Crisis?  What Crisis?   Security Issues in Colombia

Biographies of Contributors

 Dr. Cynthia Arnson is senior program associate of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars’ Latin American Program, where she directs the project on Comparative Peace Processes in Latin America. Previously, Dr. Arnson served as associate director of Human Rights Watch/Americas, where she had responsibility for Colombia, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. She has taught at The American University School of International Service and served as senior foreign policy aide in the House of Representatives during the Carter and Reagan administrations. She is the author of Crossroads: Congress, the President, and Central America, 1976 -- 1993 (Penn State Press, 1993) and editor of Comparative Peace Processes in Latin America (Stanford University Press and Woodrow Wilson Center Press, forthcoming in 1998). She has a Ph.D. from The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

Dan D. Darrach is a State/Defense Exchange Officer, detailed to the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict since August of 1997. Mr. Darrach joined the Department of State in 1980 as a Foreign Service Officer and was most recently assigned as chief of the Consular Section in the U.S. Embassy in Montevideo, Uruguay. He has also served in Monterrey, Guadalajara, and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico; Caracas, Venezuela; and St. Johns, Antigua. In an earlier tour in Washington, D.C., he was a Department of State/INR liaison to the JS/Joint Reconnaissance Center. Mr. Darrach has been awarded three Department of State Meritorious Honor Awards. He received a B.A. in political science from the University of Oklahoma, and completed some graduate work at the George Washington University before a brief stint at the Central Intelligence Agency as a political analyst.

Dr. Malcolm Douglas Deas is the cofounder of Oxford University’s Latin American Center and the Chairman of Oxford’s Social Studies Faculty Center. He has published extensively on the history and politics of Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Argentina, and Latin America in general. From 1990 to 1994, Dr. Deas served as an advisor to Colombia’s Presidential Office of National Security and Defense. He has received several outstanding distinctions for his scholarship and service, including Ecuador’s Orden de Mérito, Colombia’s Cruz de Boyacá, Venezuela’s Orden Andrés Bello, and Great Britain’s O.B.E. Dr. Deas served as editor of the Cambridge Latin America Monograph series, and as lead writer on Latin America for the London Times. His recent publications include Dos ensayos especulativos sobre la violencia en Colombia, José Asunción Silva y la sociedad de su época, and collected essays on Colombia in Del poder y gramática. Dr. Deas received his Ph.D. from Oxford University in 1962.

Dr. Daniel García-Peña Jaramillo has served as the coordinator of the Office of the High Commission for Peace since 1995. He is also part of the Comisión Exploratoria de Paz designed by President Ernesto Samper and charged with producing a report entitled Construyendo la paz mañana. Dr. García-Peña has been a political analyst for the Colombian radio news program, Noticiero AM-PM; advisor to the Alianza Democrática M-19 for the Special Legislative Commission; and director of the Department of History at the Universidad de los Andes. Dr. García-Peña has written extensively about peace issues in Colombia and in Latin America in general, including "Light Weapons and Internal Conflict in Colombia," in Lethal Commerce: The Global Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons; "La Paz en El Salvador," in Negociaciones de Paz, and "Protesta y política: los movimientos anti-guerrilla en Estados Unidos, 1965 -- 1975," in Historia Crítica.

Dr. Anthony P. Maingot is a professor of sociology at Florida International University. From 1985 to 1995, he was an adjunct professor of Mexican and Caribbean studies at the U.S. Air Force School of Special Operations and has held the post of Director of the Antilles Research Program at Yale University, member of the Constitutional Reform Commission of Trinidad and Tobago, and president of the Caribbean Studies Association. Recent publications include Small Country Development and International Labor Flows: Experiences in the Caribbean and The United States and the Caribbean: Challenges of an Asymmetrical Relationship. Dr. Maingot is the founding Editor of Hemisphere and serves on the editorial boards of International Migration (Geneva, Switzerland), Anuario Social y Político de FLACSO (Costa Rica), and Caribbean Affairs (Trinidad and Tobago). Born in Trinidad, he received a Ph.D. at the University of Florida (Gainesville) in 1967.

Roger Noriega serves as senior professional staff member with the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Mr. Noriega advises Committee Chairman Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) on all political and economic issues in the thirty-four countries in the Western Hemisphere. He is part of the congressional team responsible for oversight of all U.S. government activities in the Hemisphere, including aid programs, antidrug efforts, and Peace Corps issues, as well as representing the committee in overseas meetings with government officials and opinion leaders in the Hemisphere. Mr. Noriega played a key role in the drafting and passage of the "Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (LIBERTAD) Act of 1996," which is intended to hasten a democratic, free-market transition in Cuba. Mr. Noriega has also served at the U.S. Department of State, at the U.S. Agency for International Development, and as an appointee of the administrations of presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush.

Colonel Alfonso Peña Flórez is currently the vice secretary of the Inter-American Defense Board. A native of Bogotá, Col. Peña has served in the Colombian National Army for thirty-one years, during which he held a number of positions, including chief of planning for the Ministry of Defense, chief of planning for the Army, commander of the 8th Brigade, and chief of the Planning Division of the Inter-American Defense Board Joint Staff. Col. Peña has authored two books, entitled Calidad Total y Liderazgo and Poder Motivacional de la Comunicación. His academic training includes a master of science in business administration from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, a post-graduate degree in marketing from the Universidad Getulio Vargas de Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, and a graduate degree in economics from the Universidad Militar Nueva Granada in Bogotá.

Brigadier General Otto Pérez Molina is the chief of the Guatemalan Delegation at the Inter-American Defense Board in Washington, D.C. His distinguished career in the Guatemalan Army includes serving as General Inspector, chief of the Presidential Staff, director of intelligence on the National Defense Staff, and ceputy director of the Escuela Politécnica (military academy). For his service, the Guatemalan government has awarded General Pérez the Military Merit Cross, Distinguished Services Cross, "Monja Blanca" medal, Sports Military Medal, and Land Forces Cross. General Pérez has received training at the Inter-American Defense College, the U.S. Army Command and General Staff Course in Ft. Benning, Georgia, and the International Course of Lanceros in Colombia.

Dr. Eduardo Pizarro Leongómez is co-founder and director of the Instituto de Estudios Políticos y Relaciones Internacionales of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, in Bogotá. In 1995 he was a member of the National Commission to Study the Reform of the Political Parties. Dr. Pizarro’s publications include Insurgencia sin revolución: la guerrilla colombiana en una perspectiva comparad (Bogotá: Tercer Mundo Editores/IEPRI, 1996) and Las FARC (1949 -- 1966): de la autodefensa a la combinación de todos las formas de lucha (Bogotá: Tercer Mundo Editores/IEPRI, 1991). He received a Ph.D. in sociology from the Institute for Political Studies in Paris, France, in 1986.

Dr. J. Cordell Robinson is associate vice president for academic affairs, professor of history, and adjunct professor for the National Security Program at California State University, San Bernardino. He was a Fulbright Scholar in Colombia in 1992. Dr. Robinson’s publications and scholarly papers include "Colombia’s International Relations: A Search for an Independent Role," Latin American Research Review (29:3, 1994), "Searching for an International Role: Recent Colombian Approaches," presented at the meeting of the Latin American Studies Association; and Providencia Island: Its History and Its People (San Bernardino, Calif.: The Borgo Press, 1998). He is currently writing a book entitled The Foreign Policy of Colombia. He received a Ph.D. in Latin American history from Indiana University in 1971.

Brigadier General Nelson Ivan Saldaña Araújo serves as the defense attaché for El Salvador in Mexico. Previous to this he has held positions as assistant chief of the Joint Staff of the Salvadoran Armed Forces, commander of the 3rd Infantry Brigade, coordinator of the Human Rights Program, and director of the Capitan General Gerardo Barrios Military School. Gen. Saldaña has academic degrees in military administration and business administration.

Dr. Mark A. Sherman is associate professor of government and adjunct professorial lecturer in law at American University in Washington, D.C. He serves also as academic director of the Law and Political Institute, a program of American University’s Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies. Dr. Sherman has practiced law and consulted in the fields of international criminal law and international human rights. He served as consultant to the defense in United States v. Noriega, United States v. Abello-Silva, and other cases involving alleged international narcotics trafficking. Dr. Sherman has authored a number of works on international criminal law and international human rights, including An Inquiry Regarding the International and Domestic Legal Problems Presented in United States v. Noriega, and United States Drug Control Policy, Extradition, and the Rule of Law. Dr. Sherman received a B.A. from George Washington University, a J.D. from the University of Miami, and an L.L.M. (Advocacy) from Georgetown University.

Colonel William Spracher has been defense and army attaché to Colombia since June, 1995. Commissioned in military intelligence from the U.S. Military Academy in 1970, he has served at the tactical level in an armor battalion in Germany and in an infantry brigade in Korea. Col. Spracher has taught U.S. government and comparative politics at the United States Military Academy in West Point. He is an army foreign area officer and strategist, served as a division chief in the J2, U.S. Southern Command (1985-87), the Army Staff in the Pentagon (1987-89), School Battalion Commander at the U. S. Army School of the Americas (1989-92), army attaché to Peru (1994-95). He also served as the U.S. contingent commander and military assistant to the commander of the U.N. military observer mission in Western Sahara. Col. Spracher’s next assignment will be on the faculty of the National Defense University’s Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies. Col. Spracher holds a B.A. from West Point, an M.A. in international relations from Yale University and an M.M.A.S. in political military studies from the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College.

Enrique ter Horst is the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights at the level of assistant secretary-general. Prior to this appointment, Mr. ter Horst served as the secretary-feneral’s special representative for Haiti, as special representative of the secretary-general for El Salvador, and chief of the United Nations Observer Mission in El Salvador (UNOSAL), and subsequently of the Mission of the United Nations in El Salvador (MINUSAL). From 1989 to 1992, Mr. ter Horst served at the U.N. as assistant secretary-general in the Office of the Director-General at the Governing Board of the University for Peace. He was assistant president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development, deputy permanent representative of Venezuela to the U.N., Venezuelan representative to the Commission on Human Rights, chairman of the Commission on Multinational Corporations of the International Labour Organization, and minister counsellor to the Permanent Mission of Venezuela to the U.N. Mr. ter Horst earned a law degree from the Universidad Central de Venezuela in 1971.

Dr. Kimberley L. Thachuk is a Visiting Fellow at the National Defense University’s Institute for National Strategic Studies, where she is conducting research on U.S. drug policy and illegal drug trafficking in the Americas, with particular emphasis on Colombia. She has served as international research administrator for the Institute for Studies in Criminal Justice Policy and as faculty member of the Department of Political Science at Simon Fraser University, British Columbia, Canada. Dr. Thachuk has presented several lectures on the subject of international crime and drug trafficking, including "The New World Order: New Enemies to the National Security of States," and "Drug Trafficking: A New Threat to World Order," and is coauthor with James L. Zackrison of a study entitled "Certification Law: Successful Tool in the War on Drugs," forthcoming in Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy. Dr. Thachuk received a Ph.D. in political science, criminology, and Latin American studies from Simon Fraser University. Her dissertation focused on the topic of crime and drugs in Colombia and was entitled "Plomo o Plata: Politics, Corruption, and Drug Policy in Colombia."

David C. Wolfe is a U.S. Department of State foreign service officer whose assignments have included Colombia (1994 -- 1996), Guatemala (1992 -- 1994), and analyst for Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia for the Office of Inter-American Affairs, Bureau of Intelligence and Research. Mr. Wolfe was a U.S. Marine Corps officer (1983-- 1987) serving in Okinawa, Japan; Rota, Spain; and Parris Island, South Carolina. A native Texan, he received a B.A. in political science, economics, and management from Rice University in Houston, Texas, and a M.A. in international relations from George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

James L. Zackrison is an intelligence analyst with the Office of Naval Intelligence. Publications include coauthor with Dr. K.L. Thachuk, of "The Americas" chapter in Strategic Assessment 1998 (Washington, D.C.: NDU Press, 1998); "Chile, Mar Presencial, and the Law of the Sea" (coauthored with LTC James Meason, Naval War College Review, summer 1997); "Colombian Sovereignty Under Siege" (coauthored with Eileen Bradley, Strategic Forum #112 NDU Press), "North America" chapter in Strategic Assessment 1997 (Washington, D.C.: NDU Press, 1997). Mr. Zackrison received a B.A. in Latin American studies, an M.A. in history from Loma Linda University, Riverside, California, and an M.A. in national security studies from California State University, San Bernardino.

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Last Update:  September 30, 2002