PROCESO DE REFORMA CONSTITUCIONAL Y RESOLUCIÓN DE CONFLICTOS EN COLOMBIA: EL FRENTE NACIONAL DE 1957 Y LA CONSTITUYENTE DE 1991

Abstract

1991's National Constituent Assembly (NCA) was a democratic process never seen before in national history. However, its impact on the armed conflict was very modest. The fact that the main actors of the conflict (such as FARC and ELN) did not take part in the NCA, caused an incapability of the institutional democratization to solve the problem of political violence. This article supports the idea of Colombian constitutional reforms being true conflict resolution mechanisms, in cases where the confronted actors have taken part in the constitutional agreements, as was the case of the Frente Nacional (National Front - NF). Based on a comparison between 1957’s NF and 1991’s NCA, the present article questions some presumptions on the constitutional reform issue and its relation to democracy and armed conflict.