Public communication during the conversations between the Colombian government and the FARC-EP (2010-2016) required constant attention and work. The intention was to broadcast the narrative, the developments and the concrete events of the negotiations in a precise and timely way, providing real time information for any interested audience. Confidentiality played a very important role during the secret phase of the conversations (2010-2012), yet a minimum of communication with each party’s audience was fundamental for creating an environment for possible public conversations. During the public phase, the parties agreed to some basic rules for broadcasting beyond the peace process, which included not only jointly drafting statements on the decisions or advances of the conversations, but also statements that each party produced about these same events. A communications commission with delegates from the government and the FARC-EP decided on the details of these statements (and other types of documents, like public addresses and declarations), the publication of partial agreements (or other collaborative documents), joint responses to crises, the use of broadcasting channels (like the Negotiating Table website), and the operational concerns for live broadcasts, among other things.
Each party independently defined their own communicative strategy and narrative, making sure not to refer to immediate developments at the Negotiating Table. Each party also delegated spokespersons for their individual public announcements, whereas the joint statements and published agreements were usually broadcast by delegates from the guarantor nations. Each party also decided on their own model for interactions with Colombian and international media outlets, as well as their own use of social media and other communication platforms.
In this section, you can find analyses and reflections on the use of internal and external communications at the talks, highlighting the rules that were put in place as well as the lessons and innovations in information access that the peace talks produced.
