueblo (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-FARC-EP), Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (United Self-defense Militias of Colombia-AUC), Ejército de Liberación Nacional (National Liberation Army-ELN). This long-lasting conflict has notoriously broken the social, economic and political tissues in Colombia and has left the country within a constant wave of violence.

To end the conflict, there have been several attempts at ceasing fire and building a durable peace that satisfies the necessities of the population in Colombia. The most recent peace dialogues took place in Havana (Cuba), where the warring parties agreed to hold negotiations. After several months of talks and an intense media coverage, a peace agreement was signed between the Colombian government and FARC-EP. Despite the promising nature of the agreement and the international support it received, it has faced some controversies, specifically raised by the referendum called by President Santos in 2016.

Although the peace talks in Havana were formally hosted by Cuba and Norway, the entire international community has been very involved in this peace process. The financing of the initiatives and public policies derived from the agreement has an important participation of Northern countries and 'classic' international organizations. However, the mere figure of Cuba as a peace guarantor shows that the involvement of Southern countries is becoming more visible. Recently, countries from the South have become more active in their relations with their neighbors and have successfully implemented programs of cooperation under a novel paradigm called South-South Cooperation (SSC). In fact, Southern countries themselves, namely El Salvador, Nicaragua or Guatemala, have endured harsh civil conflicts and their individual experiences could actively help to shape better solutions for Colombia.

Having in mind the latter, the purpose of this article is to explore the role that Southern countries and SSC may have in the peace-building process in Colombia and, more concretely, how they can support the ongoing initiatives. Post-conflict policies, their financing and implementation are relevant topics of study, especially as a peace agreement is only the first step towards the pacification of any given country; hence, the design and execution of 'post-agreement' policies become key factors to determine if the treaty will guarantee both justice and peace.

Furthermore, the role that SSC may have within peacebuilding processes is a topic that has remained almost unexplored by academics. In fact, one of the few studies dealing with financing for peacebuilding has been produced by the United Nations University (2015) and, although it tackles central issues such as simplicity in planning, the need for agreements among national and international actors, and accountability frameworks, procedures and instruments; it practically leaves SSC's potentiality unobserved. In this sense, this article has a high pertinence in three ways: first, it studies a topic of high relevance that has received little academic attention; second, it explores the potentiality of SSC under a crucial scenario for Colombia's peacebuilding process. And, last but not least, this article offers a novel account of how SSC could be useful in post-conflict scenarios, bolstering a promising area of future research.

Following on the latter point, the present article analyses the policies derived from the peace agreement, especially those coming from SSC sources, as such policies were designed based on the experiences of other countries dealing with their own post-conflict challenges. More concretely, the article is organized as follows: the first section offers a theoretical framework discussing a typology of peace -differentiating concepts such as maximalist and minimalist peace-, the ways and mechanisms in which SSC offers a valid alternative from the classic cooperation forums and how it could be helpful in the Colombian scenario. Next, some successful programs implemented by Southern countries (i.e. Nicaragua and El Salvador) are discussed, providing useful views on how some specific initiatives could be adapted to Colombia. These insights are analyzed vis-à-vis the type of peace each country aimed at achieving, which provides a clearer route for Colombia to assess their validity.

The next section explores the state-of-the-art of international cooperation for the implementation of the peace treaty. Throughout this analysis, the role played by SSC is emphasized, and SSC main caveats are exposed. In the next section, the article investigates further initiatives from other countries -irrespective of their SSC cooperation nature-with the aim of extrapolating valuable lessons for the Colombian context. Finally, the article concludes contending that SSC is a valuable alternative to promote the achievement of a maximalist peace, stating that the pacification of a society should be understood in a broader sense, including not only the ceasing of fire but also the participation of people, governments and institutions -under more equal conditions- in the design and implementation of policies that contribute towards the achievement of a long-lasting peace.

Theoretical framework

Civil conflicts and peacebuilding strategies

Since the beginning of mankind, conflict has been constant to human nature. Therefore, war has been an object of discussion and has been analyzed from many perspectives, ranging from the way a war is developed, its relationship with morality to the effects of conflicts on the population enduring them (Collier & Hoeffler, 2004). Accordingly, while civilizations evolved towards less violent societies, war studies were increasingly complemented with alternative approaches focused on peacebuilding processes (Kriesberg, 1997). Once a war ends, the harm within the society needs a complex response (Baranyi, 2006), mainly because its social capital suffers from severe shocks that cannot be reduced to structural and material factors.

In fact, when a war takes place within the borders of a country, confronting its national population, the resulting wounds in the society -which become deeply rooted- difficult the resolution of the conflict and, more broadly, society's pacification. In such cases, some specific aspects deserve special attention: the disarmament of the war forces -both legal or illegal ones- (Berdal, 1996; Spencer, 1997); the reconstruction of the State, concretely in the materialization of legislative elections (Ho-Won, 2005; Reilly, 2004); the demobilization and reinsertion of ex-combatants, providing them a way of living in the post-conflict context (Barth, 2002; Õzerdem, 2009); and the design of a transitional justice process, by judging the crimes committed by all the sides of the conflict (Lambourne, 2009).

One of the issues that societies suffering a civil conflict must address is related to the kind of peace they aim to construct (Richmond, 2007). The tension between maintaining the peace agreement and the search for justice, forces all parties at stake to consider pragmatic and normative aspects, knowing that an excess of justice could break the treaty, and that -on the contrary- its lack would suppose impunity and social rejection of the whole post-conflict process (Rettberg, 2003).

In this sense, the academic scholarship has proposed a distinction in function of the kind of peace expected: maximalist peace and minimalist peace (Valencia, Gutiérrez & Johansson 2012).² In the first one, the absence of war is a necessary -but not enough- step to end the civil conflict. On the contrary, it is required a transitional justice process understood in a broad sense: not only preserving peace and judging the crimes committed during the conflict, but also implementing a general plan -in political, economic or social spheres- to face the structural causes which originated the conflict, and prevent the rise of a new wave of violence and instability (Call & Cousens, 2008).³ The second kind of peace, the minimalist one, searches only to maintain a non-hostile scenario among the parts in the former conflict. In this sense, the lack of implementation of a transitional justice process is conceived as a 'necessary sacrifice' in order to consolidate peace, understanding that this is a more relevant value than justice itself (Minow, 2011).

As previously exposed, the maximalist concept has the potentiality of preventing the rise of new conflicts and provides justice against crimes committed during the conflict (Page, 2010). But at the same time, these goals jeopardize the whole peacebuilding process, as the parts in conflict can break the agreement, feeling that they are not being integrated but rather punished. In turn, minimalist peace guarantees the consolidation of a non-violent society, but the lack of prosecution of war crimes, as well as the continuance of former structural problems, could lead to discrediting the peace process and rising new violent episodes (Galtung, 1969).

The latter differentiation is deeply related with the kind of end that the conflict had: when a civil war finishes with a strong victory of the State -as it happened in Peru against the guerrilla organization Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path-SP)- the implementation of a peace process can be completely directed by the winning side (Elster, 2006). The government can choose between a minimalist or a maximalist peace, depending on its own interests and values, as the threat of the insurgent forces to return to the use of violence is minimum and controlled. On the contrary, when the peace treaty is the result of negotiations among the parts in conflict, the acceptance of political, economic or social requirements can be a necessary step in the pacification of the internal orb (Zartman, 1993).

The more maximalist-peace-driven a peace agreement is, the higher the opposition's rejection may be.

Pertaining the Colombian case, the implementation of the agrarian reform, the reinsertion of the guerrilla fighters and the integration of left-wing politicians in the political arena were issues considered sensitive in the governmental agreement with FARC-EP. In fact, these proposals generated rejection among the paramilitary forces and the extreme right-wing politicians, which were relevant actors in the Colombian conflict. Consequently, the controversial nature of this peace agreement was evidenced when the Colombian population rejected its implementation on the 2016 plebiscite.

This kind of conflict resolution -when in the moment of negotiating the contending forces keep their military power- requires the implementation of a mixed system that simultaneously allows some political concessions as well as the consolidation of the pacification process (Barnett, 2006). Nonetheless, the military result of the conflict is not an exclusive determinant of the peace-building result, i.e. the popular support of the forces in conflict is also relevant (Doyle & Sambanis, 2000; Licklider, 1995). In fact, in

Colombia, where the rejection towards FARC-EP and the paramilitary forces is strongly spread among the population, it constitutes an important factor to take into consideration in the post-conflict context.

To sum up, the peace agreement could be considered as the starting point in the long process of peace consolidation in Colombia, especially if a maximalist peace is desired. Some of the remaining needs in this process are the rehabilitation of the former guerrilla fighters and their integration in the political arena, the assistance to the victims of the civil conflict, the reconstruction of the deteriorated infrastructure, the development of the Colombian rural zones and the establishment of a transitional justice system.

South-South Cooperation as an alternative form of international cooperation

After the end of the Second World War, the United Nations (UN) system has implemented numerous missions with the purpose of compelling the international society to stop civil conflicts as well as to promote reconciliation among combating forces. More concretely, peacebuilding⁴ consolidation has been developed in different ways: economic assistance to support policies' implementation, political surveillance to guarantee the respect of the agreement or even military interventions to impose the ending of the conflict.

Nonetheless, this system -mostly lead by the Northern countries- has shown some limitations in non-Western spheres. Its incapacity to understand collective feelings or the veiled interests of intervening States following every humanitarian 'altruist' act have been widely criticized (Rafter & Singer, 2004). For example, the classic financial forums, i.e. the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) were perceived in Latin America as intruders that affected sovereignty, due to the requests these institutions demanded in order to concede loans (Carrión, Jima & Paradela, 2017).

Trying to avoid the aforementioned pitfalls pertaining sovereignty violations and the incapacity to understand non-Western contexts, South-South Cooperation (SSC) focuses on the creation of alternative forums of cooperation among the Southern hemisphere, searching for the achievement of a double objective: the progressive abandonment of the classic North-South cooperation (NSC) system -replacing it with a more equal structure-, the implementation of alternative mechanisms focused in the experiences of the Southern States, and technical assistance instead of mere monetary financing (Lechini, 2009).

More concretely, SSC has provided interesting tools towards conflict resolution, using the experiences of countries that have endured civil wars to elaborate more effective programs associated with post-conflict scenarios. In this sense, some efforts have been made by organizations such as the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) -especially with the internal conflict lead by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka-, as well as by bilateral relations, i.e. the existing forums between Brazil and Guinea-Bissau created to consolidate the pea-cebuilding process in Africa.

In addition, the SSC system could be understood as a relevant part of the achievement of a maximalist peace, as it provides solutions that encompass problematics beyond the ceasefire consolidation. For example, the economic relations developed among China, India and Ethiopia (Cheru, 2016) have supposed a turning point in the latter country: the efficient development of the Ethiopian economy has decreased poverty and starvation, considerably improving the pacification perspectives of a country that had suffered a long and cruel civil war.

In this sense, South-South Cooperation must be understood not only as a tool to pacify the Colombian political life -to avoid new confrontations or to disarm the fighters- but it is also a useful resource for reconstructing the tissue of the Colombian civil society: the reinsertion of the former combatants, the demobilization of the paramilitary forces, the relocation of internally displaced persons and the implementation of a post-conflict national justice.

The Colombian peace agreement: achievements and challenges

A brief historical background of the Colombian civil conflict

The Colombian civil conflict has been studied in different ways, including elite political competition, drug trafficking organizations, guerrilla revolutionary struggle, violent indigenous claims or paramilitary forces with ambivalent relations with the State. The discussion of the causes leading to the long duration of the conflict has been polemic. However, most academics have signaled factors like the weakness of the Colombian state, that avoided a strong response from the military forces; the underestimation of the threat of the emerging outlaw forces, allowing the strengthening of the emerging criminal and revolutionary forces; and the consolidation of a violent culture in the Colombian population, that provided the long-term structural basis of the present criminal organizations (Guzmán, Fals, & Umaña, E, 1964; Restrepo, Spagat & Vargas, 2003;Velásquez, 2001).

In addition, the duration of the Colombian conflict constitutes an important element to understand its depth. If the first struggle was led by the liberal and conservative parties, generating in turn self-defense militias -to collaborate with these parties or to confront them-, in the subsequent decades it evolved into a multiple-sides conflict: the very state, the revolutionary forces -both in rural zones (ELN, FARC-EP) and urban zones, like the Movimiento 19 de Abril (April 19^th Mo-vement-M19)⁵, the paramilitary forces and the drug trafficking organizations with strong links with the Colombian political power.

Though the actual process of pacification is not the first one attempted, it can be considered the most successful. Unlike the former peace attempts, the Havana peace treaty was backed by a strong political commitment -national and international- to reach a tangible solution. After the formal dissolution of the paramilitary forces and the agreement's signature between the Colombian government and FARC-EP, the pacification of the country seems plausible.

Because of the elevated number of parties in conflict, and undoubtedly due to their terrorist and guerrilla strategies, the harm in the Colombian society has been very high: between 1958 and 2012 at least 180,000 casualties were reported, 25,007 forced disappearances, 27,023 kidnappings and more than 4 million forcibly displaced people (National Center for Historical Memory, 2015, p.39). Consequently, the wound in the population requires a comprehensive and sustained response, including guerrilla and paramilitary fighters' reinsertion, economic and psychological help to the victims, civil reconstruction and support to the forcibly displaced population.

Content of the peace agreement

As already mentioned, the international community has played an essential role supporting the achievement of the final agreement. Countries like Norway and Cuba have acted as international guarantors of the peace process. Similarly, Chile and Venezuela are backing up the initiatives derived from the dialogues in Havana. The UN will be part of the Misión Política Especial (Special Political Mission-SPM) that will be in charge of monitoring and checking the permanent ceasefire as well as the disarmament process. This SPM will be a tripartite mechanism, formed by one member of the Colombian government, one delegate of FARC-EP and one international delegate -representing the UN. The delegates from the UN will be civilians, and their principal work will be that of observation. The delegates will not include any military member like the Blue Helmets or Blue Berets.

The commitment of the Colombian government towards an effective action over all the national territories is highlighted on the final peace agreement, where the main encompassing values are justice, truth, reconciliation and no repetition. The final peace agreement incorporates the following sections: Reforma Rural Integral (Integral Rural Reform); Participación Política (Political Participation); Fin del Conflicto (End of the Conflict), Solución al Problema de las Drogas Ilícitas (Solving the Illicit Drugs Problem), Acuerdo sobre las Víctimas del Conflicto (Agreement for the Conflict's Victims) -including transitional justice, reparation and no repetition-and the creation of two mechanisms to follow, impulse and verify the final peace agreement⁶ (Oficina del Alto Comisionado para la Paz, 2012). The following lines briefly explore the most controversial parts of the agreement.

Regarding the Integral Rural Reform, the peace agreement establishes various mechanisms to guarantee the right to access the land in a fair way⁷, i.e. it created a special land fund to formalize land properties for peasant communities. This land fund is also used to keep up-to-date the rural cadaster and assure that land is used efficiently. Overall, the rural reform creates adequate conditions for the rural population, including access to health institutions, education services and technical assistance.

A polemic point in the peace agreement, is that of future political participation of Fuerza Alternativa Revolucionaria del Común (Alternative Revolutionary Force for the Common-FARC) the new political party created by the demobilized group, as a result of the agreement signed. The acceptance of an armed group as a political actor will be a challenge for the Colombian society⁸. Nonetheless, in order to consolidate the Colombian democratic system, the agreement states that it is necessary to open the political spectrum, giving the chance to all actors -without any exceptions-to participate in the country's politics. The Opposition Statute will guarantee the political practice and has been already approved by the Parliament. The final peace document establishes that during the next two electoral periods the new political party -FARC- will have five Senators and five Camera Representatives, as well as special financing and media promotions of their political proposals. It is also specified that the new political movement would not be able to participate in politics until the UN has received all the weapons.

The integral system of truth, reparation, justice and non-repetition -established in the fourth point of agreement- includes: creating truth, coexistence and non-repetition commissions, seeking missing people unit, establishing actions to repair victims of the conflict, designing the Justicia Especial para La Paz (Special Justice for Peace-JEP), and establishing measures to guarantee and avoid crimes repetition. The Truth Commission was formed by the Legislative Act 588, which encompasses the development of the postulates of the Colombian peace agreement regarding victims and justice (Presidencia de la República de Colombia, 2017). This commission will be an important part of the JEP system, the transitional justice body recently created.

Regarding the illicit drugs problem, the agreement establishes three pillars: the substitution of illicit crops, the decrease in drugs' consumption and the drug-trafficking issue. To develop the first pillar, an integral national program of substitution and eradication of illicit crops will be launched with the aim of improving social conditions and guarantying food security. The second component, illicit drugs consumption, will be tackled through a public health approach: the government will carry out actions of rehabilitation and reinsertion of consumers. Regarding the last element, drug-trafficking, the government is committed to investigate the whole drug-trafficking chain, including financial backing and money laundering. Accordingly, the demobilized guerilla group members agreed to finish their relations with drug trafficking organizations, while the government committed at improving its judicial capacity to deal with the drug- trafficking chain process (Eventon, 2016).

International cooperation in the Colombia's post-conflict context

Pertaining North-South Cooperation (NSC), Colombia is expecting to receive international aid coming, among other donors, from the United States, the European Union (EU), the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), and the UN. This assistance obeys to the belief that restoring confidence in societies which are undergoing peacebuilding processes is more likely to succeed when being internationally supported (World Bank, 2011).

The Agencia Presidencial de Cooperación (Presidential Cooperation Agency-APC) will have the challenge to coordinate all the international aid, increase the number of donors and efficiently articulate the resources received, redirecting them to prioritized areas for social investment. With the aim to support and build a stable and durable peace, Colombia is expecting to increase its Official Development Assistance (ODA) and other resources coming from international aid. According to official figures from the APC, between 2010 and 2011 the ODA received was 367 USD million and between 2014 and 2015 it increased to 560 USD million -an increase of more than 34 percent (CONPES, 2015).

As a strategy to manage non-refundable resources coming from multilateral shareholdings, the APC has decided to create four international funds: the Inter-American Development Bank Colombia Sustainable Fund; the European Union Peace Trust Fund, the Peace and Post-Conflict Word Bank Fund and the UN Colombian Post-Conflict Multi-Donor Fund⁹.

Simultaneously, SSC in Colombia has shown alternative cooperation mechanisms focused on technical assistance and in the socialization of past experiences of countries enduring similar situations. As stated by the World Bank, increasing the engagement of middle-income countries with the dynamics of international cooperation has changed the way in which policies are designed. Nowadays, middle and new higher income countries have turned into important donors, investors, diplomatic and trading partners (World Bank, 2011). In this change, countries like Cuba, Chile, Venezuela, and Mexico have played a very active role in some of the most relevant contemporary conflicts' resolution.

The Secretaria General Iberoamericana (Ibero-American General Secretariat-SE-GIB), an international organization formed by 19 Spanish-speaking countries -i.e. Argentina, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Chile- has shown an explicit willingness to support the Colombian peace agreement during the XXV Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State and Government in Cartagena Colombia, on October 2016. Similarly, the Comunidad de Estados Latinoamericanos y Caribeños (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States-CE-LAC) -an inter-governmental organization formed by thirty-three Latin American and Caribbean countries- has agreed to actively support the final peace accord. This organization will figure as an observer and will be in charge of monitoring the disarmament process, guaranteeing the actual destruction of the weapons and the respect of the guerrilla members once disarmed.

The direct intervention of the aforementioned organizations will create an opportunity to present Colombia's peace-building polices in an international discussion forum, helping the government to formulate and develop projects in accordance with the international aid framework. In other words, regional scenarios framed within the 'new' paradigm of partnership known as SSC will contribute to reach the aims of Colombia's peace agreement and a horizontal space of "know-how" sharing (Agencia Colombiana para la Reintegración, 2016).

The flagship international event to share knowledge was the Fifth Tour of Technical South-South Cooperation: Reintegration, Reconciliation and Development from Territories, hosted by Colombia's Agencia Colombiana para la Reintegración (Colombian Agency for Integration-ACR) in 2015. Colombia has the experience of supporting 57,000 ex-combatants from different armed groups to reintegrate them into the society. This international cooperation scenario gathered forty-six delegates from different countries, which had the opportunity to exchange experiences, among other topics, on disarmament process, peace and reconciliation culture, political engagement, reintegration and reconciliation processes.

In addition to the transmission of knowledge and experience, a peer country could share specialized knowledge and experience once it has accumulated significant progress (Agencia Colombiana para la Reintegración, 2016). Regarding this type of SSC it is worth mentioning that Cuba has offered 1,000 scholarships as a contribution towards the Colombian peacebuilding process. From 2017 to 2022, two hundred young people per year will attend the Escuela Latinoamericana de Medicina (Latin American Medicine School), one of the most prestigious medicine universities in Cuba. One hundred participants will be selected by demobilized groups and the rest within the Colombian armed forces members. In short, the Cuban SSC program supposes one thousand scholarships during a period of five years, an important effort in this kind of peace-making policies, not only in rehabilitation of former combatants but in social reconciliation and community building.

SSC policies in post-conflict contexts: lessons from Nicaragua and El Salvador

Nicaragua and El Salvador experienced harsh periods of civil war during the 1980s, which led to the dismemberment of their political, economic and social structures. In Nicaragua, the positioning of the Sandinist Revolution as the post-Somoza political force caused a conflict -with a hard interventionism form the United States- which lasted eleven years (1979-1990). The situation lived in Nicaragua was somehow replicated in El Salvador, where the Fuerza Armada de El Salvador (El Salvador Armed Force) fought against the Frente Farabundo Martí de Liberación Nacional (Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front) from 1981 to 1992. The aforementioned civil conflicts were simultaneously derived and exacerbated by the severe inequality and poverty endured by Central America since the early 1960s (Peceny & Stanley, 2003).

After the conflicts came to an end, the efforts to construct accords in order to foster peaceful societies were reflected on the agreements signed: Protocolo de Managua (Nicaragua) and the Protocolo de Chapultepec (El Salvador). These peace protocols were envisioned to implement long-term peaceful solutions for all the parties in conflict, including ex-combatants, governmental institutions and the civil society in general. Economic sources for the implementation of the programs established through the agreements were financed by several sources, including traditional lending bodies, international organizations and specific countries' agencies. This section analyzes those coming from SSC sources and whose stories of success can be replicated in the Colombian post-conflict context.

Previous to the introduction of specific examples of SSC from the two referred countries it is relevant to highlight the active role that Colombia had in the peace process of Central America. Together with Mexico, Panama and Venezuela, Colombia formed the Acta de Contadora para la Paz y la Cooperación en Centroamérica (Contadora Act for Peace and Cooperation in Central America - Contadora Group). The Contadora Group had the support of international organizations such as the United Nations together with its Security Council and General Assembly. This group was key to develop the peace agreements not only in Nicaragua and El Salvador but in the entire Central American region and, most importantly, it was proposed outside the United States' interests in the region.

Even though the major donor for post-conflict projects in El Salvador was the United States (47% from the total aid received between 1993-2000), there are some SSC initiatives that deserve special attention. In the field of electoral projects, the Instituto Iberoamericano de Derechos Humanos (Ibero-american Institute for Human Rights) through its Centro de Asistencia y Protección Electoral (Center for Electoral Assistance and Protection) envisioned a national program to enroll citizens for the elections, train delegates, and set up offices from the National Electoral Registry. These contributions were essential, especially in remote areas where larger plans organized by bigger organizations -the Electoral Division from the United Nations- could not reach.

Regarding Human Rights' respect and justice, at the beginning of the conflict, the Catholic Church, local universities and some initiatives from the civil society were the flag organizations in charge of safeguarding them. However, when the struggle escalated, the violence almost annihilated these organizations. When the conflict ended, the United Nations Special Mission for El Salvador played a major role in this respect. Nevertheless, some SSC initiatives can be signaled: Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela participated both with financial resources and with technical assistance for the establishment of the Truth Commission, an initiative that aimed at reaching the victims of the conflict and give them the opportunity to offer their own accounts of the war. The help provided -especially the personnel specialized on human rights, security and crimes investigation- was highly valued by the international community, although several recommendations are still pending for implementation. The Defensorías del Pueblo (Ombudsman Offices) from Mexico, Argentina, Guatemala, Colombia were key actors for the creation of Procuraduría para la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos (Counsel for the Defense of Human Rights), providing political and financial support as well as training its personnel. Despite its initial 'relative success' (i.e. from 2001-2007, out of 23 cases charged with responsibility, only 11 complied with their respective resolutions), nowadays this institution has been criticized for its deficient administration, showing that post-conflict policies and initiatives should be sustained in the long-term (Vargas, 2010).

Regarding security consolidation, nowadays El Salvador could be considered not only a recipient of SSC but also an offeror. El Salvador has maintained successful campaigns for contributing towards the control of gangs and crime organizations. It has been able to translate its successful strategies but also its capacity to recognize its flaws and help other governments to prevent them. The Asistencia Estratégica para el Control de Organizaciones Delictivas y Pandillas (Strategic Assistance for the control of criminal organizations and gangs) project carried out in Ecuador is an example of the latter (Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de El Salvador, 2012). Through this program, members of Ecuador's National Police and from El Salvador National Police could socialize their experiences and consolidate public policies for Ecuador based on the experiences of the Central-American country. More specifically, Ecuador's National Police could replicate the models of identification and prevention recommended by specialized agencies from El Salvador. Similar programs could be replicated in Colombia, a country with more similarities with El Salvador, in terms of social conflict.

On 2016, El Salvador announced that its government will share its pacification experience with Colombia, especially on topics of ex-combatants' social reinsertion, which is often referred as the most difficult issue on the post-conflict scenario. There is a cooperation group already established, the Grupo Salvadoreño de Amistad con la Paz para Colombia (El Salvador's Friendship Group for Peace in Colombia). The group includes several authorities that participated on the negotiations that led to El Salvador peace agreement. In fact, the new Bilateral Program 2016-2018 was recently established and will be focused on areas -in addition to post-conflict initiatives- such as public security, education, science and technology, cultural policies, social inclusion and housing (Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de El Salvador, 2016).

In the case of Nicaragua, the role played by Promotores de Paz (Peace Promotors) is quite remarkable and provides a successful program that could be replicated in the Colombian context. The Promotores de Paz was an initiative focalized at specialized trainings for ex-combatants thought community actions based on reconciliation. This program was supported by private institutions such as the Centro de Estudios Internacionales, which means that the private sector can also contribute to the post-conflict initiatives. In fact, since 1990s Colombian ex-combatants started to form their own organizations with these objectives under the platform Programa para la Reinserción (Reinsertion Program) which has 9000 members under the following organizations: Compaz, Progresar (Progress), Copadec, Corriente de Renovación Socialista (Socialist Renovation Movement) and Corporación Colombia Viva (Alive Colombia Corporation). The Promotores de Paz are envisioned as 'literacy teachers' in peace matters and focus on different areas depending on their personal abilities.

The effort made by Nicaragua to clean up its territory from anti-personnel mines is outstanding and since 2010 it is considered free from this problem. Since its creation in 1998, the Comprehensive Action against Anti-Personnel Mines (AICMA) has been devoted to the eradication of mines. In fact, the AICMA has established a 'Colombia chapter' which is coordinated by the Organization of American States (OAS) with the technical assistance of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB). In September 2001 Guatemala became the first beneficiary country to provide the Chief of the International Supervisory Team, known as the Mission of Assistance for the Removal of Mines in Central America (MARMINCA). This change in leadership followed the training and integration of new military supervisors from Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Venezuela. The latter is an indication that the organization is changing its dynamics and including other actors more actively. In this sense, Colombia could get benefitted from this process that has the direct participation from countries that faced the same issues and have surpassed them.

In short, there are several programs that countries that have endured conflicts, such as Nicaragua and El Salvador, employed in order to promote the consolidation of peaceful societies. In the search of those initiatives supported by SSC, this section has highlighted a variety of ways in which this type of cooperation works -ranging from technical assistance and trainings to direct money transfers- and possible ways it could be integrated or replicated in the Colombian post-conflict context.

Experiences dealing with post-conflict issues: a possible source of future SSC among Latin American countries

This section, unlike the previous one, highlights some initiatives not necessarily considered as SSC-based but that could help to lay out similar lines of action in Colombia due to their efficacy at consolidating peace in the countries where they were implemented. More concretely, examples from Mexico and El Salvador are brought to the table. These experiences tackle some of the most sensible issues in a post-conflict scenario: internally displaced people and security.

As previously explained, internally displaced people's situation is one of the most important issues in the Colombian Peace Agreement: during the fifty years of the conflict millions of citizens were evicted from their shelters, directly -forcing them due to economic or political interests- or indirectly-turning those places into battle fields. Unfortunately, this tragedy has not been unusual in the southern countries, especially in the Latin American ones, i.e. Honduras, Mexico and Colombia have shown high rates of forced displacement. Though Colombia shows the highest rates of the continent¹⁰, the experiences of other countries dealing with displaced persons could be the source of the design of its own politics.

In this sense, the Mexican experience in this issue -facing the displacement of population due to the guerrilla struggle led by the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN) in Chiapas- is interesting in a multifold sense: pointing out the relevant aspects in the management of displaced persons, providing answers to the problematics derived of the displacement and including politics on the displaced indigenous population. In this sense, the Mexican government has implemented a victims' support system -directed by the Procuraduría Social de Atención a Víctimas del Delito (Social Attorney Office for Crime Victims Attention-PROVICTIMA) and the Comisión Nacional para el Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas (National Commission for the Indigenous Peoples Deve-lopment-CDI)- to provide material assistance as well as to reproduce the cultural identity of the indigenous peoples displaced due to the conflict (Pérez, 2014, p. 9).

Regarding security, an often cited successful case of ex-combatants' protection and social reinsertion is the creation of the Policía Nacional Civil (National Civil Police) in El Salvador. The National Civil Police was shaped as a fundamental part of the Chapul-tepec Peace Accords and 30 percent of its members were former combatants in the Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional. Although this article does not suggest to follow the El Salvador model in Colombia, some useful lessons can be obtained from this case: first, the experience and discipline acquired from ex-combatants can be put to good use, in this case towards the protection of figures that are key for the successful implementation of La Havana Peace Accords. And second, if there is a proper training of these 'new police forces', the result could be the decrease in the criminalization of the exguerrilla forces. Again, El Salvador shows that, in comparison with other post-conflict scenarios lived in Guatemala and Nicaragua, the level of criminalization of the former guerrilla forces was less when ex-combatants were part of the new police bodies.

Regarding political engagement, Colombia has important differences with other post-conflict countries. One of the most particular cases is that FARC-EP's political movement will have a minor representation on the parliament. For instance, Bicesse Accord, Angola's peace agreements granted 70 of a total of 220 members of Parliament, 4 Ministries and 7 Vice-ministries, to União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola (National Union for Angola's Total independencej -the insurgent guerrilla party. In the case of Nepal's peace process between the government and the Communist Party, 5 Ministries and 83 out of 330 seats were granted. Similarly, Sudan's peace accord established to grant 126 from a total of 450 parliamentarians as well as 8 Ministries to the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM).

Last but not least, all these internal policies must be understood within the internal state dynamics. Undoubtedly, in this kind of negotiations, factors like the strength of the guerrilla forces at the moment of the conciliation or the support of the guerrilla among the population, are relevant when crafting political engagement policies. However, referring to past-experiences of post-conflict countries -especially when they are geographically and cultural approximated- the aforementioned initiatives could be an adequate source for Colombia to design its own policies.

Conclusions

Colombia is currently facing one of the most relevant moments of its history: the opportunity of consolidating a process of pacification after more than fifty years of civil conflict. The demobilization of FARC-EP combatants is key as it will probably lead to the surrender of the rest of the remaining guerrilla forces. Thus, the success of the 2016 peace agreement can be considered the first step in the national cease fire among paramilitary forces, guerrilla movements and even drug trafficking organizations. Although insurgency movements, such as the Movimiento Revolucionario del Pueblo (People's Revolutionary Movement), and criminal gangs continue acting in Colombia, the dissolution of the FARC-EP -the oldest and most numerous guerrilla- is an important milestone that cannot be easily disregarded.

However, as it was argued throughout this article, there are some challenges that the Colombian government must resolve to consolidate the agreement: the reinsertion and integration in the political life of former combatants, the implementation of a transitional justice system and the support to the forcibly displaced population. In the same sense, it was shown how the efforts to solve these issues -through national legislation and traditional international cooperation- cannot be considered enough to ensure the success of the peace treaty. In fact, during the first year of the peace agreement implementation, the process has faced several crisis, mainly due to the difficulties in the fulfillment of the agrarian reforms, the rejection of the peace agreement by a relevant part of the Colombian population, the strengthening of violent movements or the alleged drug trafficking charges of some FARC members.

In an effort to propose alternative solutions, this article developed the potentiality of the SSC policies, showing the Colombian policies on which numerous countries are cooperating with different purposes: the surveillance of the agreement, the FARC-EP demobilization process or the reinsertion of former guerrilla members. The study was complemented by showing the way in which other Southern countries -especially Nicaragua and El Salvador- dealt with their own internal conflicts backed by this type of cooperation. In addition, the experiences of Mexico and El Salvador were exposed, analyzing the ways these countries faced, respectively, the support of displaced populations and the protection of former guerrilla fighters.

Throughout this analysis, it was evidenced that SSC policies could perform a complementary function, and are capable of playing a key role in the consolidation of a maximalist peace. While a minimalist peace treaty is focused in the finalization of the violent conflict, maximalist peace treaties would require further actions, such as the assistance to the victims and the implementation of a transitional justice system. In this sense, SSC could offer potential solutions to the main challenges of the Colombian peace agreement consolidation. For example, Nicaragua's Promotores de Paz program has shown high levels of success in the rehabilitation of former guerrilla combatants, what could provide a solution to the increasing fear in Colombia about the integration of former FARC-EP fighters in criminal gangs. At the same time, it could offer a solution to the anti-personnel mines problematic deployed by the guerrilla organizations or even to the Coca harvest replacement, which is currently failing due to logistic difficulties to access the isolated rural zones of Colombia. Therefore, SSC could become a platform of helpful mechanisms to resolve some of the pressing issues that are hindering the consolidation of the peace agreement. In fact, SSC could provide interesting views about the integration of FARC-EP in the national political life, one of the most controversial points of the peace agreement. The way Angola, Nepal or Sudan successfully achieved this integration could inspire the Colombian policies and generate a national space of discussion and reconciliation within the population.

Finally, this article evidenced how the current Colombian situation is relevant in the consolidation of the peace agreement with the FARC-EP guerrilla and in the future pacification of the remaining struggling forces. It was also exposed how SSC has a very significant potentiality, allowing the socialization of experiences among the Southern countries which have dealt with the very same issues that Colombia is facing nowadays. In short, SSC policies could -and should- play a relevant role, especially as it becomes very plausible to apply the existing programs to the Colombian situation, as well as promoting new initiatives among countries with successful past experiences dealing with their own conflicts. Therefore, the support of the SSC should be considered as a key element on the consolidation of a maximalist peace in the Colombian society, providing solutions to important problematics such as the reintegration of the former guerrilla fighters or the normalization of the demo cratic political life. Besides, in the long term, SSC could play a key role in the implementation of transitional justice, the main element in the search of a maximalist peace.

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Notes