Introduction to Colombia.
Leal, Claudia ; Bonilla, Daniel ; Legrand, Catherine 等
In this special issue of the Canadian Journal of Latin American and
Caribbean Studies, we are pleased to bring to a broader public a series
of articles and maps authored by an historian, a geographer, a political
scientist, two sociologists, and an economist that, from various
perspectives, attempt to make sense of the tragic and seemingly
intractable conflict in Colombia. Our aim is to help a wide audience
better understand the origins of Colombia's conflict, its multiple
protagonists, its regional manifestations, and the impact of the illegal
drug trade, which both damages Colombia's economy and fuels the
violence by weakening the state and enriching the armed groups.
These articles developed out of a series of conferences held over
the past three years in which the authors and editors met with other
Colombian specialists to explore the origins and dynamics of the war in
Colombia. One key meeting, "Colombia: A Nation in Crisis" was
held at Yale Law School in November 2000, with the sponsorship of
Yale's Council for Latin American and Iberian Studies and the Yale
Law School's Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human
Rights. A second important conference, "Colombia in Context,"
took place at the University of California, Berkeley, in March 2001 and
was organized by the Center for Latin American Studies. We thank these
institutions for their stimulating support. We also thank Bruce Bagley
for his very helpful comments on the manuscripts.
All of the articles, except Catherine LeGrand's, were written
in Spanish and translated into English. The translations were made
possible by the sponsorship of the Ford Foundation, the Center for Latin
American Studies of the University of California, Berkeley, and the
Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights at the Yale
Law School. This section was edited by Claudia Leal, Daniel Bonilla and
Catherine LeGrand.
CLAUDIA LEAL
University of California, Berkeley
DANIEL BONILLA
Universidad de los Andes, Bogota
CATHERINE LEGRAND
McGill University
