Group items tagged

Capitalizing on the demobilization and reintegration experience gained in the CIAV-OAS peace mission in Nicaragua (1990-1997), the OAS led an extremely successful reinsertion project

This conflict prevention and management program helped Guatemalans address ongoing social and political tensions by providing them with training on negotiation, mediation and conflict resolution skills.

Secretary General was asked to take urgent action to defuse a conflict in Nicaragua that threatened to upset the institutional order.

Experience in Bolivia, Ecuador, Haiti and Nicaragua showed that the OAS played a decisive role in resolving the political and institutional crises in those countries, and took an active part in overcoming various situations that threatened democratic stability.

Correspondents say President Santos has risked his political future on the success of the peace deal.

But after 50 years of war, many Colombians still aren't ready to forgive. As President Santos put it, the hard work of building peace now lies ahead.

President Santos said this historic moment was a message from Colombia to the world: no more war. "No more war," the crowd chanted in return.

However, only hours before the signing, the EU announced it would suspend the Farc from its list.

1964: Set up as armed wing of Communist Party2002: At its height, it had an army of 20,000 fighters controlling up to a third of the country. Senator Ingrid Betancourt kidnapped and held for six years along with 14 other hostages2008: The Farc suffers a series of defeats in its worst year2012: Start of peace talks in Havana2016: Definitive ceasefire

Venezuela saw an increased risk of “violent demonstrations, violent crime and political instability as the economic crisis has deepened and anti-government sentiment has risen

Political instability and an increased likelihood of violent demonstrations accounted for Brazil’s low score as well

Indigenous communities all over Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast say they are under attack by settlers who have taken over their ancestral lands.

“They are trying to get us out of here,” said Vina Ernesto Efrain, 44, who saw her nephew gunned down the day a group of heavily armed men showed up in her village. “I haven’t been to my farm since, which means they took it from me.”

One indigenous village was burned to the ground. At least 600 indigenous people have fled to neighboring Honduras, where they live in dirt and squalor, advocates say. The killings of at least 30 Miskitos have been documented; the settlers say at least 80 farmers have also been killed, but have been unable to provide a list of names.During a recent visit to Francia Sirpi, a remote community several hours’ drive from the coast, more than a dozen indigenous men showed off gunshot wounds they had received from attacks while fishing or hunting. One teenager lost a leg. In December, three communities were attacked in a single day, with two men killed. Three others were kidnapped that day and have not been seen since.

The bad blood goes back ages. The Miskitos, unlike other Indian peoples in the Americas, were never conquered by the Spanish. For a long while, the region was a British protectorate. Even now, the Miskitos call the descendants of people who came from Spain hundreds of years ago to colonize the Americas “Spaniards.”

But in practicality, people on both sides of the dispute say the government has allowed the settling and the violence to continue unabated, partly because several of the indigenous leaders implicated in the illegal land sales are Sandinista government officials.

The government formed a special commission under the prosecutor general’s office to tackle the issue. The prosecutor general, Hernán Estrada, referred questions about the matter to the Foreign Ministry, which did not respond to requests for comment. The National Police also did not respond.

Ms. Cunningham said the tension between Miskitos and the Sandinistas dates back to the early 1980s, when the Sandinistas, fresh from their revolutionary victory, ran the Miskitos out of their homes and burned down villages in a mass displacement.

The special war tribunals the government intends to establish to start adjudicating crimes will be dismissed as kangaroo courts by those who would have favored a military defeat of the FARC. I would argue, though, that this path will give Colombians an opportunity to start building a fairer society, one in which merit and talent matter more than last name and pedigree.

In a hearing in October before the IACHR, Nicaraguan and regional human rights organizations discussed their concerns about human rights abuses against women and g

However, the NGOs expressed concern about reforms passed in 2013 that weakened the Comprehensive Law against Violence against Women (Law 779),

by offering women mediation with their abusive partners in some cases of domestic violence.

Spearheading the "no" vote in Colombia was former president and current senator Alvaro Uribe, whose father was killed by FARC rebels.

It has thrived as a stable democracy amid neighbors governed by leftist leaders.

President Bush could go a long way toward restoring peace in Nicaragua, and U.S.-Nicaraguan relations, if he proposed to use his influence and support--together with other heads of state, the World Bank and various other international agencies--to help launch a resettlement program, in Nicaragua

Nicaraguans who have sought asylum abroad would be enticed to return home. However, such a project to restore our dignity as Nicaraguans can be possible only if the Sandinista regime takes a sincere decision to adopt democracy.

In the 1970s, however, the Somoza government’s National Guard found itself increasingly challenged by the insurrectionary Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN). In 1978, violence escalated into civil war, which the Sandinistas and their allies quickly won.

When the Sandinistas took power in 1979, however, many Nicaraguans began to suspect that the new government was just another variation on the country’s authoritarian tradition.

The 1980s saw Nicaragua become a battlefield in the wider Cold War as East and West funded a war between the Sandinistas and the Contras (short for the Spanish word contra-revolucionarios--“counterrevolutionaries”).

In the past few years, allegations of electoral fraud, harassment of nongovernmental organizations and human rights activists, and efforts to amend the constitution to let the president run again in 2011, have tarnished Ortega’s democratic credentials.

But in what one UK pollster called “one of the biggest polling fails of all time,” the peace deal was narrowly rejected, with 50.2 percent voting against it. That means the peace agreement can’t be implemented — and is effectively dead.

he FARC is the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia). It’s a Marxist rebel group that since 1964 has waged a bloody rebellion against the Colombian government — and it’s the longest-running armed insurgency in the Western Hemisphere.

Starting in 2000, the United States began providing the Colombian government with billions of dollars in mostly military aid to help interrupt the country’s massive drug trade and fight the FARC and other smaller rebel groups. The hope was that social and economic conditions in Colombia’s “historically marginalized” rural areas in which the armed groups thrive would also be improved.

Under the agreement, called Plan Colombia, the US pledged nearly $10 billion in assistance. As reported by the Washington Post’s Dana Priest, this was paired with “a CIA covert action program that has helped Colombian forces kill at least two dozen rebel leaders.”

The deal would also have allowed rebels to avoid jail time if they confessed to their crimes. Per the BBC, the agreement would have created “a special legal framework” intended “to try those who committed crimes during the armed conflict, including Farc fighters, government soldiers and members of right-wing paramilitary groups.”

The peace agreement as written cannot be implemented without an approval by referendum, so it will have to be renegotiated. President Santos has promised to “continue the search for peace until the last moment of my mandate, because that's the way to leave a better country to our children ... I won't give up,” he said.

President Santos, a former defence minister, made it clear that his long fight against the Farc - as well as the secret channel he established two decades ago - gave him the gravitas to sit down with his enemy.

A 52-year war means a generation of pain and distrust.

The Farc, rooted in a Marxist-Leninist peasant revolt, must now move away from its vast network of criminal activities, including the lucrative cocaine trade, in exchange for entering the political process and becoming part of Colombian society.

Mr Santos had supported Mr Uribe early on, founding a party to back Mr Uribe's campaign for president when the latter was still a relatively unknown candidate.

However, Mr Santos' approval ratings remained high and he resigned as defence minister in 2009 to be able to run for president in 2010.

For the first time governmental institutions now recognise victims’ representatives as legitimate partners and take the lead in inviting them to meetings. Representatives’ proposals are taken into account when planning and implementing initiatives under the Victims and Land Restitution Law.

The support that MAPP/OEA provided to the victims during the trial was and remains a crucial element in the proceedings. The German contribution enables 100 victims to take part in each trial, offering general guidance, legal advice and psychological support throughout.

ourts, public prosecutors and victims’ associations use shared databases to exchange information with one another on the demobilised paramilitaries and update these databases continuously.

his makes it even more important that the parties … continue to respect the ceasefire

More than 220,000 people have died on the battlefield or in massacres during the conflict between leftist guerrillas, government troops and right-wing paramilitaries.

Santos has used his two terms in office to open negotiations with rebel leaders in four years of talks.

The peace accord was indeed a major achievement and, although the referendum was a setback,

hopefully this award will help peace builders maintain the momentum needed to keep the process moving forward,” Stockholm International Peace Research Institute Director Dan Smith said in a statement.