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jblackwell2

The stunning collapse of Colombia's peace agreement with the FARC, explained - Vox - 0 views

  • On Sunday, Colombian voters narrowly rejected the government’s peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, in a stunning referendum vote that has thrown the peace process into disarray.
  • All that was left was for voters to approve it in a nationwide referendum on Sunday. Most observers saw the vote as a mere formality that would officially bring an end to the 52-year war that left 220,000 people dead and displaced millions.
  • nearly every poll predicted that it would be approved by the people with a comfortable margin.
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  • 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.
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    This article talks about the basics of the agreement between the Columbian government and the FARC.
jblackwell2

The lessons of Colombia's extraordinary peace process - BBC News - 0 views

  • In a world dominated by horrific forever wars, Colombia's agreement with the Farc guerrilla movement stands out as an extraordinary moment for this country, and a rare affirmation of the power of peace talks.
  • "What we have seen in Colombia is an example that if you work hard at it, with a lot of international support, you can get something worthwhile," he said, while a Colombian choir rehearsed Beethoven's Ode to Joy on the edge of the picturesque harbour.
  • Every conflict is different, but every peace process throws up similar challenges and controversies.
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  • 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.
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    This article talks about the peace process.
jblackwell2

Who are the Farc? - BBC News - 0 views

  • The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc, after the initials in Spanish) are Colombia's largest rebel group.
  • They were founded in 1964 as the armed wing of the Communist Party and follow a Marxist-Leninist ideology.
  • They are controlled by the Secretariat, a group of less than a dozen top commanders who devise the overarching strategy of the Farc.
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  • They think there are another 8,500 civilians who make up the Farc's support network.
  • Inspired by the Cuban revolution in the 1950s, they demanded more rights and control over the land.
  • No, Colombia went through a 10-year civil war before the Farc were even founded.
  • The man who would later become the top leader of the Farc, Manuel "Sureshot" Marulanda, had fought in La Violencia.
  • Most of their fighters are from poor, rural communities and include both men and women of all ages.
  • Colombia is one of the main producers of cocaine and the rebels get a large part of their income from drug trafficking or levying "taxes" on those who do.
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    This article talks about who the FARC rebels are.
bennetttony

How Ortega Took the Suspense Out of Nicaragua's Presidential Election - 0 views

  • And we can already predict with absolute certainty that Daniel Ortega will be elected president. Again.
  • Since coming to power, the former Marxist rebel’s ideology has taken an idiosyncratic twist, blending elements of capitalism, populism, new age spirituality and, above all, the tendencies of an autocrat whose paramount objective is to remain in power
  • Next week’s election will mark the seventh time he runs for president, after having ruled the country from 1979 to 1985 as head of the junta.
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  • The last time Ortega won, in 2011, the election results were vehemently rejected by the opposition, which declared that Ortega had become a dictator. The Carter Center said the elections lacked “the most basic guarantees for the integrity of the voting process.”
  • The decision to put her on the ticket formalizes what has already been a high-profile role for the first lady. She is the official government spokesperson, and as such the only government figure authorized to speak to the media. But her influence goes far beyond that.
  • Murillo plays a pivotal role in strengthening the Ortegas’ standing with women, which suffered enormously after he was accused in 1998 by his stepdaughter, Zoilamerica Narvaez, of sexually abusing her for many years, starting when she was a young girl.
  • Nicaraguans believe that Ortega, who is 70 years old and reportedly having health problems, is working to secure his family’s hold on power when he is ready to relinquish the rudder.
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    This article outlines how presidential candidate Ortega is taking advantage of the government in Nicaragua and how he plans on using it for his own benefit.
runlai_jiang

Colombia's Santos wins Nobel Peace Prize in boost for troubled talks | Antigua Observer... - 0 views

  • Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos won the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for his efforts to end a 52-year-old war with Marxist guerrillas, a surprise choice and a show of support days after voters rejected a peace deal he signed with the rebels.
  • Santos has promised to revive the plan even though Colombians narrowly rejected it in a referendum on Sunday.
  • The fact that a majority of the voters said ‘No’ to the peace accord does not necessarily mean that the peace process is dead.”
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  • 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.
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    Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos won the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize. He accord the rebelling guerrilla to ceasefire. Although the majority of voters said no in the referendum, President promised that they would continue the peace process. His negotiations to ceasefire helped the peace process in the future decision and also have made sure people's safety. The Nobel Peace Prize adviced us to keep solving the Colombia Peace Process.
Javier E

Eduardo Galeano Disavows His Book 'The Open Veins' - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • For more than 40 years, Eduardo Galeano’s “The Open Veins of Latin America” has been the canonical anti-colonialist, anti-capitalist and anti-American text in that region
  • now Mr. Galeano, a 73-year-old Uruguayan writer, has disavowed the book, saying that he was not qualified to tackle the subject and that it was badly written. Predictably, his remarks have set off a vigorous regional debate, with the right doing some “we told you so” gloating, and the left clinging to a dogged defensiveness.
  •  ‘Open Veins’ tried to be a book of political economy, but I didn’t yet have the necessary training or preparation,” Mr. Galeano said last month while answering questions at a book fair in Brazil, where he was being honored on the 43rd anniversary of the book’s publication. He added: “I wouldn’t be capable of reading this book again; I’d keel over. For me, this prose of the traditional left is extremely leaden, and my physique can’t tolerate it
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  • “Open Veins” has been translated into more than a dozen languages and has sold more than a million copies. In its heyday, its influence extended throughout what was then called the third world, including Africa and Asia, until the economic rise of China and India and Brazil seemed to undercut parts of its thesis.In the United States, “Open Veins” has been widely taught on university campuses since the 1970s, in courses ranging from history and anthropology to economics and geography. But Mr. Galeano’s unexpected takedown of his own work has left scholars wondering how to deal with the book in class.
  • “If I were teaching this in a course,” said Merilee Grindle, president of the Latin American Studies Association and director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard, “I would take his comments, add them in and use them to generate a far more interesting discussion about how we see and interpret events at different points in time.” And that seems to be exactly what many professors plan to do.
  • “Reality has changed a lot, and I have changed a lot,” he said in Brazil, adding: “Reality is much more complex precisely because the human condition is diverse. Some political sectors close to me thought such diversity was a heresy. Even today, there are some survivors of this type who think that all diversity is a threat. Fortunately, it is not.”
  • In the mid-1990s, three advocates of free-market policies — the Colombian writer and diplomat Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza, the exiled Cuban author Carlos Alberto Montaner and the Peruvian journalist and author Álvaro Vargas Llosa — reacted to Mr. Galeano with a polemic of their own, “Guide to the Perfect Latin American Idiot.” They dismissed “Open Veins” as “the idiot’s bible,” and reduced its thesis to a single sentence: “We’re poor; it’s their fault.”
  • Mr. Montaner responded to Mr. Galeano’s recent remarks with a blog post titled “Galeano Corrects Himself and the Idiots Lose Their Bible.” In Brazil, Rodrigo Constantino, the author of “The Caviar Left,” took an even harsher tone, blaming Mr. Galeano’s analysis and prescription for many of Latin America’s ills. “He should feel really guilty for the damage he caused,”
Javier E

A 'Brave' Move by Obama Removes a Wedge in Relations With Latin America - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • After years of watching his influence in Latin America slip away, Mr. Obama suddenly turned the tables this week by declaring a sweeping détente with Cuba, opening the way for a major repositioning of the United States in the region.
  • Washington’s isolation of Cuba has long been a defining fixture of Latin American politics, something that has united governments across the region, regardless of their ideologies. Even some of Washington’s close allies in the Americas have rallied to Cuba’s side.
  • “Our previous Cuba policy was clearly an irritant and a drag on our policy in the region,”
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  • “We have to recognize the gesture of President Barack Obama, a brave gesture and historically necessary, perhaps the most important step of his presidency,” Mr. Maduro said.
  • Daniel Ortega, the Nicaraguan president and former Sandinista rebel, was chastising Mr. Obama just days ago, saying the United States deserved the top spot in a new list of state sponsors of terrorism. Then, on Wednesday, he saluted the “brave decisions” of the American president.
  • “We never thought we would see this moment,” said Brazil’s president, Dilma Rousseff, a former Marxist guerrilla who chided the Obama administration last year over the National Security Agency’s surveillance of her and her top aides. She called the deal with Cuba “a moment which marks a change in civilization.”
  • “It removes an excuse for blaming the United States for things,”
  • “In the last Summit of the Americas, instead of talking about things we wanted to focus on — exports, counternarcotics — we spent a lot of time talking about U.S.-Cuba policy,” said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly. “A key factor with any bilateral meeting is, ‘When are you going to change your Cuba policy?’
  • But while sharp differences persist on many issues, other major Washington policy shifts have recently been applauded in the region, including Mr. Obama’s immigration plan and the resettlement in Uruguay of six detainees from Guantánamo Bay.
  • “There will be radical and fundamental change,” said Andrés Pastrana, a former president of Colombia. “I think that to a large extent the anti-imperialist discourse that we have had in the region has ended. The Cold War is over.”
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