Organizations working in the field of unarmed civilian protection and accompaniment (UCP/A) usually have fairly clear ideas about whom they work with, based on their core principles. They generally focus on civilians, including whole communities, as well as civil society groups and activists, who are facing (a threat of) physical violence. Their core principle of nonviolence means that they do not accompany armed actors, although there may be some grey areas in practice.1 Meanwhile, the principle of nonpartisanship, which many humanitarian-type organizations adhere to, or alternatively the principle of being by the side of those most oppressed, which activist-type organizations prefer (Schweitzer, 2020b, pp 78– 9), lead them to usually steer clear of powerholders, be that in formal or informal roles. Many UCP/A organizations build relationships with such actors to gain leverage for their protection work, but they do not accompany them. In theory at least, the binaries violent– nonviolent, armed actor– civilian, oppressor– oppressed, upon which this demarcation of UCP/A as a field of practice rests, seem straightforward. In this chapter, however, we show that they come to their limits when it is former perpetrators of violence who are the civilians in urgent need of protection.

In November 2016, the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), by then Latin America's oldest guerrilla group, signed a peace agreement that ended a decades-long armed conflict and started a process of disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) of the FARC peace signatories. Five years later, by November 2021, and despite official safety guarantees for demobilized FARC fighters enshrined in the final agreement, 299 former FARC combatants had been assassinated (Indepaz, 2021a), in addition to forced disappearances and displacements of peace signatories and their families – and the violence continues. A year later, by November 2022, another 36 FARC peace signatories had been killed, indicating a continuous trend (Indepaz, 2022b).