Tag Archives: Colombia

Oct 12, 2016 – Arsenal For Democracy Ep. 155

  By

Posted by Bill on behalf of the team.

AFD-logo-470

Topics: What broad lessons on direct democracy and foreign policy should be drawn from the Colombia peace deal referendum failure? People: Bill, Jonathan, Kelley, and Greg. Produced: Oct 10th, 2016.

Episode 155 (55 min):
AFD 155

Discussion Points:

– Why did Colombia’s peace deal referendum fall apart?
– When is it appropriate to use direct democracy referenda and when is it better to use representatives to make decisions?
– When achieving justice and reaching peace are conflicting goals, which gets sacrificed?

Related links:

– The Nation: “Did Human Rights Watch Sabotage Colombia’s Peace Agreement?”
– Chapo Trap House episode on Colombia
– July 2015 AFD report on Colombia negotiations

Subscribe

RSS Feed: Arsenal for Democracy Feedburner
iTunes Store Link: “Arsenal for Democracy by Bill Humphrey”

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

What’s up with HRW and Colombia? Yikes

  By

This past weekend amid a tropical storm that hampered turnout, voters in Colombia very narrowly rejected – upsetting polls showing an overwhelming public approval – a referendum to endorse a permanent peace deal between the government and FARC rebels after 50 years of civil war. (Some previous discussion of this here.) The country’s militarized right-wing was joined bizarrely by “Human Rights Watch,” the global NGO, in campaigning viciously against the peace deal.

The Nation detailed this in an article headlined “Did Human Rights Watch Sabotage Colombia’s Peace Agreement?”

HRW has been embarrassing itself very publicly on the global stage for a couple years now, particularly with regard to its propaganda seeking a Western military invasion of Syria. This should be the last straw. They are not promoting a human rights or peace agenda. They are pursuing some arbitrary set of agendas in various countries that is inscrutable to the rest of us and very dangerous for the people’s lives who are affected directly. Five decades of war and HRW is gloating about helping to defeat the referendum to end it? What is wrong with you?

Flag-of-Colombia

Colombia indigenous groups seek to help manage forest resources

  By

(Continuing today’s theme of indigenous forest protection efforts…)

Colombian tribal leaders based in the Amazon Rainforest are making the case that traditional low-impact forestry management techniques from their indigenous communities native to those forest areas should play a key role in a proposed “corridor” aiming to preserve vital forest resources and biodiversity from logging and other development.

“Indigenous groups want changes to plan for Amazon biodiversity corridor” – Al Jazeera America

Indigenous leaders representing some 250 Amazon Basin tribes said Tuesday that an ambitious plan proposed earlier this year to create a protected corridor roughly the size of France in parts of Colombia, Brazil and Venezuela is a great idea to safeguard biodiversity and combat climate change, but it leaves out a key aspect of forest management — the people who have been successfully protecting the rainforest through sustainable practices for centuries.
[…]
The group supports the plan, proposed by Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, in concept. It would create a contiguous area of 135 million hectares, or more than 300 million acres, that would become off-limits to deforestation and other destructive resource extraction practices in order to protect the area’s biodiversity.

“The corridor will not only protect indigenous people but also the Amazon Basin that is giving pure air to the world,” Furagaro said.
[…]
But indigenous leaders say that simply banning certain activities in the forest isn’t enough. So last month, 25 indigenous leaders from Colombia, Brazil and Venezuela trekked into the middle of the Amazon by foot, boat and bus to come up with something better. They discussed how to improve on Santos’ idea while keeping their territorial, cultural, social and economic rights.
[…]
The tribes represented at the meeting called for the final corridor proposal to allow free travel in the protected area for indigenous people so that they can continue to manage the forest using traditional methods, which are often thwarted by political borders.

“The corridor could also protect 245 different indigenous peoples’ communities, 245 different traditional languages and 245 different traditional uses of the land,” Furagaro said.

 
Flag-of-Colombia

Is Colombia any closer to a meaningful peace deal?

  By

The Colombian government and FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia) have been at the negotiation table in Havana since November 2012. While progress has been made – the two sides agree on the need for more economic and social development in rural areas of the country and on the rebels’ political participation if a peace deal is brokered – a permanent peace still appears to be a long way off.

FARC, a leftist group involved in the armed Colombian Conflict since 1964, has been labeled by the United States and other governments as a terrorist organization.  In fact, many Colombians believe that their country’s leaders should not be negotiating with them at all. Colombia’s National Center for Historical Memory reports that 220,000 people have been killed in the armed conflict, 80% of those killed have been civilians. FARC is not responsible for all of the deaths directly, but their presence has led to violence and instability in the country for decades. The National Center for Historical Memory reports that more than half of the deaths are a result of the right-wing forces originally intended to stop FARC.

Still, there might have been a hint of a breakthrough in recent days. FARC has been insisting that the Colombian government enters into a bilateral cease-fire. July 5th Colombian officials indicated for the first time that they are open to the idea of a bilateral ceasefire. 

Lesser measures have not been successful in reaching peace. Last December, FARC entered into a unilateral ceasefire, which lasted until mid-April, when a FARC ambush left 11 dead. Since then 30 rebels have been killed, making peace a more distant dream. FARC’s announcement of another unilateral ceasefire beginning on July 20, independence day, probably won’t go far enough, but maybe it opens the door to new possibility of a bilateral truce.

While violence has declined in Colombia in the past decade (2014 was the most peaceful year in Colombia since 1984) and FARC has not been able to recruit as many rebel soldiers in recent years, there is still a long road ahead for Colombia as they deal with ever-present drug wars and the challenge of helping rebels to reintegrate into their country, should peace even be negotiated.

Flag-of-Colombia