Up to the Minute: Colombia and the Road to Lasting Peace

Date & Time Dec 12 2016 4:30 PM - 6:00 PM
Speaker(s)
Juan Carlos Pinzón MPP ’10, Ambassador of Colombia to the United States
Audience Open to the Public

This event will be livestreamed on YouTube.

After voters rejected a historic peace agreement between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in a referendum this October, President Juan Manuel Santos signed a revised accord, which lawmakers approved late last month. Several recent killings and violent attacks on activists have threatened to derail the new deal, despite no group claiming responsibility to date.

Juan Carlos Pinzón, Ambassador of Colombia to the United States, will deliver an Up to the Minute Lecture about the ongoing Colombian peace process.

Amb. Pinzón has been Colombia’s Ambassador to the United States since Aug. 3, 2015. He previously served for nearly four years as Colombia’s minister of defense, where he led the nation’s police and military forces in dealing severe blows to the illegal and terrorist armed groups operating in the territory. His tenure was characterized by the development of a new strategic concept that linked a decisive offensive against terrorism and criminality with a new effort to improve the equipment, training and welfare of the men and women in uniform and their families. Additionally, he put in place a transformation plan for the Colombian Armed Forces through 2030.

Prior to serving as minister of defense, Pinzón was chief of staff to President Santos (2010–2011) and vice minister of defense (2006-2009). An economist by training, Pinzón graduated with honors from Universidad Javeriana in Bogota, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in economics and later receiving a Master of Science in economics from the same university.

Pinzón also received a Master in Public Policy from Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs in 2010.