Unlike the ELN, FARC was a predominantly rural guerrilla group, focusing on agrarian reform and social rights. Up until the 2016 between FARC and the Colombian government, FARC remained steadfastly devoted to communist ideology with the ultimate goal of overthrowing the Colombian government and a communist-agrarian state. This differs significantly from the ELN, which despite originally forming as a result of leftist ideology, its viewpoints over time.

Evolution of the ELN

The early days of the ELN were heavily influenced by Marxist-Leninist ideology, particularly Foco theory, created by the Argentine-Cuban Marxist revolutionary . The theory depended on guerrilla centers to spark revolutionary sentiment, as well as liberation theology to the group by radical priests. By 1965, the ELN had published the “Simacoto Manifesto,” their goals. 

The ELN continued to rely on Foco theory, which is rooted in the experiences of several of its leaders, including Fabio Vásquez Castaño, one of the founders of the ELN. The ELN began to from its original ideology in the 1980s and 1990s. As the group reached its peak of nearly 5,000 fighters, it began into new geographical territories beyond its original municipality of San Vicente de ChucurĂ­, not only throughout Colombia but also into Venezuela. 

New territorial control meant that the group could no longer rely on outside funding for support, at which point it began engaging in drug trafficking, extortion and kidnapping to its operations. Major attacks targeted government infrastructure, particularly in the energy sector, as ELN became increasingly frustrated with the Colombian government’s decision to its natural resources to foreign companies. Despite significant efforts by the Colombian government to a deal, the 2016 Peace Agreement excluded the ELN. 

Instead, the ELN used this as an opportunity to its operations into former FARC territories. Coinciding with this rise is the ELN’s presence in Venezuela, where the group allegedly controls upwards of . Both the and administrations have allegedly offered the ELN various forms of backing — ranging from economic aid to political and military support. In return, the ELN has provided combatants for government-backed militant activities and loyalty to both Venezuelan regimes, signaling the emergence of a new kind of mercenary force.

Is the ELN a Mercenary Force? 

To assess whether the ELN qualifies as a mercenary force under international law, it is necessary to examine the group against the six cumulative criteria outlined in Article 47(2) of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions. of the Additional Protocol defines a mercenary as:

Any person who: (1) is specially recruited locally or abroad in order to fight in an armed conflict; (2) does in fact take a direct part in the hostilities; (c) is motivated to take part in hostilities essentially for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a Party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar ranks and functions in the armed forces of that Party; (d) is neither a national of a Party to the conflict nor a resident of territory controlled by a Party to the conflict; (e) is not a member of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict; and (f) has not been sent by a State which is not a Party to the conflict on official duty as a member of its armed forces.

Despite the ELN’s initial ideology-driven recruitment efforts, recent intelligence reports indicate the Venezuelan government contracted the group to violent missions on its behalf — including operations against Colombian state forces and rival armed groups such as FARC dissidents. This would arguably satisfy the first and second requirements of the definition of a mercenary, as this would involve recruitment for an armed conflict taking place in Colombia and would involve the ELN’s direct participation in hostilities.

Furthermore, the ELN would noticeably satisfy the third requirement, given that the motivation for involvement in hostilities has in recent years shifted from donations to support the mission to donations for criminal activities. The ELN’s of lucrative drug trafficking routes and high-producing coca cultivation zones near the border with Venezuela means it can offer significantly higher salaries to its members than they would receive in the armed forces.

Moreover, to satisfy the fourth requirement, members must neither be nationals of a party to the conflict nor residents of territory controlled by such a party. This a challenge, as many ELN members are Colombian nationals and reside in Colombia, a party to the conflict. However, evidence that some foreign fighters and actors with external affiliations are involved, further complicating the classification. 

The fifth requirement includes demonstrating that members are not a part of the armed forces of a party to the conflict. In this respect, the ELN clearly meets the criteria. Lastly, the ELN must not have been sent by a non-party State on official duty as members of its armed forces. This criterion also appears to be satisfied, as any involvement by other States — such as Venezuela — seems to the ELN acting more as a proxy or non-state contractor, rather than as a formal member of that State’s armed forces.

The Future of the ELN 

While the ELN may not meet all six legal criteria to be classified as a mercenary force under international law, there is a compelling argument that elements of the group now as de facto mercenaries, serving the strategic and economic interests of external actors such as the Venezuelan state and transnational criminal networks. 

It is reported that Mexican cartels like Sinaloa and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) have developed partnerships with the ELN to the flow of illicit substances throughout Latin America and beyond. Similarly, the Russian mafia has been developing ties with Venezuela and the ELN, rifles and ammunition. 

These external actors contribute to the permissive environment in which the ELN operates, enabling the group to the strategic and economic interests of foreign stakeholders rather than its original ideological objectives. This of state and non-state interests carries significant implications for regional stability and the future of the ELN.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post How the National Liberation Army Resembles a Mercenary Force appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

This transformation has not emerged in isolation. This is not just the result of governance failures, but of historical grievances rooted in colonial legacies, the spread of jihadist ideology through regional conflicts, the repeated failure of external actors to adapt their strategies to local dynamics and of narrow geopolitical interests. The US, turning a blind eye to the security vacuum in Sahel, is making the same mistake it made in Afghanistan.

The colonial echoes

The Sahel region was colonized by France in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, significantly shaping its development. The French solely on resource extraction and exploitation, neglecting its governance. When they drew the borders of the Sahel, they drew them arbitrarily, dividing ethnic groups across different countries and weakening national cohesion.Ěý

After independence in 1960, frustration grew among nomadic and tribal groups as the already limited governance began to fail, marking the start of extremism and rebellion. This rebellion and violent tendencies escalated when the Sahel was hit by famine and (especially the 1968-73 drought), and escalated further in the 1980s, with issues such as banditry, kidnapping, extortion and the killing of French citizens.

The beginning of jihad in the SahelĚý

The Sahel region practiced moderate Sufi Islam, but the North African region soon saw the first signs of jihadi conflict — specifically the outbreak of the Algerian civil war in 1991, when the government out of fear that Islamist forces might gain power.Ěý

Islamist forces quickly capitalized on growing public disillusionment with the state, leading to the creation of radicalized armed groups. The military’s intervention and subsequent coup escalated the conflict into a civil war, creating a political vacuum that enabled Islamist groups to establish a foothold. 

Concurrently, in 1992, Osama Bin Laden relocated to Sudan, where he set up Al-Qaeda’s training camps and business operations. This move signaled Al-Qaeda’s growing interest in the region and its strategic potential. The of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania underscored how North and East Africa had become increasingly integrated into Al-Qaeda’s transnational agenda.

By 2007, the Algerian Armed Islamic Group had pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda and rebranded itself as Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (). From there, AQIM expanded southward into Mali and Niger, using smuggling and banditry to finance its terror activities. This southward shift gained further momentum after the 9/11 attacks, as the US-led war on terror displaced jihadist networks from the Middle East and South Asia, pushing them to seek new bases of operation in regions like the Sahel — where porous borders and unstable governments offered strategic opportunity.

As the mid-2000s approached, a distinct jihadist landscape had begun to take shape in the Sahel, one that would be further reinforced after the of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya in 2011.

Expansion of the jihadi landscape

The fall of Gaddafi created a political and security vacuum that Al-Qaeda was quick to exploit, especially in Mali. With the collapse of Gaddafi’s regime, significant of weapons spilled into the region.Ěý

Among those freed were Tuareg who had served as mercenaries under Gaddafi. These fighters later aligned with AQIM, strengthening Al-Qaeda. Their alliance was further shaped by the Tuaregs’ separatist desire for autonomy in Mali’s Azawad region, sparking a rebellion in 2012 that quickly took on a militant Islamist character.Ěý

By April that year, Islamist forces had seized control of key northern cities in Mali, marking a fresh surge in jihadist activity across the region.

Consolidation ofĚý the jihadist waveĚý

By 2013, Western governments began acknowledging the growing terrorist threat in the Sahel. France launched to oust jihadist groups from northern Mali. The mission succeeded in dislodging militants from major urban areas — but it pushed them deeper into the countryside and across national borders, allowing them to regroup and destabilize the region more.Ěý

France followed this with between 2014 and 2022, aimed at regional stabilization. But progress stalled. French troops encountered resistance not just from insurgents, but from local populations with deep-seated resentment linked to France’s . As these military interventions struggled to deliver long-term security, political instability, poverty and governance failures deepened, creating conditions that Islamist groups readily exploited to recruit and radicalize.

A dangerous convergence: jihadist unity and coups

ISIS made its into the Sahel in 2015, prompting a breakaway faction from AQIM to pledge allegiance and form the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS). Two years later, Al-Qaeda responded by consolidating its presence. AQIM merged with Ansar al-Dine and al-Mourabitoun to form Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM), a powerful group that is now the behind jihadist operations in the region.

The political environment further deteriorated from 2020 onwards, as swept through the Sahel, weakening already fragile governments. These conditions enabled ISGS and Al-Qaeda to entrench themselves further.Ěý

As criminal activities increased, these terror groups adopted banditry with jihadist motives, creating what is called “”, encouraging criminal groups to adopt jihadist ideologies and migrate into terrorism. This has significantly bolstered Al-Qaeda and ISIS’s presence in the Sahel in recent years.Ěý

The consequences have been staggering: in 2023, Sahel accounted for of all terrorism-related deaths worldwide, a number that grew to in 2024. Burkina Faso alone recorded fatalities in 2022, making it the world’s most terror-affected country.

Narrow geopolitics and limited attentionĚý

Africa has steadily become central to global geopolitics and geoeconomics, particularly due to its of rare earth minerals and gold. Yet, in the Sahel, these resources remain largely untapped, overshadowed by an entrenched security crisis and volatile political environment.Ěý

After France’s military withdrawal, the region saw the arrival of Russia’s , a private mercenary or paramilitary force. The Sahel’s military juntas welcomed Wagner for the short-term promise of security support and the political leverage it offered through alignment with Moscow. However, Wagner’s presence has not translated into lasting stability. Its activities have remained largely focused on securing Russian interests and gold mining operations, rather than providing a serious or coordinated response to the region’s security challenges.Ěý

Despite the presence of Russian forces and the persistence of jihadist activity, the United States has kept the Sahel at a strategic priority.

Washington has avoided deeper engagement, the absence of a direct or immediate national security threat. But a primary reason is that the US likely considers involvement in African conflicts risky, given its haunting past with the Somali crisis, where it faced one of its biggest failures: . But the operation failed due to overconfident and patterned operational planning with a lack of contingency and strong communication on the ground, none of which are unavoidable in future operations.ĚýĚý

During the 90s, Sahel did not emerge as a direct threat, and the US focus remained on security issues in East Africa and Al-Qaeda. 

However, the Sahel region has gradually become a direct threat to the US after the 2011 Libyan , and the threat increased greatly by 2017, when ISIS cadres in Africa gained strength. The 2017 Tongo Tongo in Niger, where ISGS fighters killed four US Special Forces soldiers, underscored the growing threat to US personnel in the region.Ěý

The apprehension was echoed by General , head of US Africa Command, who warned in 2024 that Sahel-based terrorist groups could develop the capacity to strike the US homeland if left unchecked.

While the US did maintain a surveillance and reconnaissance in Niger for some time, this was withdrawn in 2024, alongside France’s broader . The departure of Western forces, combined with Russia’s limited effectiveness, has left a fragile security landscape in which terror groups are once again finding space to operate.

A recurring blind spot in US counterterrorism

The United States’ counterterrorism strategy has repeatedly failed to anticipate the evolution of jihadist networks, particularly when they have emerged from outside conventional theaters of war.

The 1998 embassy bombings were orchestrated from Afghanistan, exploiting a blind spot in US regional threat assessments; the US grossly underestimated Al-Qaeda’s transnational reach. Similarly, during the Algerian civil war in the 1990s, the alignment between Algerian Islamist factions and Al-Qaeda to form a secret jihadist revolution in Africa went largely unacknowledged by US intelligence, despite clear that they were building contacts with the global terror network. In Somalia, the US once again the regional Islamist force, Al-Itihaad al-Islamiya, while focusing on humanitarian operations. This misjudgment contributed to the emergence of Al-Shabaab, now a dominant Al-Qaeda affiliate in East Africa.Ěý

The list doesn’t end here; the US also failed to act when ideological convergence between jihadist groups and narcotics cartels grew in Colombia (a country with which it shares strong security cooperation on narcotics issues), which led to cartel bombings in 1998. A now sustains Al-Qaeda’s operations in the Sahel, with JNIM heavily depending on a drug smuggling network.Ěý

Yet, Washington’s strategic assessments have continued to downplay this growing narco-terror convergence.

The threat of resurgence is now common; the real danger is that terror groups are acquiring the capabilities necessary for transnational terror attacks. Without a shift in strategic posture — one that moves beyond narrow geopolitical interests and accounts for the full complexity of threats — another major wave of global jihadists may be inevitable.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post The US Needs to Face the Rising Threat of Jihad in the Sahel Region appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

There have been other occasions where re-democratization came within reach. In 2002, the massive demonstrations and failed brought it closer, as well as the oil and recall referendum that followed. Then in 2013, Henrique Capriles Radonski lost the presidential election by a slim margin — allegedly, a number of caused this loss. Finally, in 2015, the government lost the National Assembly and the opposition coalition obtained a two-thirds majority, making it even more possible. All those cases brought opportunities for a transition.

But re-democratization was deterred by four main factors. The first was timing. In 2002-2003, the had momentum on its side, with a domestic followership majority and the beginning of the — Latin America’s turn to left-wing governments. In 2015, while internal support had dwindled, the government still had strong organization, authority and control of other levers of power (judiciary, executive). Moreover, the opposition squandered the political capital gained.

The second factor was oil. During the three prior moments, high oil rents were crucial to delivering social goods: primary health care, expansion of government jobs and a long list of subsidies. The third was internal cohesion. In the prior situations, internal cohesion and strength were solid despite the purges of high-level bureaucrats such as Jorge Giordani and Rafael Ramírez. The fourth was the opposition misreading the need to negotiate and come to a minimum understanding with the reality of forces — followers of Chávez and his ideology — on the ground. In all cases, there was little disposition on the part of the opposition to recognize the inevitable weight of Chavismo in the country’s political life despite the brutal power asymmetry between the two sides.

This time, however, the circumstances for re-democratization are stronger. There has been economic collapse. Chávez, the founder of his self-proclaimed “Socialism of the 21st Century,” died in 2013. His successor, Maduro, inherited a very sick economy. Despite having experienced the largest windfall of oil revenues in its history, the economy collapsed due to the destruction of the state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela, SA (PDVSA) oil company. Corruption ran amok, costing an estimated $68-350 trillion. Mismanagement of the economy and most state activities — like electricity and water provision, and widespread nationalizations — also contributed.

This all led to hyperinflation and a drastic drop in people’s access to food and medicine. This brought on a complex humanitarian crisis; most Venezuelans lost their normal livelihoods and started voting with their feet, abandoning the country in droves. Since around 2015, approximately 7 million additional Venezuelans have fled the country. Many have walked to neighboring countries like Colombia and Ecuador in freezing temperatures. Others have traveled the jungle and swampy region of the Darien between Colombia and Panama, before continuing their difficult trek to the United States Southern border.

Additionally, the nature of the regime has from a hybrid regime to an open dictatorship. This fundmental change brought many terrible consequences: the persecution and banning of political opponents, the politicization of justice, repression of peaceful demonstrations, torture of political prisoners and even assassinations. These have all been strongly documented by United Nations agencies, and lately the intervention of the International Criminal Court. The latter ratified its decision to the Venezuelan government for crimes against humanity.

Understandably, Chavismo as a political movement began shrinking, and its popular support is currently at its lowest. The latest purges, especially that of Tarek El Aissami (former Vice-President and CEO of PDVSA) rather than bringing greater coherence, have internally weakened the regime. It is also isolated in the international arena, with some of its primary allies in the region becoming critical of it or becoming weary of the regime’s political posturing.

Historical accidents can be costly

Venezuela’s dictatorship did not arise without a fight. In fact, ever since the new elite came to power, the opposition has tried almost every strategy to overturn it. They’ve used democratic means like normal elections and recall referenda, as well as mass mobilization, including military coup attempts.

The last attempt to unseat the Chavista government ended in resounding defeat. It involved a cumbersome combination of the appointment of an interim president supported by a wide international coalition, who would then isolate, pressure and sanction the government. However, the interim government and the coalition dispersed, leaving all democratic forces in disarray. All along the government and opposition have held conversations, but have failed to reach a working political agreement. Evidently, the government had little to gain from them.

A new situation began taking shape in October 2023, during a negotiation on the Caribbean Island of Barbados. Maduro’s government had been holding separate conversations with the Venezuelan opposition and the US, seeking gains in two areas. On the one side, it aimed to reduce or even eliminate drastic personal and financial sanctions, with the latter mainly affecting the oil business. On the other, it sought to regain political legitimacy and international recognition, which fell off a cliff in the last decade. Maduro and his allies believed the time was ripe for presidential elections to take place. The opposition, divided into moderates and radicals, could participate under better conditions, but the government would still have the upper hand. No one could have anticipated that the odds would turn out so differently.

The main point agreed upon in Barbados was allowing the opposition to select their candidate with no disturbances. This led the US to a swathe of sanctions regarding oil production and distribution. Beginning in 2023, the main segment of the opposition, organized under the Platform of the Democratic Union (PUD), decided to run open primaries to select a presidential candidate; anyone identified with rejecting Maduro could participate.

The National Commission for the Primaries ultimately decided to hold them on October 22, 2023, independently of the National Electoral Council (CNE). When these were first announced, Venezuelan morale for political participation was so low that the government felt confident the primaries would fail spectacularly for the opposition.

Everyone was in for a surprise. At her first opportunity, María Corina Machado, once the most radical and right-wing oriented of opposition leaders, to the top of the preferences. This began a cycle of mass mobilizations that has electrified the country ever since. Some opposition leaders, like Manuel Rosales, the moderate governor of the state of Zulia who previously against Chávez in the 2006 presidential election, opted not to run. Others, like two-time presidential candidate Capriles, initially participated but later abandoned the race. When the primaries date arrived, Machado earned roughly of the vote. She became the presidential nominee and the undisputed leader of the reinvigorated opposition overnight.

Despite claims that she would call for abstention when facing disqualification — which occurred soon after — Machado has shown resilience and clarity in garnering support to the cause of re-democratization. While becoming a beacon of real change, she slowly let go of the more radical postures without abandoning her central theme (“Until the End!”), showing high tact and maneuver capacity.

Problems seldom occur in isolation

Since Machado began leading the polls, things have gone awry for Miraflores — Venezuela’s presidential palace. Against all odds and many governmental maneuvers, the 2.4 million who voted in the primaries startled the governing coalition. To counter the impact, the government found the perfect excuse. Given a long-lasting dispute with neighboring Guyana over an important part of its territory, the government began a campaign rejecting any intervention by the International Court of Justice (ICJ). On December 3, 2023, it also organized a to gain internal legitimacy, while mobilizing troops and building infrastructure on the Venezuelan side of the border. 

The classic ruse of creating an international conflict to garner support at home was unsuccessful. Not only did the referendum end up failing, fewer than 1.5 million voters (results were never officially published), but the government became more internationally isolated than ever. Recently elected Brazilian President Lula da Silva, who was an unquestionable ally of Maduro, reacted against the Venezuelan claim. He even mobilized Brazilian troops to the northern border with the two neighboring countries. The US profited from the occasion to offer Guyana its support, conducting joint operations with its military shortly after.

Worse, even Cuba, Venezuela’s staunchest regional ally, urged caution. Information from confidential Cuban sources indicates that Venezuela’s international move was internally rejected and that those at the helm recommended Maduro keep it only as a rhetorical, contentious issue. , the Brazilian foreign service, pressed both Venezuela and Guyana to face-to-face in Brasília on January 25, 2024.

Internally, things have not gone according to plan, either. Once the government Machado from running, it moved all its pawns to ensure that the final configuration, especially regarding who could run, would grant Maduro a guaranteed victory. According to most opinion polls, Machado would beat Maduro to 20%, and even a candidate chosen by her could beat him. So, when Machado chose as a surrogate Corina Yoris, a scholar who had participated as a member of the electoral commission for the primaries, the CNE the online mechanism to prevent her from registering.

Only candidates from the mainstream opposition were allowed to register. Governor Rosales stood as the only leader with a lower preference from the electorate than Maduro. Enrique Márquez, a former directive of the CNE, with a preference under 1%, was also allowed to run. Finally, Edmundo González Urrutia, a seasoned diplomat who had even served a few years under Chávez, ended up filling up the last slot. In the cumbersome Venezuelan electoral system, the latter played the role of caretaker of one of the three political parties duly registered, in case a different person was selected to run in his stead.

In the end, there was no consensus around Rosales — he was perceived to be a weak candidate by most organizations, not to mention the electorate at large. Instead of choosing an alternate candidate, the PUD unanimously upon González Urrutia, a perfect stranger in Venezuela’s politics. To everyone’s shock, only a few days after being selected, González to the top of the electorate’s preferences.

Shuffling around potential scenarios

Transitions from authoritarian to democratic regimes are tricky business. They tend to follow very original scripts. In Venezuela, the chances for a democratic opening are only beginning to bear fruit. They seem to begin with whatever happens on the election’s voting day: July 28.

Up to this point, Machado remains the main political force in the opposition. She and the PUD have continued campaigning with her at the helm, despite her not being a candidate. She instead calls constituents to vote for González Urrutia.

This odd circumstance responds to an odd election. Her displacements around the country have mobilized tens of thousands of diehard followers, whose cheers of support seem more akin to those of rockstar fans. But there is also organization behind the cheering. As Machado tours Venezuela, she stimulates the creation of local committees to support the coming activities on July 28, especially granting that the votes are duly processed despite government pressure.

With less than two months remaining before the final vote, the government is politically challenged. Electoral projections show no clear legal path for it to secure a win. It is also highly unlikely that Maduro will substantially increase his popularity among voters, which has created unease within the regime. However, there have been no conversations between the government and opposition to look ahead of election day. This is despite the fact that the Maduro-allied Colombian and Brazilian governments have formally running a special referendum, which would provide full security for the losing party.

So, what could the Venezuelan government do to avoid handing its foes an electoral victory? There are several options:

It could disqualify González Urrutia’s candidacy or the participation of the party behind it. Until now, the regime has used the Electoral Court of the Supreme Justice Tribunal to arbitrarily intervene in political parties and subject them to the Executive’s domination, or to disqualify candidates. Despite prior disqualifications, there seems to have been strong international pressure in the case of the opposition’s candidate.

It could take drastic measures against opposition leaders to stifle their operations in the campaign’s final weeks. Machado could be accused of violating electoral laws by campaigning outside the legal time. Judging by what the government has done to her entourage — several collaborators and forcing others to seek asylum — those actions might have been a dry run of a more drastic action against her.

It could manipulate as many as 2,000 polling centers stationed in isolated places or locations from which government organizations operate. This could amount to massive to reduce the opposition candidate’s advantage. Alternatively, the government could manipulate the high number of people registered to vote but living abroad, producing fraud that way.

Finally, it could postpone the election due to a border incident with Guyana, likely related to oil exploitation in the disputed zone or any other reason. This would not eliminate the risk of losing the election, but it could buy the government time to find a new solution. It could as well use a combination of all of the above.

What if the opposition wins?

If the opposition wins this election, there will be a drastic change in current trends, opening the door for a potential transition out of dictatorial rule. For now, despite the apparent nervousness among the governing elite, there are no signs that it is willing to relinquish power.

Such stubbornness does not merely reflect the classic power addiction, or hubris, exacerbated in authoritarian regimes. It also involves the high exit costs for Maduro and his close allies were they to leave power. They would not only have to abandon access to myriad business deals and the privilege to impose their will on an entire country; they may face sanctions from the US and European countries. Even worse, some could risk prosecution from the International Criminal Court.

Losing the election would abruptly interrupt decades of them enjoying quasi-absolute power. At the same time, continuing in power is not devoid of costs. These include the responsibility to oversee an economically ravaged country; being isolated from those parts of the world where oil counts and being pressured to deliver to internal — legal and illegal — constituents, even if coffers are empty.

Regardless, there is a six-month gap between July 28 and Inauguration Day, which is for January 10, 2025. Even if González Urrutia is allowed to run and wins the election, there is a long period during which negotiations will take place as a matter of survival for both parties.

What could the rest of the year look like for Venezuela? Scenarios may vary depending on several factors. The vote totals obtained by González Urrutia and Maduro are crucial. If the difference between them is great, their respective leverage will vary. Naturally, this depends on the specific response by factions of the governing alliance, such as the military. On two prior occasions — when Chávez the referendum in 2007 and after the opposition legislative landslide in 2015 — the military forced the acceptance of both results. Assuming that the difference between the two political camps is important but not too large, hard negotiations will probably begin over how to grant governance in a divided country.

It is still too early to assess how things might evolve. But regarding a potential negotiation, some positives and negatives are apparent. There are at least three noteworthy positives. First, there is a negotiating mechanism: the Barbados Agreement team. Though not without its faults, it has allowed for continued conversations. A clue in the agreement is its from the opposition, Gerardo Blyde, a constitutional lawyer who is highly respected in the government.

Second, there is the sheer complexity of the domination exercised by the Chavista elite. It controls more than just the Executive; its tentacles reach the judiciary, the high command of the armed forces, the National Assembly and most governors and mayors. There have been hints at the local level that Venezuela’s changing political mood is affecting the allegiance of public officials, judges, military officers etc. Allegedly, it is difficult for the regime’s higher echelons to retain strict control of how most people will act.

Third, the role played by each segment of power differs. The president and his entourage of high-command officers might be actively in favor of retaining power. Meanwhile, other organs like judges or justices in the Supreme Justice Tribunal, as well as myriad state institutions, are more akin to blackmail victims. For example, in May 2024, CNE President Elvis Amoroso rejected the European Commission’s decision to sanctions imposed on directives of the Electoral Council. He argued that it was an attempt to buy his conscience. Information leaked soon after that the passports of the CNE directives were invalidated.

There are two negatives. First, all levels of government are mired in unprecedented degrees of . The number of officials who have something to lose is probably massive. Second, if and when they abandon power, the likelihood of backlash and violence against them is also high. These factors seriously complicate negotiations. For these reasons, it makes sense why Colombian President Gustavo Petro suggested his aforementioned security referendum.

No matter what, we must wait for the final results on July 28, if the election does indeed take place on that date. One thing is clear: If the opposition wins and a transition to democracy begins taking place in Venezuela, it could affect the balance of authoritarianism vs democracy in the world. After all, Chávez’s in 1998 represented the emergence of what later became the typical hybrid regime, copied and pasted in every continent. Can Venezuela really transition to democracy?

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Can Venezuela Suddenly Transition to Democracy? Its People Hope So. appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

Throughout the 20^th century, Bogota experienced a massive transformation in infrastructure, design and scale. It went from being a walkable 25-block city to more than 45,000 blocks today. In 1956, six municipalities were annexed as part of the formation of the “,” and urban sprawl contributed to Bogota’s explosive growth. 

The city continues to grow in size and scale. Today, Bogota has been ranked as one of thebest cities for in Latin America. New urban works projects over the next decade promise to increase its attractiveness for foreign investment and transform it into a modern city. This would make it suitable for both expanding a business and a company. 

The promise of better public infrastructure

Bogota is not exactly known for its great public transportation system. Some might argue that it doesn’t even have the best system in the country. Colombia’s second city Medellin, with its metro, tramway and cable cars, has a much better public transportation system. 

Colombia Takes First Step in Joining Latin America’s Left Turn

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Today, the capital city’s main mode of public transport is the TransMilenio, a bus-transit system that operates in most of the city. It also has Urbano, a regular bus that connects to the stops that the TransMilenio doesn’t reach, and TransmiCable, a relatively new mode of transportation, modeled after Medellin’s MetroCable, that takes passengers in and out of the southernmost parts of the city to a TransMilenio station. 

This system has many flaws. Anyone who has lived in Bogota can tell you how crowded the TransMilenio can get, how difficult it is to get to the outermost parts of the city, and how much of a hassle it is to travel to neighboring towns. These are the key issues being tackled by these new transport projects. 

The first one is the metro. It’s been talked about since the 1940s and has passed into the realm of legend. However, after many decades of political fighting over whether it should be subterranean or elevated, the metro might finally come to fruition. The first line will be elevated and will go from Bosa to Santa Fe, and the second line will connect to Suba. They’re projected to begin operating by 2028, and the new POT (Plan de Ordenamiento Territorial) made by Bogotá Mayor Claudia Lopez, envisions five lines in the next 30 years. 

Second is the RegioTram, a high-speed train system connecting neighboring towns. Until now, the only option for people who live in surrounding towns like ChĂ­a, Mosquera or Facatativá, is to get to the capital by a clunky, overcrowded bus, which means hours of commuting every day. The RegioTram hopes to eliminate that. The first tram will connect Bogota to Facatativá. 

As well as these new projects, the existing TransmiCable is also being expanded. After it was introduced in 2016 to the southern district of Ciudad BolĂ­var, TransmiCable has made the lives of workers who travel to the north of the city to work every day better. Now, three new lines will be added to it. The first will go to San Cristobal, the second will pass through the National Museum area and go to Monserrate, and the third will go to El Codito.   

A New â€�Green Corridor’ 

The Carrera Septima (Seventh Street) is one of the main north-south thoroughfares in the city. It stretches from the heart of La Candelaria, Bogota’s vibrant heart and its historic center, to the city’s northern city limits. In the last few years, it has transformed into something most Rolos (aka Bogotanos) call iconic. 

As we move into the north on this street we find not only headquarters for a lot of important companies and businesses in the region, but also historic living spaces. Today, the street works as a highway where cars, buses, bikes and TransMilenio buses share one space, which doesn’t help with the city’s chronic mobility problems. 

The “Green Corridor” or “Corredor Verde” project aims to reevaluate the Septima’s design, transforming it into a pedestrian-friendly green space, complete with new bike lanes, limiting the space for cars and promoting public transportation. 

There’s some debate, however, as to what form of public transportation should be used. Former mayor of Bogota and current president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, has insisted on a Tramway system, alluding to the one that existed in the 1940s, but use the TransMilenio instead. 

Both transportation systems have pros and cons. The tramway, for instance has already in Medellin, Colombia’s second biggest city, where it works as part of the Integrated Transport System (SIT). If it works as in Medellin, a Tramway system in the Carrera Septima could revitalize transport and reduce commuting time further, but building it isn’t a guaranteed success, and would increase the of the Corredor. 

Expansion of the El Dorado International Airport

El Dorado airport is Colombia’s largest international airport, and has been ranked among the best in Latin America. It moves more than 30 million passengers a year and that number is only expected to grow, as the city attracts more foreign tourists, business travelers and migrants.

The airport is one of the reasons why Bogota is such a great place for business. Ease and comfort in air travel is a main attraction for foreign investors and business people, but it has recently started to fall behind with increasing demands from both tourists and commuters. That’s why the El Dorado Max project was launched. It aims to revitalize and expand the airport, allowing it to serve up to 60 million passengers per year. When the project is completed, it’s expected to make El Dorado one of the most advanced airports in the region, with the technology to compete with world-class airports around the globe. 

Aviation and air transport is a very important economic facilitator. In 2014, it contributed over to Latin America’s GDP. Allowing significantly more passengers into the country will increase tourism. It will also improve connectivity within the country, boost business and enable the capital region to bloom.

Infrastructure projects will have multiplier effect

Bogota forms 29.5% of Colombia’s GDP, making it the largest business hub in the country. With the recent efforts to better connect the capital city with the surrounding towns, the GDP of Bogota has reached $105 billion, and accounts for more than the GDP of three Latin American countries: Panama, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay. 

These urban renovations prove Bogota is on its way towards more development. Not only are they bound to improve quality of life for everyone, including businesspeople who are looking to relocate or expand their business, but they will lead to a better, more stable economy. 

Ease of travel, better transportation and improved public spaces will cement Bogota as the entry point to both northern South America and Central America.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Reasons Bogota is Turning Into a Top Investment Destination appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

As soon as the battle is won, the reality of politics in today’s democracies returns to its default status, that of a game. Once elected, politicians deploy their carefully refined skills that allow them to dodge anything that might tend towards implementing long-term solutions. 

Electoral battles leave the dead and wounded on the battlefield to be mourned, cared for or revenged. But like the pieces on a chessboard, in most cases they can be replaced on their initial squares. The political games that follow the battles have the effect of simply changing the order of the teams in the standings. In the game, the only thing that counts is the score when the final whistle blows as well as the corresponding W or L. The score-keeping device of democracies is called an election.

This past Sunday saw two significant elections in two very different settings. France completed its presidential-cum-legislative election cycle that, since 2002, ritually takes place every five years. The second election took place on the American continent, the country whose surreal political metaphysics were summed up by Gabriel GarcĂ­a Márquez in 1967 in his novel One Hundred Years of Solitude (Cien años de soledad). 

Both of those elections produced shocking results, signaling the kind of reversal of trends that Olaf Scholz recently evoked when speaking about Germany’s foreign policy. He used the German word,, a turning point in history. Scholz applied it specifically to the consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: the newfound military resolve of Germany. Scholz thus evoked a top-down decision that foresees other top-down decisions to follow in the future. In contrast, Zeitenwende as reflected in the French and Colombian elections is likely to be more significant and with more long-term effects. They  both represent bottom-up examples of a historical “turning.”

The drama of France’s Cinquième République

The French legislative elections had the radical effect of breaking what until now was felt to be the fundamental logic of France’s Fifth Republic and a sacred tradition. The result of every presidential election in the Republic’s history was confirmed in the immediate aftermath by the same electors’ voting in a solid majority for the president’s party in the National Assembly. Within less than two months, the voters thus not only elect a supreme leader, but promptly empower the president to implement the announced battle plan. 

When, in May, 1981, François Mitterrand with a razor thin majority defeated the incumbent, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, a month later the electorate provided him with a clear legislative majority. He immediately and boldly began implementing his announced plan to nationalize all the major French industries, including the banks. Mitterrand’s actions conformed perfectly to the model of presidential government foreseen by the constitution of the Fifth Republic a little more than two decades earlier.

Now, four decades later, the Fifth Republic has clearly run out of steam. On Sunday, for the first time a newly re-elected president, Emmanuel Macron, found himself deprived of the majority that will allow him to preside over a program of government. Macron will now be faced with the challenge of cobbling together some kind of coalition that will be given the label of a government. Most likely both Macron and his new government will be permanently occupied with managing a chaos of conflicting interests. That situation clearly contradicts the entire logic of the Fifth Republic.

Many are predicting that the Assembly will be dissolved within a year and new elections called to permit the definition of a stable majority. At that point, two things can happen. If the spirit of the Fifth Republic is still alive, the prospect of dissolution will provide Macron with the means of breaking the apparent deadlock by soliciting the population to endow him with a majority committed to his program and his leadership. Depending on how things play out, that will appear either as a clever or desperate gamble.

If, as the turning point seems to reveal, the spirit of the Cinquième République has effectively retired or died, it will mark a return to the most dramatic moment of the Fifth Republic’s history. That was the revolt of May 1968, an event President Charles De Gaulle had the temerity to malign with the word “chienlit” (shitting in bed). The Republic nevertheless managed to clean the sheets after May �68 and survive intact. This time feels very different.

The Colombian surprise

Even more astonishingly, the Colombian election marked an inflection if not a reversal of what appeared to be the eternal fate of Colombia: to be governed by a corrupt right-wing establishment permanently closely aligned with the foreign policy goals of the United States. The newly elected left-wing president, Gustavo Petro, alas does not have access to the luxury of newly elected French presidents who historically could count on an immediate legislative election to confirm the voters’ endorsement of the candidate’s program. 

The current bicameral Congress of Colombia is dominated by right-wing, centrist, and neoliberal parties. In other words, Petro will have a major challenge on his hands trying to get anything accomplished. Add to that the fact that the state security services and the armed forces are likely to resist Petro’s authority, and it appears likely that Colombia will be living through its own, but very different kind of chienlit.

Most observers see Colombia’s turnabout as simply part of the new “pink tide” in Latin America, a phenomenon in which more and more American nations are voting in leftwing leaders. It is expected to increase the chances later this year of a victory in Brazil for Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva – better known as “Lula” – over the current right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro. More broadly, Petro’s triumph confirms the increasingly visible sentiment in Latin American countries that it is time to break free from the invisible shackles of the Monroe Doctrine (1823) that have bound them to a state of subservience to the US economy for almost exactly 200 years.

The ambiguous question of NATO

When Chancellor Olaf Scholz evoked his Zeitenwende, he gave no details about its meaning. He appeared to be saying that the Ukraine crisis was a wake-up call forcing Germany to break with its policy of cultivating a long-term friendship with Russia as well as its post-World War II stance of keeping a low military profile. 

The immediate impression this gave, eagerly welcomed in Washington, is that Germany would even more securely adhere to NATO. But in the background, there may be an even more significant turning point, which could have a deeper meaning. The current move may be more like a chess gambit designed to further a goal Germany already shares with France that consists of creating an autonomous European security framework no longer dependent on US leadership imposed through NATO. 

Reinforcing NATO would hardly justify the idea of Zeitenwende. In contrast, Europe breaking free from Anglo-American domination, especially after Brexit and the increasingly obvious revolt of many poorer nations and emerging powers, would truly mark a turning point in European and German history.

Was it all foretold by William Butler Yeats in 1921?

Speaking of Zeitenwende, this may be an appropriate moment to revisit a of anguished foreboding by Irish poet William Butler Yeats published just over a century ago. Here are the first ten lines of The Second Coming.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

Yeats’s poem has remained one of the most memorable literary pieces of the 20^th century. These lines have been quoted by political commentators at various times over the past hundred years to sum up the state of Western civilization. Yeats’ message in the immediate aftermath of the First World War was dire. At its core, in the third line, was a somber double assertion: “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.”

Oswald Spengler had already reflected a similar sentiment that had been growing for some time in Europe. In 1918, he published the first volume of his Decline of the West, a work he had begun composing much earlier. In 1922, T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land appeared after being strenuously edited and ultimately “crafted” by Ezra Pound. It offered a panorama of the cultural and indeed civilizational confusion that had overcome Europe in the first two decades of the twentieth century.

The Waste Land took over first place and never relinquished it in the race to establish “the 20^th century’s “greatest poem in the English language.” Nevertheless, thanks to a succession of political events that seemed to bear out Yeats’s description of a broken system, the Second Coming has probably earned more references in the media than Eliot’s masterpiece. As the history of the twentieth century advanced, at various critical moments, things really did seem to be falling apart.

Just as Zeitenwende itself can be interpreted in various ways, so can Yeats’s assertion that “the centre cannot hold.” Yeats believed that the core of Western civilization was beginning to unravel like the twine below the leather surface of a baseball that has been torn asunder. His prescience was justified by the events listed above. But the unraveling is still incomplete. Most people are now aware that it could come to absolute fruition with an impending climate crisis, already making its marks, or perhaps even more quickly thanks to a nuclear “accident” provoked in the context of the increasingly nerve-racking standoff in Ukraine.

Defining the center

Sunday’s elections in France and Colombia provide a hint that what people thought of as the stable “center” of their global and local political systems is losing its grip. The center has gone off kilter, leaving the impression that it can no longer hold. As a concept, the center can be defined as a normative idea of how governments, with decent enough efficiency, carry on managing forces that are so complex and powerful they defy the ordinary citizen’s understanding. The center can thus be defined essentially as the inertia at the core of any establishment that keeps things ticking over from day to day.

The idea people have of the center implies belief in notions such as fair competition, free markets, reasonable government regulation, rule of law, free and fair elections. These cultural ideas are trotted ouy to reassure populations that their leaders are doing a decent job. At the same time, the guardians of the center spend much of their energy warning voters to be wary of personalities who deviate from the center. If given a free hand, these deviant personalities might upset the precious applecart. That is why Barack Obama intervened two years ago to prevent Bernie Sanders from winning the Democratic presidential nomination. Joe Biden was chosen, clearly an avatar of “the center,”. Jeremy Corbyn suffered a fate similar to Sanders’ in the UK. In France, Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc MĂ©lenchon were both labeled extremist. But these deviants have now returned to squeeze the life out of Macron’s vaunted center.

The political center in the West’s democratic countries has long assumed the task of defending and protecting the existing balance of economic and coercive power. It’s a system that has evolved, in an increasingly oligarchic fashion, around the productive forces of a neoliberal system designed specifically for the needs of the consumer economies promoted in the West. Additionally, over time, the question of security and the growing needs of the military-industrial complex have tended to set the tone and influence all the major decisions of the center.

Leaders such as David Cameron in the UK, Angela Merkel in Germany, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden in the US, and Emmanuel Macron in France, epitomized a center that had clearly become oligarchic and increasingly plutocratic at its core, but democratic in its formal constitution. 

And then something happened. Six years ago a series of events set in motion the feeling that the center might no longer hold or no longer deserve to hold. Various political personalities came to prominence whose style and bearing challenged the idea of “centerness.” Boris Johnson, Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen, Bernie Sanders, Jean-Luc MĂ©lenchon and others, with contrasting levels of seriousness and surging popularity, dared to deviate from an ideology built around the idea of trusting the “tried and true” to keep things on a relatively even keel. Paradoxically, that turned out to be  the key to Macron’s success in 2017, when the former pillars of the hard center – that included the traditional parties of the left and right – had fallen into discredit. The young interloper, aided by a runoff with the extremist Marine Le Pen, appeared to be a safe alternative to the existing sclerotic system.

Boris Johnson and Emmanuel Macron, both ambiguously perceived by their own establishments, have adopted policies respectful of the oligarchic power base that defines the center. But in their own way, they have both undermined the credibility of the center, in part by being too close to its oligarchic interests, which people have come to suspect, and in part because they have deviated from the cultural norm associated with the center.

The long and the short of it is that, within the Western block of respectable democracies, the center is rapidly losing its grip. At the same time, the periphery around that Western core is beginning to drift away from the traditional grip of the West, a grip that began with colonial conquest half a millennia ago. 

In its reporting on the Colombian election, The New York Times a television director who lives “in a wealthy part of Bogotá.” “It’s been a long time,” he recounts, “since we had an opportunity like this for change. If things will get better, I don’t know. But if we stick with the same, we already know what we’re going to get.”

That may be the clearest sign that, even those who have benefitted from the status quo the center was designed to protect, are beginning to understand that “the center cannot hold.”

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post France and Colombia: The Center Keeps Trying (but Failing) to Hold appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

Petro has been leading the for more than two years and was the clear winner of the of the Pacto HistĂłrico, a group of several leftist parties. The group also placed first in the congressional , marking the first time a leftist party performed strongest in the traditionally very country.

Petro was a of the urban revolutionary guerrilla group M-19, which demobilized in the early 1990s, and later became a senator and of Bogotá, Colombia’s capital. His policy are moderate left, not too from the programs of European social democrats. They promise a more redistributive tax system, increased investment into public education and an end to oil extraction. 

A Time for Change

According to the World Bank, Colombia is the second-most country in Latin America after Brazil. Almost 40% of the population lives in. So, Petro’s proposals resonate with voters. Petro has been a presidential candidate before. He ran in 2010 and 2018, when he lost in the round to Ivan Duque of the right-wing Centro Democrático party.

Recent congressional elections reveal that the left is more likely to win this time. Many Colombians feel it is for a political change after decades of right-leaning governments. In 2016, the government of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Juan Manuel Santos signed a deal with the FARC, a guerrilla group. FARC had been fighting a Marxist insurgency against the Colombian army and state-aligned right-wing since the 1960s.

During this internal armed conflict, internal dominated political discussions, leaving little space for socio-economic issues. For years, leftist politicians and activists were for their supposed links to guerrilla organizations. They often faced stigmatization, death threats or.

The peace deal in 2016 and the demobilization of large parts of the FARC enabled social issues to come up in political debates. Consequently, two of nationwide protests swept the country in 2019 and 2021, demanding wide-reaching social and economic as well as better state protection of social activists, who have fallen victims to killings. 

COVID-19 has boosted the left. “The pandemic hit poor people most severely, and yet the government wanted to put the burden on us,” explains VĂ­ctor, a 21-old organizer of last year’s protests in Bogotá. The government’s failure to provide relief and, instead, putting the burden on the poor has caused outrage. Now, a president from the left suddenly does not seem as unlikely anymore even in historically right-leaning Colombia.

What Might Happen in the Elections?

While most observers expect Petro to win the first round of elections, recent show that he will likely fall short of the necessary votes to avoid a second round. Then, Petro’s likely opponent will be either Federico “Fico” GuttiĂ©rrez or Rodolfo Hernández. Fico was the of the primary elections of a coalition of several right-wing parties and, in the past, was mayor of MedellĂ­n, Colombia’s second-largest city. Hernández, an engineer and entrepreneur, who remained outside the primary elections, is a center-right candidate and has only risen in the polls in recent weeks. He is running an anti-corruption campaign despite a corruption of his own from the time when he was mayor of the northern city of Bucaramanga.

As can be expected, the campaign is getting heated. Recently, Fico rhetorically addressed Petro, : “What you are proposing is the same thing that Chávez said, and look how Venezuela ended.” Fico claims he wants to prevent “,” a term the Latin American right frequently uses to link left-wing policy proposals to authoritarian regimes in Cuba and Venezuela. Fico argues that Petro’s proposed wealth redistribution would be the starting point for authoritarianism and economic decline, pointing to Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua as examples. Given the presence of almost two million Venezuelan in the country, such statements trigger alarm bells among many Colombians.

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If there were to be a second round of voting, winning the endorsement of the third-placed candidate in the first round for both of the top two candidates would be key. If Fico comes third, he will undoubtedly support Hernández. If Fico comes second, then the scenario is less clear. Hernández and other Colombian centrists might end up supporting none of the leading two candidates. In 2018, after finishing a close third in the first round, Sergio Fajardo refused to any of the two candidates in the second round and announced to spend election day watching whales on Colombia’s Pacific Coast. Fajardo the primaries for the coalition of centrists this year. He is still in the running but his popularity has over the last few months. Regarding his 2018 decision, Fajardo now , “It took me a while to figure it out, but I admit that was a mistake.” He may support someone this year but it is unclear who Fajardo would support in this year’s second round.

A Ruthless and Dirty Election Campaign

In the highly polarized country, the last few weeks of campaigning have been intense. Mistrust between the left and the right runs high. Right-wing elites have tried everything to prevent Petro’s rise, including frequent transgressions of campaign laws.

Petro and his vice-presidential candidate , an environmental and human rights activist, have received multiple death. This made Petro call off events in his campaign for several days. He is being rightly cautious. Presidential and political have been assassinated frequently in Colombia. Every year, more human rights activists are in this country than any other in the world. 

The fierce opposition to Petro’s victory is compounded by the underhand methods of the Fico campaign. It has exceeded the number of advertisements allowed to presidential candidates in multiple. Right-wing businessmen and entrepreneurs have openly threatened to employees who vote for Petro.

Duque, the right-wing president who cannot run again because of a constitutional one-term limit, is campaigning vigorously against Petro. In doing so, Duque is breaking a constitutional provision that prohibits officeholders from participating in campaigns. As a result, he faces a for speaking out against Petro but it is unlikely Duque will face any consequences for his actions. In contrast, the national attorney suspended MedellĂ­n’s mayor Daniel from office for much milder support of Petro’s campaign.

The left might be unfairly targeted but it has not been innocent either. Hidden were detected in Fico’s campaign headquarters, confirming statements by the Petro campaign that they had their rival’s campaign team. Petro’s team claimed they had done so to detect, a common practice in Colombia.. Petro’s campaign has Colombians “to take the money and buy groceries with it but nevertheless vote for Petro.”

A Shift to the Center

This election campaign also reveals the waning influence of , a right-wing populist political movement named after Alvaro Uribe. He was president of Colombia from 2002 to 2010. During Uribe’s presidency, the regained ground against several leftist guerrilla groups forging with right-wing paramilitary groups that resulted in human rights violations. 

For decades, Uribe has been the most influential politician in Colombia. He a strong campaign against the 2016 peace agreement and was a key of Duque. Thanks to Uribe’s influence, Duque campaigned in 2018, “to rip the peace deal to shreds” if he was elected. This year, Uribe did not run again for the senate. He is embroiled in judicial for bribing witnesses and procedural fraud. Centro Democrático, the political party associated with his movement, fourth in the recent elections, while in the previous Congress, it was the most powerful party. Its presidential candidate Ă“scar Iván Zuluaga had to call a to his campaign and now supports Fico instead.

Critics rightist candidate Fico as “Uribe’s guy,” but they are not exactly right. Undoubtedly, Fico is the most status quoist presidential candidate in this year’s election. However, his political program reveals a relatively moderate stance on many issues, highlighting that Colombian politics has already become more centrist than before. Also, in his previous for elections to the MedellĂ­n’s city council and to be mayor, Fico ran against Centro Democrático candidates supported by Uribe. 

Unlike Uribismo politicians, Fico the 2016 peace agreement and is open to negotiations for a peace deal with the ELN, a Marxist-Leninist guerrilla group. Fico has Rodrigo Lara Sánchez, a centrist close to the green party, as his running mate. Even though his supporters urged him to, Fico has also to openly support a referendum against a recent ruling by Colombia’s highest court that legalizes abortion. The sign that Fico did not do so further underlines the shift to the center in Colombian politics. 

Turbulent times ahead

This year, the Colombian elections are historic. If Petro wins, the recent of left-wing victories across Latin America will be bolstered in one of the most conservative countries in the region. Since 2018, leftist presidential candidates have elections in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, and Peru.

Petro’s proposals are bold. He has promised an end to oil , which would imply an unprecedented transformation of the Colombian economy. Petro has also promised to implement the 2016 peace deal. Yet promises are easy to make but notoriously difficult to fulfill, especially within a four-year term. Petro would have difficulties finding a legislative across both houses of congress. Even if he was elected president with a big majority, it is inevitable that Petro’s policy proposals would be diluted.If, however, Petro loses and either Fico or Hernández win, a resurgence of last year’s mass-scale protests is likely. These protests led to severe police and human rights violations, which might recur. Large parts of the population are suffering. They hope that, for the first time, elections could yield a government that addresses their needs. Yet this hope is fragile. in the political process is limited and people already have doubts about the integrity of electoral results. As VĂ­ctor, the 21-old activist, states: “We all hope Petro will win but rest assured that we are prepared if the right steals the elections.” In case of a close outcome, it is quite likely that Colombians could take to the streets. It seems a few turbulent months lie ahead.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Colombia Faces Historic Presidential Elections appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

Petro, the former mayor of Bogotá who came second in the last presidential election in 2018, is running on a platform of addressing inequality, as well as curbing Colombia’s oil trade. As the candidate for the Historic Pact party, Petro is appealing to a broader range of potential voters. Francia Márquez, his running mate, is an Afro-Colombian human rights and environmental activist who, if elected, would also make history as the country’s first black vice president.

Can Petro Move a Naturally Right-Wing Country Leftwards?

The vote will be a litmus test of whether Colombia, long a right-wing stronghold, is ready to swing towards the left. Given the country’s five decades of violence between Marxist-inspired guerrillas and paramilitary and state forces, many voters remain suspicious of the left. However, patience with right-wing rule is wearing thin. Anger spiked in 2021, when people took to the streets of major cities to protest the right-wing government’s plan to raise taxes despite a steep coronavirus-era economic downturn. These sometimes violent demonstrations were often brutally repressed by police: A said at least 44 civilians and two members of the police died.

Growing discontent with President Iván Duque Márquez, a conservative like others before him, has more than halved his approval ratings. In any case, Colombian presidents cannot run for a second term. Polls released in showed that Petro’s support at 43.6%, while the center-right candidate Federico “Fico” Gutierrez, a former mayor of MedellĂ­n, the country’s second-largest city, commanded 26.7% support.

However, Petro will need to take more than 50% of votes in the May 29 ballot to win outright. If no single candidate garners more than half of the votes, the two frontrunners will take part in another round in June.

Rural Killings Are on the Rise

Colombia is facing deep political fissures. Violence is climbing in rural areas, raising doubts about the chances for the to hold. This agreement was signed by the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) more than five years ago.

In the context of the nation’s long and bloody civil war, the of Bertelsmann Stiftung’s Transformation Index (BTI) has described the new wave of killings of activists, human rights campaigners, and former FARC fighters as “a new phase in the country’s trajectory of violent conflict.” The , which assesses the quality of political leadership steering transformation processes, showed how Colombia’s performance score ticked lower between 2020 and 2022. It has, fallen from 6.42 to 5.88 out of a possible 10 points. For the last 10 years, it forms an inverted U-curve, rising under previous president Juan Manuel Santos CalderĂłn from 5.98 to 6.93 points in the BTI 2018, only to fall to the lowest score in a decade under Duque.

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The 2016 peace process was lauded internationally, earning Santos a Nobel prize. The peace process has been gradually weakened by Duque’s government. The new president will likely make or break the success of the peace deal. The process could be protected if the new leader commits to holding up the Colombian government’s side of the deal by offering aid to affected municipalities and protection for community leaders in areas where violence is rising. Alternatively, the new president may extend Duque’s established pattern of intentionally . Of those in the running, Petro, who in his youth was a member of the and is a long-term advocate for social equality, is the only candidate pledging to work to restore the floundering peace deal.

Meanwhile, the incoming leader will have to deal with the fallout of neighboring Venezuela’s humanitarian disaster. Food scarcity and violence have made abouttwo million to seek refuge in Colombia.

Does this Volatile Oil-Based Economy Mark a New Trend?

The coronavirus pandemic sent the Colombian economy diving into its sharpest recession in more than a century. Now, theGDP is projected to again by 5.5% in 2022 and 3.1% in 2023. However, the search for “a decent and better life” remains a priority for many voters, explained Mariano Aguirre, an associate fellow of Chatham House and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Bogotá. Around 19.6 million people out of a population of 50 million were in poverty by the end of 2021. Of these, millions were living in extreme poverty.

“Many but not all of these votes will go for Gustavo Petro,” Aguirre said in an interview. “But many will vote against him for fear of a too leftist government. These votes will be both from sectors of the middle class and the powerful elite that sees its privileges threatened. On the other hand, there will be voters from regions outside of Bogotá seeking to move away from the traditional �vote buying machine’ and deeply rooted local corruption. They are seeking new democratic ways of doing politics — many will turn to Petro in the hope he will change the status quo.”

The rival candidates for the 2022 election take starkly different stances on how they would steer Latin America’s fourth biggest economy. Colombia’s economy is tied to commodities. In particular, oil makes up around half of the total exports. This situation leaves Colombia exposed to price shocks which, combined with the deep cleft between the rich and the poor, means that the potential for social unrest remains . Petro has a track record of challenging Duque’s emphasis on energy exploration along Colombia’s coasts. Instead, he seeks to turn the country into an energy transition frontrunner by halting oil exploration and replacing fossil fuel income with income from renewables and other sectors.

Analysts meanwhile view the Colombian ballot in a broader context. Some see it as a test of a fledgling second Latin American “pink tide”, referring to the term for a wave of left-wing electoral victories in the continent in the 2000s. Recent left-wing victories have included GabrielBoric’s in Chile and Xiomara Castro’s rise to power in Honduras. Looking ahead, eyes will be fixed not just on Colombia’s historic vote but on the general elections in Brazil in November to see how the next chapter unfolds.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Will Colombia Vote for its First Ever Left-Wing President? appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

The elections have provided a crucial first indication of which direction Colombia is heading ahead of the presidential elections in May and June. According to preliminary results, Colombia remains with a highly fragmented Congress; none of the parties has more than 16%. Yet the results are historic. The big winner of the elections is the Pacto Historico, a group of several left-of-center parties campaigning on a platform of social equality. The group out of 108 seats in the Senate and 28 out of 172 in the House of Representatives, up from nine and seven in 2018.

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Other parties performing well were Colombia‘s traditional liberal and conservative parties, which had lost influence in recent years after dominating the country until 1991 when a new opened the political space for other political contenders.

In Colombia, which many observers consider one of Latin America‘s most conservative , left-leaning politics never to gain much ground. Therefore, the results indicate a potentially historic shift since a party with a distinct leftist platform and identity performed strongest for the first time. 

The Electoral Prospects of Gustavo Petro

The results emphasize the chances of Gustavo Petro, the leader of the Pacto Historico, to become Colombia‘s next president since he won the group’s primary with 80.5%. Over the last two years, Petro has been the consistent front in all presidential election polls. He was a  of the urban revolutionary guerilla group M-19, which demobilized in the early 1990s, and later became a senator and  of Bogota, Colombia‘s capital, from 2012 to 2015. In 2018, Petro was a presidential candidate but lost in the round to Ivan Duque from the right-wing Democratic Center party.

However, the recent results and Pacto Historico’s strong performance show that a win of the left is more likely this time. Many Colombians feel it is for political change after decades of right-leaning governments. Two of nationwide protests swept the country in 2019 and 2021, demanding, amongst others, wide-reaching social and economic and intensified state protection against the killings of social activists. In the climate of national outrage, a president from the left suddenly seems not so out of place anymore. 

While no one doubts that Petro will gain sufficient votes to reach the second round of presidential elections, the recent results show that he will need to convince Colombians from the center to vote for him too. Petro has already indicated after the election his move toward the center, to “invite all the democratic forces that are not yet in the Pacto … we must give way to a large, broad and democratic front.”

The primary elections have also revealed Petro’s contenders. Although some presidential candidates to remain outside of the primaries, Petro’s key rivals will be the of the rightist and, to a lesser extent, of the centrist primary elections. Both centrist Sergio Fajardo and right-leaning Federico “Fico” Gutierrez have been mayors of Medellin, Colombia‘s second-largest city in the past. While Fajardo draws support from the wealthy and well-educated urban middle and upper classes, Gutierrez relies on the votes from Colombia‘s large conservative sectors and its stronghold, the department of Antioquia.

The End of Uribism?

The elections also showed that the influence of , a right-wing populist political movement named after Alvaro Uribe, Colombia‘s president from 2002 to 2010, is vanishing. Uribe’s presidency was most known for the regaining ground against several leftist guerrilla groups and between state and right-wing paramilitary forces resulting in human rights violations. Uribe was for the last decade seen as the most influential politician in Colombia, a campaign against the 2016 peace agreement between the government and the FARC guerrilla group, and a key of President Duque.

Uribe himself, who in 2018 most votes of any elected senator, did not run again amidst a judicial against him for bribing witnesses and procedural fraud. The political party associated with the movement, the Democratic Center, which in the previous Congress was the strongest, fourth in the recent elections. The party suffered from the notorious unpopularity of the Duque administration, which has disapproval of over 75%. “I am the main person responsible [for the loss of seats] due to my damage to [the party’s] reputation,” Uribe last week. 

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The party’s presidential candidate, Oscar Ivan Zuluaga, who did not participate in the primary elections of the rightist coalition, has his campaign and is supporting Gutierrez instead.

A Similar Trend Across Latin America

Should Colombia vote for Petro, the result would confirm recent across Latin America. Since 2018, leftist presidential candidates have elections in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Honduras, Mexico, Panama and Peru. Likewise, current polls for Brazil’s elections in October this year a landslide win of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a former president from the Workers’ Party, over far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro.

Over the following weeks, campaigning will become more intensified. In the highly polarized country, many participants in large-scale protests during recent years feel that with Petro, a politician their needs could potentially assume power for the first time. Should their hopes amount to nothing and Colombia remain with a right-wing government, a reemergence of mass-scale protests is likely, which in the past resulted in severe police and human rights violations. With the probable outcomes being Colombia‘s first leftist government or nationwide protests, the country faces some truly historic elections ahead.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post Colombia Takes First Step in Joining Latin America’s Left Turn appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

On August 7, the presidency of Juan Manuel Santos — Colombia’s peacemaker — comes to an end after two terms in office. Santos, who turns 67 on August 10, has stated in numerous interviews that he will not remain active in Colombian politics. He says that he wants to devote most of his time to his family, limit his work to speaking engagements and maybe teaching. However, many interpret this intention to not interfere with Ivan Duque’s incoming administration as an attempt to contrast himself with his own predecessor, Alvaro Uribe, who is still active on the national scene.

A son of Bogota’s upper class, President Santos had a distinguished academic career, completing graduate studies at both the London School of Economics and Harvard University. He spent years in the private sector, first as a representative of the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation in the UK and then as deputy director of one of his country’s largest newspapers, El Tiempo.

Santos first entered politics during the 1990s, when he served as minister of foreign trade in the César Gaviria administration and later as minister of finance and public credit under Andrés Pastrana. Ironically, President Santos’ real rise to the public spotlight came when he served as minister of defense for the Uribe administration during its intense military campaign against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas. In fact, Santos never held elected public office, either in the executive or legislative branch, until his election to the presidency in 2010.

Over the last eight years, Colombia’s economy underwent major transformations. For his first term, from Uribe: GDP was growing at approximately 4%, the unemployment level reached a single digit, inflation did not surpass 3.8% and foreign investments were pouring in, particularly in the petroleum industry. During Santos’ first term, Colombia signed free trade agreements with South Korea, Costa Rica and the European Union. However, his tenure saw a great deal of mass strikes that affected key economic sectors, such as airline pilots, university students, farmers, teachers, truck drivers and federal employees within the judicial branch. Nevertheless, his great gamble began in 2012, when his government started formal negotiations with the FARC and the president broke ranks with his key political ally, former President Uribe.

The negotiations with the FARC polarized Colombia for years, leading to a contested election in 2014. In that election, Uribe’s Democratic Center Party ran on a platform against the peace talks and managed to outperform President Santos’ re-election bid during the first round, before losing to a pro-peace bloc that coalesced around Santos in the second round.

Second Term in Office

During his second term, Santos had to deal with the economic fallout caused by the collapse of global oil prices, which led to a steep devaluation of the Colombian peso, a decrease in foreign direct investment and an increase in inflation. Meanwhile, President Santos signed even more free trade agreements, with Israel and Panama, and leaves office in 2018 with fairly advanced negotiations toward agreements with Turkey and Japan. Nevertheless, in the era of Brexit and Donald Trump’s America First rhetoric, the mixed economic results brought about by Santos’ free trade frenzy are the subject of great debate and have even led Duque to state that he will not sign any new free trade deals.

Santos’ government also approved a that brings Colombia up to international standards in terms of respecting patents and protecting intellectual property, particularly in the tech sector and creative industries. Simultaneously, Santos substantially enhanced transit infrastructure, more than doubling the amount of paved roads throughout the country, thus enhancing education metrics nationwide and closing the wealth gap between Colombia’s urban rich and rural poor.

On the political front, Santos realized the dream of many Colombians through the implementation of the peace deal with the FARC signed in Cuba in 2016, which ended five decades of conflict and won him the Nobel Peace Prize — despite the setback when a popular plebiscite voted down the original terms of the agreement. Some of the key issues within the agreement then had to be renegotiated and approved by congress.

As part of his social reconciliation agenda, Santos ushered through congress major pieces of legislation such as the Victims’ Law, which seeks to restitute land rights to minorities that have been disenfranchised politically and economically throughout decades of conflict. Likewise, Santos signed the Statute of the Opposition, which gives minority and opposition parties a more active role in national politics. Under Santos, congress also created the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) — a transitional justice mechanism that is part of the peace accords and allows former combatants to be tried expediently while benefiting from reduced sentencing in exchange for full collaboration with this special court. Parallel to the JEP, the Santos government passed the Submission Law, which gives reduced sentencing to criminal groups that turn themselves in freely and collaborate with judicial investigators.

These new laws and the JEP jurisdiction are key as Colombia seeks to overcome its history of violence because they offer the remaining dissident guerillas and drug-trafficking groups a way out. While some of these legal mechanisms are permanent, such as the Statute of the Opposition, others are temporary and could be overturned prematurely, particularly given President Duque’s hawkish stances. Nevertheless, they do offer a political grace period before any future government might decide to embrace a zero tolerance policy once again.

On the international front, Santos’ agenda focused on bringing Colombia onto the global political scene and building new bridges worldwide. In this regard, the government opened numerous embassies of countries like Australia, Turkey, Hungary, the United Arab Emirates and Austria. Moreover, Santos was one of the main promoters of the Pacific Alliance, a regional integration initiative alongside Chile, Peru and Mexico. Most recently, he reached major international milestones with the country’s accession to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), as well as the incorporation of Colombia as NATO’s global ally. This improved international standing has resulted in a substantial decrease in the number of countries that require an entry visa for Colombian nationals, most notably the EU’s Schengen area.

The Great Gamble

In spite of his many achievements, Santos recognizes that his administration had shortcomings and that he could have done more. The outgoing government has been unable to make any substantial progress in talks with the National Liberation Army (ELN) — a small guerrilla group still active in some regions of the country — and the process is likely to come to a halt under the next president. Similarly, Santos’ administration was tarnished by scandals, most notably the that engulfed parts of South America and delayed important infrastructure projects in Colombia, such as regaining the navigability of the Magdalena River and completing the Sun Route highway.

Likewise, there was a substantial increase in the cultivation of , and violence directed toward social leaders in rural regions of the country. On foreign policy, President Santos was unable to deal comprehensively with the crisis in neighboring Venezuela. With having entered Colombia during the last few years, the incoming President Duque will certainly have to address this issue.

Ultimately, Juan Manuel Santos leaves the Nariño Palace as in Colombia’s modern history. However, by many accounts, he leaves the country better than he found it. Once the dust settles, history will look kindly upon the peacemaker’s great gamble for peace. It is now up to Ivan Duque to decide whether he will protect and build upon Santos’ still-fragile peace or whether he will give into the warmongering passions of his most radical political base.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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The post The Legacy of Colombia’s Peacemaker appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

Every week throws a cornucopia of events. This writer struggles with the abundance of choice. After all, Donald Trump went to Mexico, Dilma Rousseff was formally booted out of office, Gabon had a not so free election, and theĚýEuropean Commission (EC) Ěý($14.5 billion) from Apple.

The EC’s Apple decision is historic. It holds that Ireland broke rules on state aid by giving illegal tax benefits to selected companies. This decision raises questions about sovereignty, legality, fairness and more. In anĚýearlier edition of , this author examined the taxes that Apple does or does not pay. Needless to say, taxation is a tricky and thorny issue in the modern global economy.

Ireland, a tiny country of about 4.6 million people, has attracted companies to its shores through a seductive mix of light regulations and low taxes. This decision threatens its economic model. ĚýNaturally, the country “” the EC and is likely to take the matter to the European Courts.

Like EC’s decision, Gabon’s election is historic. The Bongo clan has ruled this oil-rich coastal state since 1968, whenĚýĚýall the way from Prague and Belgrade to Paris andĚý. Now, protests have broken out in Gabon after a rather fishy election. Yet the fact that people voted and are now protesting is historic.ĚýĚýbit by bit in a continent that was once the cradle of humanity.

In the eyes of this author, the most significant development this week is the ceasefire between Colombian security forces andĚýFuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de ColombiaĚý(the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), or FARC. This ends 52 years of a bloody and brutal civil war that has torn the country apart. As per a report by Centro Nacional de Memoria HistĂłrica, this protracted conflict has leftĚý.

Like many conflicts, the origins of the Colombian civil strife lie deep in the past. As Eduardo Galeano eloquently writes in theĚýOpen Veins of Latin America, “Renaissance Europeans ventured across the ocean and buried their teeth in the throats of the Indian civilizations.” From the early days, SpanishĚýconquistadoresĚýlooted gold, silver and anything valuable that they could lay their hands on.

In anĚýearlier edition of , this author referred to a contemporaneous record of earlyĚýconquistadoresĚýby BartolomĂ© de las Casas about the horrors that devout Christians inflicted on pagan natives in what is now known as Cuba. These formidable Spaniards rejected a local chief’s offer of land and gold to attack his people, ship him off as a slave to Castile and rape his wife.

This story was repeated throughout Latin America, and Colombia was no exception. Most people with property rights tend to be of European descent. Even among them, it is the descendants of theĚýconquistadoresĚýwho sit at the top of the food chain with the most wealth and land.

Latin America’s current social stratification owes its origins not only to bloody conquest, but also to the lovelyĚýĚýsystem introduced by the Spanish. As per this system, even those with 100% European blood such as the legendaryĚýĚýSimon Bolivar were inferior to those born in the Iberian Peninsula. The proud Bolivar was unable to accept such second-rate status.

In his brilliantĚý, he rejected the position of “serfs destined for labor.” Bolivar did not want Latin Americans to become “mere consumers” of Spanish products. He damned a future that involved merely “the cultivation of the fields of indigo, grain, coffee, sugar cane, cacao, and cotton; cattle raising on the broad plains; hunting wild game in the jungles; digging in the earth to mine its gold” for the insatiable greed of Spain.

Yet this has been the future of Latin America. The region still remains a producer of commodities. Spain was succeeded by the US and theĚýĚýin turn have been replaced by the Middle Kingdom. Over the last few years, the economic boom in Latin America was sustained on the backs of ravenous Chinese demand for the likes ofĚý, BrazilianĚýĚýand UruguayanĚý.

As per the World Economic Forum, Latin America continues to beĚý. In 2014, the richest 10% of people in Latin America owned 71% of the region’s wealth.ĚýThis author has long been uneasy with Ěýthat is boosting asset values such as Facebook shares and property prices, exacerbating the already egregious levels of inequality. In Latin America the increasing inequality promises to reach explosive proportions. As per Oxfam’s calculations, the current trends will lead to the richest 1% owning more wealth than the remaining 99%.

µţ´Ç±ôľ±±ą˛ą°ů’s describing the social stratification of his land ring rather true today: “In Colombia there is an aristocracy of rank, office and wealth, equivalent by its influence, its pretensions and its pressure on the people, to the most despotic aristocracy of titles and birth in Europe. Included in the ranks of this aristocracy are the clergy, professional groups, lawyers, the military and the rich. In spite of all their liberalism, they prefer to regard the lower classes as their perpetual serfs.”

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Naturally, such a history of violence, oppression and exploitation leads to a reaction. The country has experienced civil war in one form or another for well over a century. This author first learnt about Colombia’s conflicts through the magic realism of Gabriel GarcĂ­a Márquez’s 1967 masterpiece,ĚýOne Hundred Years of Solitude. This novel refers toĚýĚýbetween the conservatives and the liberals. The former favored a strong central government, limited voting rights and strong links between church and state. The latter wanted stronger regional governments, universal voting rights and a division between church and state.

The Thousand Days’ War lasted from 1899 to 1902 and resulted in about 100,000 deaths at a time when the country’s population wasĚý. The conservatives triumphed but did not enjoy the fruits of their victory for long. “Rough Rider” Teddy Roosevelt was leading Uncle Sam on its march to great power status and the Panama Canal was an essential part of his plans. So,Ěý. In 1903, Panama emerged as a new country, depriving Colombia of a strategic and valuable strip of land.

Even as Colombia lost Panama, the tension between conservatives and liberals continued to simmer. In the 1940s, the tension erupted into outright civil war that was fought mainly in the rural countryside.Ěý, as this conflict came to be known, led to the murder of 200,000 Colombians in 20 years, a greater figure than the casualties in the Korean War. It is important to bear in mind that this conflict is different to the more recent civil war between the government and FARC.

A Colombian friend of this author remarked that the latest civil war was merely old wine in a new bottle. Such has been the scale of inequity in the country that some feel compelled to rebel. Violence is a way of life with the oppressors seizing land and resources with impunity and some victims reacting with savage ferocity to become new oppressors as they taste blood. Tragically, the differences between different sections of society seem almost irreconcilable, and conflict has been a part of Colombia’s DNA for much too long.

FARC was born after Catholic conservatives crushed reformist liberals duringĚýla Violencia. Triumphant in its victory, the conservatives unleashed a form of violence greater than the 200,000 killings. This violence was borne out of the ideas of a Canadian-born American development economist named Lauchlin Currie, who owned some ranching land in Colombia.

Currie inspired the policy of Accelerated Economic Development (AED). As per this policy, large-scale industrial agriculture was deemed to be the path to development. The law of the land proclaimed an “.” These seeming innocuous and innocent words were interpreted legalistically to dispossess hundreds and thousands of families of their land. Currie’s argument was that they were not using the land efficiently. Only industrial farms could compete in the global market, export crops or meat, and economically develop Colombia. Therefore, cattle ranchers and big farmers merrily chased small farmers off their land. The government then proceeded to provide them generous subsidies on top.

As usual, the disposed got nothing. Their land, resources and wealth were simply transferred to the rich. AED was the Colombian equivalent ofĚý. It was similar to what European settlers had done in North America and Australia. They had seized land from the natives onĚý, which stipulated that if natives were not using the land productively then it was “nobody’s land” and settlers were entitled to appropriate it.

As in England, the landless moved to cities, transforming “” Apart from destroying the social fabric, this violent transformation pushed wages down. Businesses profited while workers suffered.Ěý, slums widespread, poverty extensive, disease rampant and Dickensian exploitation a way of life. Marxists likeĚýĚýand fund managers likeĚýĚýagree on the draconian nature and terrible consequences of AED.

In a book published in 1984 by the right-leaning Hoover Institution of Stanford University onĚý, Bruce Michael BagleyĚýĚýthat “subordinate ethnic (Indians, Blacks) and class (peasants, rural workers, the urban poor, and segments of working and middle classes) groups were systematically denied influence over state policy yet found themselves obliged to bear most of the costs of Colombia’s accelerated economic growth during the 1960s and 1970s.” Unsurprisingly, another rebellion broke out.

This time the rebellion was led not by liberals but by communists. Two organizations emerged:ĚýEjĂ©rcito de LiberaciĂłn NacionalĚý(ELN) and FARC. Students, Catholic radicals and left-wing intellectuals comprised the former, while militant communists and peasant self-defense groups formed the latter. Although both ELN and FARC began as idealistic and ideological guerrilla movements fighting for land reform and greater equality, they gradually degenerated into armed gangs with a taste for power, wealth and blood. FARC emerged as the more deadly of the two.

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Ěýand other rebel groups elsewhere, murder, extortion and kidnappings became a way of life for ELN and FARC. The latter started producing, taxing and trafficking cocaine to raise revenues to continue its armed struggle against the government. The US resolutely supported the Colombian government in Bogota against the communist terrorists during the Cold War. In 2000, the US unveiled Plan Colombia, an aid package “.”

Ă�lvaro Uribe, an Oxford- and Harvard-trained lawyer of a landowning family, became president in 2002. During his time in power, he unleashed the full fury of the state on FARC. Between 2002 and 2007,Ěý. Uribe took on Ecuador and Venezuela for supporting FARC. Even Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan strongman, backed down, pressured FARC to release hostages andĚý.

Uribe thankfully did not succeed in overturning the constitution and getting a third term. Another Harvard man, Juan Manuel Santos, took over in 2010. Santos was Uribe’s defense minister and the only Colombian president in recent history to have served in the military as a young naval cadet. Compared to Uribe, Santos has turned out to be a rather different kettle of fish. In 2012, he announcedĚý, which were to begin in Oslo, Norway, before moving to Havana, Cuba.

Santos has turned out to be a reformist president. In 2014, heĚýĚýthatĚýĚýearlier this year. In a smashingly brilliant article inĚýThe Guardian, Santos declared: “.” He boldly pointed out that this war “on most counts shows little progress if contrasted with the amount of time, blood and treasure invested by so many nations with a view to dismantling a business that remains as strong and active as it was half a century ago.” The peace deal with FARC is the crowning achievement for this reforming president.

Yet it is important to remember that this peace deal would not have been possible without the Cubans and the Americans making up and pitching in. Nick Miroff ofĚýThe Washington PostĚýhas said the “.” President Barack Obama has given Santos solid support and decent-sized checks. More checks are to follow. Pope Francis is also cheering the deal.

But Miroff wisely observes that “the history of peace-deal promises in Latin America is a muddy one.” There are many banana peels that lie ahead and, like all deals, this one is imperfect. Rather appositely, Colombians will vote on the deal on October 2, the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi.

The formidable Uribe is urging the voters to say no to the deal. He is unwilling to forgive FARC for its crimes andĚý. Yet it is important to note that security forces and their allied far-right militias have been bloodthirsty too. Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the chief prosecutor ofĚýthe International Criminal Court (ICC), that leftist guerrillas were responsible for 12% of the total killings, security forces 8% and the far-right militias a whopping 80%. A little forgiveness on all sides may go a long way.

Even more important to the prospects of long-term peace might be mitigating exploitation of the poor, providing public services and addressing the land question that has long bedeviled Colombian society. Colombia has the second highest concentration of land ownership in Latin America and this inequality is a chief cause of rural poverty, which in turn has led to civil war.

Bearing this mind, Colombia passed a law in 1994 to set an upper limit to the land a single person could be allotted by the state. Laws need enforcement, though, and a recentĚýĚýpoints out how Cargill, an infamous US multinational, has been violating this law. Between 2010 and 2012, Cargill used 36 different shell companies to acquire 39 properties to produce corn and soy.

This is madness. Colombia cannot afford yet more marginalization of the already marginalized. The country needs a more democratic distribution of land and a strengthening of the small-farm economy for peace to stand a chance.

*[You can receive “The World This Week” directly in your inbox by subscribing to our mailing list. Simply visitĚýĚýand enter your email address in the space provided. Meanwhile, please find below five of our finest articles for the week.]

Immigration is a Tale of Two Countries

© Dinosmichail

Germany and Mexico must remain vigilant to prevent public perceptions from negatively impacting their asylum, refugee and migration policies.

Germany is facing the most important immigration crisis in its history since World War II. The recent attacks that took place on three consecutive days in Munich, Reutlingen and Ansbach broke the fragile peace that reigned in the country after the Islamic State-linked attacks in WĂĽrzburg and Hanover earlier this year. These unfortunate events, which are all regarded as part of the latest wave of terrorist attacks to hit Europe, have renewed criticism toward the open-door asylum policy that German Chancellor Angela Merkel has vehemently pursued and defended.

The fact that the state of Bavaria was the main point of entry for many refugees and the target of the recent attacks by asylum seekers has left a bitter feeling among Germans. Just months ago, German citizens had warmly welcomed refugees arriving on board the trains from Hungary following their…

The Hajj and European Colonialism

Door of the Kaaba © Rasoulali

The hajj has been shaped by interactions with Europe for several centuries. Though we don’t think of it this way, the hajj is very much a European affair.

The hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, is a central ritual of the Muslim faith and one of the largest and oldest gatherings of people in the world. Pilgrims perform the hajj over three days during the last month of the Muslim lunar calendar (the date shifts every year, in reference to the Gregorian calendar).

Pilgrims carry out a specific sequence of rituals at a constellation of sites, recalling activities of the Prophet Muhammad, Islam’s seventh-century founder. Unlike other major world pilgrimages, the hajj is obligatory. In making the pilgrimage to Islam’s holiest city—Muhammad’s birthplace and the site of God’s revelations to him—Muslims fulfill one of the five pillars of their faith. For Saudi Arabia, the modern state that is home to Mecca, the hajj is both a…

Landscape of Inequality: How America Funds Public Schools

© Michael Quirk

Amid an election full of outlandish statements, Twitter spats and ad hominem accusations, many important problems facing America have failed to grace headlines. In the third of a five-part series exploring issues ignored during the 2016 presidential election season, Ryan J. Suto addresses the inequalities in America’s public education funding.

During the opening battles of the 2016 presidential campaign, Bernie Sanders advocated for his plan to make higher education free at public colleges and universities nationwide, a plan that likely contributed to the senator’s wild popularity among a generation shackled with student debt.

A similar position was adopted a year later by eventual Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in hopes of securing support among the same demographic. Republican nominee Donald Trump’s position on the topic largely opposes the federal government’s role in broadly subsidizing higher education.

While the discourse around higher education during this election has largely been substantive and important, it has all but ignored the 13 years…

The Philippine “Punisher” Could Be a Man of Peace

Rodrigo Duterte © WikiCommons

How has Rodrigo Duterte fared as president of the Philippines 100 days after taking office?

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is hitting headlines for all the wrong reasons. He has threatened to pull the Philippines out of the United Nations (UN); he has ridiculed diplomats; he is unapologetic for making rape jokes; and the most serious case against him is his alleged involvement in the spate of drug-related extrajudicial killings across the country.

Yet this seemingly madman on the loose is also the same statesman who has brokered a landmark peace initiative with communist rebels barely two months after assuming the presidency. In fact, Duterte has already achieved what his predecessors in the past 30 years have failed or refused to do: Draft an indefinite ceasefire agreement with the group behind Asia’s longest-running insurgency.

So, how do we make sense of Duterte’s contradictory priorities? Is he a ruthless killer of petty drug lords who is intent on hiding his…

In Greece, Syriza Jeopardizes Freedom of the Press

© MarioGuti

The Greek government has been taking steps that curb the country’s freedom of the press.

While outside media coverage of Greece this summer has focused on the migrants stranded at the gates of Europe, the far-left Syriza party continues to juggle the state’s astronomical debt and contentious negotiations over bailouts and harsh austerity measures.

The just-completed sale of new television licenses has become the latest battleground, as the government effectively forces some stations off the air through a new media licensing regime. While the government claims the policy will reduce media corruption and increase revenue, critics charge it is a blatant attempt to control the media for Syriza’s own political purposes. According to this narrative, the move is just the latest in a string of actions by Syriza to enhance its own power and weaken its opponents.

Over past several months, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his party have taken several steps to shore up their position in…

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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The post The World This Week: Peace in Colombia After 52 Years of War appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

Colombia is captivatingly emblematic of Latin American traits that everyone associates with the region even without visiting it: a football fervor that paralyzes life and business nationwide wheneverĚýLos CafeterosĚýare playing; a liquefying Amazonian humidity; and a culture of public sanguinity that hardly ever fades away.

The journey to get here is unrelenting. Long flights and numerous stopovers totaling some 27 hours finally took me to the city most commonly associated with the late Nobel Prize laureate in literature Gabriel GarcĂ­a Márquez. As Colombia’s national icon, Gabo, as he is nicknamed, set some of his major novels, includingĚýĚýandĚý, here in Cartagena—a modern port city in the north.

Welcome to Cartagena

The rainfall is alternating, yet seemingly ubiquitous. While dining for lunch, we had to scramble to move inside after a sudden shower caught me and a small group of my journalist friends off-guard outside a restaurant in the walled city.

We are in Cartagena to take part in theĚýGabriel Garcia Marquez Fellowship in Cultural Journalism—an ensemble of journalists from Colombia and other Latin American countries, as well as Asia, Africa, Europe and North America.

As we left the restaurant to saunter the old city, I noticed that someone was following us. The man was taking long strides and tried to keep a very short distance from us. I was initially frightened, but when I was told he was aĚýmimo, a homeless person, begging for money, my fear evaporated. TheĚýmimoĚýhad painted his face and wore a clown’s hat. A friend said that you just tell himĚýgracias (thank you) a few times and he would tire and leave you.

I would not come across otherĚýmimosĚýin the days to come, but my first encounter with such a local drifter was an amazing one, even though it was indicative of a social gap that my Colombian friends tell me has been reduced in recent years.

Life in the Walled City

Cartagena de Indias takes its name from the Spanish cityĚý. Following the foundation of the city in 1533, the Spanish conquistador Don Pedro de HerediaĚýĚýthe name of the Spanish naval station that had sponsored his expedition and where his troops hailed from to the new Caribbean colony.

Today, Cartagena includes an ancient town known as the walled city—designated aĚýĚýin 1984—which is its main historical and cultural attraction. But the city doesn’t just stand out for its antiquity. There exists a delicate mixture of history and modernity: luxury restaurants and local food places; souvenir shops; fashion chain stores; cathedrals; plazas; and shops selling Colombian coffee that every tourist would find irresistible to visit.

The alleys confusingly look like each other, and without a guide, Google Maps or some degree of Spanish fluency, a first-time traveler would definitely get lost: cobblestoned, tapered lanes; balconies that tower over the not-so-much-lofty buildings and are mundanely noticeable;ĚýÂᲹ°ů»ĺľ±˛Ôľ±Ă¨°ů±đ˛őĚýof blissful flowers and potted plants; and flags of different countries draped outside restaurants—underlining the existence of a diverse, multicultural composition of minorities and immigrants in the city.

The sculptures of heroes, martyrs and historical figures can be spotted all over Cartagena, especially inside the walled city. But what a visitor tends to fall in love with isĚýGertrudis—the fat, naked woman created by , a prominent Colombian figurative artist. The painter-sculptor gained worldwide attention in 2005 for hisĚý. Through his critical paintings, primarily exhibited in Europe, Botero has censured the abuse and torture of prisoners at theĚýĚýin Iraq by the US forces.

In 2000, the noted artist donated 85 pieces from his personal collection to a museum in Bogota, Colombia. There are usually vendors rambling aroundĚýGertrudis, selling her small-scale replicas. I am told that there are three BoteroĚýGertrudis, but the one in the Plaza de Santa Domingo is perhaps the most popular one.

Graffiti in łŇ±đłŮ˛ő±đłľ˛ą˛ÔĂ­

It’s quite stupendous that the walls in the old districts of the city are embellished with graffiti and murals unanimously. The graffiti mostly depict Afro-Colombians and allusively portray the historical prejudice they have been subjected to. Locals say that the painting of abandoned walls emerged as a tradition only recently, as the racist impact of colonialism slowly started to recede from Colombian society and, in turn, from its art.

© Joaquin Sarmiento / FNPI

The graffiti is more perceptible inĚý, a deprived neighborhood, which despite its destitution enthralls tourists and photographers alike thanks to its charismatic architecture and colorful, vivacious murals. International hotels have become progressively more interested in investing in the area

As more people often talk about the delicately slender, charmingly paved alleys of łŇ±đłŮ˛ő±đłľ˛ą˛ÔĂ­ and its graffiti when they return home, they spontaneously invite new sightseers to come and behold what’s happening amid all the tranquility that exists there, sporadically interrupted by the commotion of cabs,Ěýservicio pĂşblicoĚývehicles and military sedans.

Some of the graffiti has a preeminent historical implication, including the one that depictsĚý, the legendary Spanish bullfighter who headed a group of blacks and mulattos in 1811 known asĚýThe łŇ±đłŮ˛ő±đłľ˛ą˛ÔĂ­ LancersĚýand spearheaded a revolt that eventually resulted in the independence of Cartagena from the Spaniards in the same year. Cartagena de Indias was theĚýĚýin Latin America, after the Venezuelan capital Caracas, to win independence from Spanish colonialists.

The district is undergoing gentrification so it can function as a more well-liked tourist destination, but the architectural pattern is still preserved and the colonial legacy is silently there. However, there aren’t as many cathedrals or museums in łŇ±đłŮ˛ő±đłľ˛ą˛ÔĂ­ as there are everywhere in the city, underlining the piety and strong religious integrity of Latin Americans.

Mementos

Beyond my primarily parochial knowledge of Colombia as a land of coffee, FARC guerilla fighters and the tricolor flag closely resembling that of Ecuador and Venezuela, I knew something deeper about the Latin American nation and the civilization of the whole region thanks to the workshops I attended during the fellowship program and reading the stories of fellow journalists.

© Joaquin Sarmiento / FNPI

Colombia is home to a venerable civilization and has been the scene of decades of assiduous, perseveringĚýstruggle by noble people to win independence and self-determination for its people. SimĂłn BolĂ­var, theĚýLibertador—whom the people of Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru and Colombia feel indebted to due to his efforts to award them sovereignty and independence—: “If Caracas gave me life, Cartagena gave me glory.”

Cartagena is a symbol of the Colombian quest for independence, and BolĂ­var is respected for heralding that much-awaited independence.

The population of Muslims in Colombia—something that I, as a Muslim journalist, was surprised to learn—is tiny:ĚýĚýout of aĚýĚýof about 48.2 million. However, the small Muslim population has successfully integrated into the mainstream Catholic society, adding new virtues to the nation’s jubilant, colorful culture, which in some respects is not fully congruous with the teachings and moral codes of Islam. In return, it receives a convivial treatment by the non-Muslim majority, who might not have ever heard the name of Islam or seen a mosque.

Colombian people are indescribably composed, tolerant, good-humored and buoyant. They are deeply enthusiastic about books and never fail to honor the heritage of their luminous Nobel Prize-winning novelist and writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez. They regularly read his books and works of journalism and those by anyone who critiquesĚýGaboĚýsomewhere in the world, and heatedly dive into debate whenever they find the chance, even in their informal daily conversations.

Even though many people tend to make generalizations about Latin America and consider the region as a single entity, each country has its own unique culture, history and set of problems.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: David Estrada / Joaquin Sarmiento / FNPI

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On September 23, the Colombian government made a major breakthrough in its negotiations with the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) to end 50 years of conflict. After three years of talks, and FARC leader Rodrigo “Timochenko” LondoñoĚýagreedĚýon a plan for comprehensive . The negotiators set a deadline of six months to finish the final peace accord. After 60 more days, FARC will lay down its arms, setting the stage for anĚýend to the conflict by mid-2016.

This is good news for Colombians, of course. But the peace agreement is also worthy of wider attention because it represents new thinking on how to end old conflicts.

As part of the larger project analyzing models of peacemaking under consideration in Colombia, our research team at Georgia State University conducted a series ofĚýĚý2014-15 to gauge public attitudes about post-conflict truth and justice mechanisms. Our team also took stock of the recently proposed transitional justice program in Colombia and evaluated it as a possible model for other countries emerging out of protracted conflict.

The agreement is precedent-setting in several ways. It will be the first negotiated end to a civil conflict in the world under the new international standards of the 2002 Rome Statutes to hold accountable armed combatants who commit grave human rights abuses such as genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

It will also be the first peace process to have includedĚý.

Finally, it will be the first end to a civil war that does not rely primarily on amnesty for all sides, but instead provides new forms of restorative justice. This is a compromise effort to reach peace while also holding perpetrators of human rights abuses accountable.

Still, important questions remain. Will the agreement be accepted by aĚýĚýwho routinely favors jail time and opposes future political office for FARC members?

Does it go far enough to satisfy the International Criminal Court (ICC), charged with ensuring that national governments hold accountable those who commit crimes against humanity, genocide, war crimes and crimes of aggression?

In other words, is Colombia developing a new model that other countries could adopt to satisfy both the higher global demands for accountability for human rights crimes, while also helping countries in conflict achieve a lasting peace?

Appropriate punishments

The basic outlines of the deal include the right to run for political office and amnesty for crimes committed during the course of the conflict that are connected to political rebellion. Drug crimes may become eligible for amnesty. But sanctions would be imposed for grave human rights crimes defined in international humanitarian law like sexual crimes, kidnapping, torture, forced displacement and extrajudicial killing. These crimes will be processed under the new “Special Jurisdiction for Peace” tribunal that the peace accords established.

Combatants on both sides who are guilty of grave human rights crimes and have decided to confess would be eligible for a reduced sentence of up to eight years of restricted liberty and community labor to repair damages to victims. Those who do not comply with these conditions will face a special court and prison sentences up to 20 years.

The accords also established a Commission for the Clarification of Truth, Coexistence and Non-Repetition to uncover the causes of abuses and document atrocities.

The innovative nature of this alternative, restorative justice is that it focuses on the victims by proposing punishments such as community service and restitution, rather than simply putting perpetrators in prison. More than 7.6 million Colombians have been forced from their homes or lost loved ones in the course of the long war.

At the same time, it attempts to bring armed combatants back into society. That may help avoid what has happened in the past—in both Colombia and elsewhere—when former combatants were unable to find new job skills or build homes and returned to organized violence. Whether the Colombian public will accept and endorse the compromises remains to be seen.

Education is key

OurĚýĚýgives some insight into this question. OurĚýĚýof more than 3,000 Colombian citizens showed that those who voted against President Santos and his peace platform in the last election, or those who abstained from voting at all, could be persuaded to support the peace process and specific transitional justice proposals.

Our research also shows that efforts to educate the public could boost the popular legitimacy of the peace process. Specifically, respondents who said they most understood the negotiations were also more likely to support the talks. Public education on all the elements of the peace deal will be essential to gaining popular legitimacy of the proposal, which is essential if the peace is to become durable and sustainable.

Other countries would be well-served to take such a broad view of justice that centers on victims, and not only on perpetrators of violence.

The reduced and alternative sentences model is, nevertheless, a controversial compromise that may not work in other deeply divided societies—such as Kenya, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo—and under the increasingly sharp gaze of the international justice community.

While the initial reaction of the ICC to the language of the accord wasĚý, the court has yet to embark on a comprehensive assessment of the justice provisions. It is not at all clear that the final accord will survive ICC scrutiny in its current form. In fact, bothĚýĚýandĚýĚýexpressed early disappointment with the lenient punishment for serious offenses and questioned how the peace agreement will be in compliance with the ICC.

As with all new institutions, the effectiveness and success of the peace agreement should be judged by the tangible results it can deliver. In Colombia, we can hope for durable and sustainable peace, non-repetition of violence and full reintegration of former combatants.

*[This article was originally published by .]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: Ěý/Ěý

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Despite criticism of appeasement from , Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has pragmatically led his country through a difficult era and currently has it poised to reach lasting internal peace.

International relations scholar Joseph Nye describes power distribution in the contemporary era as extremely complicated due to the effects of globalization. In this new world, it is often difficult to separate domestic and international issues, thus creating the so-called “inter-mestic” issues. Leaders continue to play their traditional game of “political chess,” albeit they must now do so in a three-dimensional manner, playing vertically and horizontally on three planes concurrently.

It is difficult to find a Western Hemispheric leader who has had more accomplishments than President Santos. His policies are based on three benchmarks: the improvement in the measurements of the ’s Fragile States Index (FSI); the decreasing levels of coca growth and exports; and ’s economic development. Colombia has made significant progress in recent years with its Plan Colombia. Recent history demonstrates what happened before the current drug policy was put in place.

Moving Forward

In late 1989, presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán was murdered near Bogotá, allegedly by gunmen working for drug cartel king Pablo Escobar. This led to a national effort to rid Colombia of its scourge of international drug trafficking. Colombia established greater cooperation with the United States in combating the growing, cultivating and trafficking of cocaine. Over the last 25 years, Colombia has worked hard to strengthen its democracy, grow its economy and end the 50-year cycle of violence.

Arguably, the first Colombian leader to launch a holistic attempt for broad was President Andrés Pastrana Arango in 1998. He developed Plan Colombia to end “armed conflict, eliminate drug trafficking, and promote .” Pastrana was followed into office by �lvaro Uribe in 2002. President Uribe fought narco-traffickers ferociously and appointed Santos as his minister of defense during those decisive years.

The Colombian drug policy is based on a comprehensive strategy, flexible policy and diffused model. It recognizes that as Colombian economic growth continues, increased incomes will create higher drug consumption domestically. The country recently began to benefit from the plan. It shows a remarkable improvement in the FSI published annually by the Fund for Peace. More than 150 indicators form the framework of the methodology for the . These measurements are together by 12 social, economic and political primary indices. The results are exhibited in the advancement Colombia has made, moving from 41 to 61 over the last six .

The United States’ International Narcotics Control Strategy Report shows that illicit drug-related activity in Colombia continues to . This has contributed to a rise in street prices of cocaine in the US, and a drop in usage from 3% to 2.2%. The Colombian cocaine yield decreased from nearly 600 metric tons (MT) in 2001 to 175 MT in 2012. The cultivation in 2013 was projected to be down another 6%. Data from the United Nations (UN) also mirrors these trends closely. The UN estimates that Colombian cocaine production has been reduced by 50% since 2007 and continues to . This is down considerably from an estimated 600 MT in 2000.

Nevertheless, critics , centering their arguments on the “,” which shifts illicit drug cultivation to the nearby Andean states of Peru and . Detractors point to the negative effects of aerial fumigation on rural residents. The Colombian government confronts these issues directly—coordinating with locals prior to fumigation and using alternative crop development . These development initiatives assisted nearly 500,000 people by . Colombia also assists other Latin America countries in their fight against the illicit traffickers.

FARC

President Santos uses the security gains Colombia makes against illicit traffickers to strengthen his democratic institutions. As the Colombian military retakes the areas previously claimed by the (FARC), the national police replaces it to maintain peace, supported by aid agencies and the increasing professionalism of federal . Colombia’s economic growth improved significantly under Santos—from 1.7% in 2009 to 6.6% in 2011—and remained strong at 4.7% in . The country is becoming more economically viable as it eradicates illegal activities. Colombian Finance Minister Mauricio Cárdenas recently speculated that a peace deal with FARC could boost economic growth by another .

The re-election of Santos in 2014 reflects the appreciation Colombians have for his policies. Able to wield a “stick and carrot” simultaneously, he is using his credibility as a former defense minister to negotiate a peace agreement with FARC. The president recently agreed to a bilateral ceasefire, but not before skillfully negotiating a deal to drive an ideological wedge between simple drug traffickers—las Bandas Criminales Emergentes (BACRIM)—and the radical FARC dissidents who are open to a political settlement. Santos appeals to both sides of his domestic constituency, as well as international allies as diverse as the US and Venezuela.

Santos recently angered domestic pacifists by supporting the firing of Bogotá’s leftist mayor for , while annoying conservatives who desire a strictly military solution against . He stayed ahead of the argument against the War on Drugs, treating domestic consumption as a health . In 2011, Santos, along with other Latin American presidents, called for a new global drug strategy, accentuating the current policy’s failures.

This criticism seems to have affected the verbiage of the United States’ 2013 National Southwest Border Counter Narcotics Strategy, especially regarding the illegal trafficking of firearms and bulk cash. It now appears visionary, as the US currently grapples with its own drug policy, as Maryland, Colorado, California and Washington DC have recently legalized or decriminalized some drugs, making America appear incoherent in its own federal and foreign drug interdiction policies. It seems that Santos has taken former US President Bill Clinton’s famous political skill of “triangulation” to a transnational level, all the while remaining true to Pastrana’s three original goals.

There is an old adage that states: When life hands you lemons you make lemonade. Santos has done so with his effective drug policy in Colombia, impacting the entire world. He has stayed flexible, continuously adapted his strategy, divided his enemies and built effective coalitions. Under Santos’ leadership, Colombia has improved its economic growth, decreased the amount of drugs trafficked illegally, built on its FSI standings and is in the process of negotiating a peace agreement with FARC. Concurrently, Santos constructively criticized US drug policies and improved diplomatic relations with Colombia’s counterparts throughout Latin America. In such a multifaceted and complex world, President Santos has been the epitome of a successful “inter-mestic” leader.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: Ěý/Ěý

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This is the second weekly commentary on key developments across the globe titled “Make Sense of the World: Weekly Report.” We will pick out the most important events, trends and issues for the week and explain them to you with clarity and brevity.

We are still in the experimental stage and figuring out the right format. Please give us feedback to help us serve you better. You can email this directly to atul.singh@fairobserver.com, and we look forward to hearing from you.

This is an extended report and you can click for the summary version.

The big news in Asia Pacific was the third plenum of the 18^th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. has a good summary of the main points of the ł¦´ÇłľłľłÜ˛Ôľ±±çłÜĂ© issued by China’s leaders after the plenum, the most significant in the post-Deng Xiaopeng era. There is the usual bureaucratic jargon along with some major changes.

First, markets have been called upon to play a “decisive” role in the allocation of resources. This could mean major reforms because earlier markets were only meant to play a “basic” role. Asian markets still fell despite this declaration as there was no mention of financial reforms. Second, a “State Security Committee” will be set up. The Chinese leadership believes the Soviet security system had become weak, corrupt and ineffective. It wants to avoid that mistake and emulate the US by creating its version of the National Security Council. Third, President Xi Jinping has emerged as the most powerful Chinese leader since Deng. Fourth, the one-child policy has been relaxed and a baby bonanza of a million extra births per year is expected. Fifth, education reforms are also on the horizon to develop more-rounded students and foster creativity. Sixth, the dreaded labor camps will be abolished as part of a reform of the justice system. Finally, those who cause environmental damage will be held “criminally responsible” and there will be a tax on the use of almost every natural resource.

While Chinese leaders were meeting at their plenum, China celebrated November 11 by shopping. This day is marketed as “Singles Day” and shoppers spent $5.7 billion buying online. This is thrice what American shoppers spend on Cyber Monday. It demonstrates three things:

1. The one child policy combined with the Chinese preference for sons has led to selective abortion, leading to a massive gender imbalance. Millions of Chinese men are not likely to find love, adding another incentive to splurge on this day.
2. E-commerce is growing exponentially in China.
3. The rise of consumerism among single children born after 1980, the “Little Emperors,” is changing the country beyond recognition. China’s leaders are only bowing to the inevitable by giving markets a “decisive” role, given that its next generation is one of compulsive shoppers.

Elsewhere in Asia Pacific, the Philippine government has botched the relief effort. Floods and landslides in Vietnam have wreaked havoc. The trouble over the amnesty bill has receded in Thailand as the government has retreated. Economic worries are surfacing about Southeast Asia. Many worry that the bubble might be about to burst. Debt-funded consumer and government spending has grown in the region and, in particular, in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand.

India is in electoral circus mode. Accusations are flying on a daily basis. The Congress-led government has declined to grant autonomy to India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), making independent investigation of any case with political ramifications impossible.

There was hype and hoopla over the retirement of a cricketing god, named Sachin Tendulkar. While he is a fine player, awarding India’s highest honor to him was a classic case of the country’s fixation with actors and cricketers. This national award can be given posthumously and the politicians award it to celebrity figures to gain electoral advantage or to reward political fealty. Many suspect that the ruling party is trying to use Tendulkar as a totem for upcoming elections.

The more important issue that India has to confront is the way it treats Africans. After independence, India emerged as a leader of the developing world. In the 1950s, it led the Non-Aligned Movement and supported independence of African colonies.

That era is over. Today, India is in a row with Nigeria over the murder of a Nigerian in Goa. Large parts of the state have been run-over by foreigners. Mandrem and Morjim are Russian localities and Arambol is home to Israelis. Drug use is common and many foreigners are involved in drug trade. The murder was a result of the gang war between two drug gangs, which led to Nigerian protests. While some Nigerians are involved in drug trade, at the heart of the row is Indian racism towards Africans. Goa is ruled by the BJP, a party challenging the ruling Congress Party in New Delhi. One of its ministers declared that Nigerians are “like cancer” — an irresponsible comment at best and a xenophobic one at worst.

In neighboring Pakistan, the Nawaz Sharif government is going to put former President Pervez Musharraf on trial for treason. Musharraf was a military general who deposed Sharif in a coup, and he will become the first military leader to be tried for treason in Pakistan’s 66-year history.

Pakistan is beset by turmoil of all kinds. On the day of Ashura, Shi’a-Sunni violence erupted in Rawalpindi, which remains under curfew since. Earlier in the week, Dr. Nasiruddin Haqqani, son of Jalaluddin Haqqani, the founder of Haqqani Network, was gunned down in Islamabad. He was responsible for fundraising, logistics and political affairs of the Haqqani Network; his death is arguably more important than Hakimullah Mesud’s, who was killed just days ago in a US drone strike.

Afghanistan and the US have agreed upon a draft of the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) that has been sent to Loya Jirga, the Afghan assembly of tribal leaders for their consent. The BSA will extend US military presence in Afghanistan for an indefinite period. It also gives the US exclusive legal jurisdiction over its military and civil personnel.

As tribal leaders gathered to vote on the BSA, a powerful suicide attack a few hundred yards away killed at least ten people. This was followed by the beheading of six security contractors in southern Afghanistan.

While violence continues, Afghan opium production has reached a record high. The area under poppy cultivation has risen to 209,000 hectares, up from 154,000 in 2012 and the 2007 peak figure of 193,000.

Saudi Arabia, with its massive oil wealth, has decided to clamp down on foreign workers. It has an estimated 9 million workers serving a population of 19 million. Foreign workers are often from poorer countries such as Egypt, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Pakistan.

An unfair visa sponsorship system means that their sponsors often demand an annual fee for bringing them into the country. Workers are underpaid, subjected to abuse and treated with a racism that is among the most extreme in the world. In effect, an affluent Saudi society is being served by what The Economist calls “a pliant underclass with few rights.” The kingdom aims for a Saudization of the labor market to decrease its 13 percent unemployment rate. However, it remains to be seen whether cosseted Saudis will take up the jobs that have so far been done by poor immigrants.

It turns out that Saudi Arabia is not alone in mistreating immigrant workers. Amnesty International has for treating workers like animals and even referring to them as such. Dangerous working conditions, non-payment of wages and squalid living conditions are par for the course. Often, workers are threatened with penalty fines, deportation or loss of income if they do not show up to work, even when they are not being paid. Racism is rife, employers disregard basic human rights, and workers live in fear.

Civil war continues in Syria. A bomb attack on a government building near Damascus has killed 31 people, while two explosions occurred near the Iranian Embassy in neighboring Lebanon. Violence has been increasing in the Syrian capital with clashes between government forces and rebels intensifying in the suburbs.

In North Africa, Libya’s deputy intelligence chief has been kidnapped as the central government struggles to control powerful local militia. Clashes have occurred in Tripoli and the Misrata militia is to leave the city.

In Iraq, just as in Pakistan, Shi’a pilgrims have been targeted. Bomb blasts in Baquba killed at least 20 people and left many more wounded. According to the UN, “.” Sectarian violence has reached its highest level since 2008.

Meanwhile, Egypt is conducting talks with Russia. The parties are discussing an arms deal worth $2 billion. If it were to go through, US influence on Egypt would diminish. The US cut defense aid when the Egyptian military ousted former President Mohammed Morsi. Now, Egyptian generals are striking back.

In neighboring Gaza, Hamas is feeling the pressure from the generals who have destroyed 90 percent of the tunnels between Gaza and Egypt. Gaza has no power, sewage is flowing untreated, and inflation is rampant. Hamas is under immense pressure and is cracking down on dissent.

As the situation turns desperate, Hamas has appointed its first spokeswoman. Isra al-Modallal is a divorced young woman of 23 and it is heartening to see the Islamist group — with a patchy record on women’s rights — move in the right direction. In Turkey, women can now wear trousers in parliament, relaxing a regulation that only allowed them to wear suits.

Finally, Boeing has emerged as a big winner of the Dubai Airshow, netting $100 billion of orders from the four big carriers of the Gulf: Etihad, Qatar Airways, Emirates and flydubai.

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) rejected a proposal to suspend the trials of Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy, William Ruto, for a year at the International Criminal Court (ICC). The proposal was put forth by Rwanda and supported by other African states.

Kenyatta and Ruto are accused of crimes against humanity for the role they played in the ethnic bloodshed that swept across Kenya in the aftermath of the 2007 elections. More than 1,100 people were killed, 3,500 injured, and up to 600,000 forcibly displaced as a result of the violence.

Seven of the 15 UNSC members, including Russia and China, voted for the draft resolution while the others abstained. A UNSC resolution needs nine votes to succeed, assuming none of the five permanent members veto it.

Kenyatta now becomes the first serving head of state to be tried by the ICC. At heart is a deeper issue about global governance. African leaders believe they are being unfairly targeted by the ICC, which is based in The Hague and which they believe to be racist as well as neo-colonial. All of the are against Africans, who point out that former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has not attracted any attention for his role in the Iraq War.

The issue is the fact that African leaders believe they are not being treated like everybody else. Global powers such as the United States, China and Russia have not signed up for the ICC. Regional powers such as Israel, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, India and North Korea have not done so either. Others believe that given poor governance structures, lack of rule of law and an independent judiciary in much of Africa, the ICC is the last resort for Africans for justice and the best way to change the culture of impunity that has long existed in the continent.

A French hostage held for nearly a year escaped in Nigeria but Boko Haram, the Nigerian Islamist group, claimed that it had kidnapped another Frenchman: a priest working in northern Cameroon. The kidnapping occurred soon after the US designated Boko Haram and its splinter group, Ansaru, as “foreign terrorist organizations” on the grounds that they have established links with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and in Somalia.

To combat al-Shabab, the UNSC authorized an increase of 4,000 peacekeepers in Somalia. This increase has come on the heels of a US military raid to capture one of the group’s leaders. While the focus has been on the Philippines, the northern self-governing Puntland region of Somalia has suffered from a cyclone that has killed over 100 people, swept away livestock and destroyed homes.

As per the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 460,000 people have been displaced in Sudan’s Darfur region in 2013. This figure is higher than the combined figure for 2011 and 2012. OCHA states that this is “a result of inter-tribal fighting and clashes between the Sudanese Armed Forces and armed movements.”

OCHA has also been describing the situation in the Central African Republic as “a tinderbox,” because Muslims and Christians are pitted against each other in a brutal civil war that has led to a complete breakdown of law and order.

In neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, peace talks between the government and the rebel M23 group have collapsed in Kampala. The rebel group had recently declared a ceasefire after military defeat.

Gambia broke its ties with Taiwan for “strategic national interest.” China will invest in Gambia and build infrastructure. China’s footprint in Africa continues to grow and now only Swaziland, Sao Tome, Principe and Burkina Faso retain ties with Taiwan.

Ethiopian workers returned from Saudi Arabia with tales of mistreatment involving beatings, robbery and incarceration.

Nigeria is involved in a diplomatic row with India after a Nigerian was murdered in Goa. This is covered in greater detail in the section on Asia.

Amnesty International has of misrepresenting the extent and the causes of pollution in the Niger delta. The company is apparently also failing to curb the devastation caused by oil spills.

Another company has announced that it will sever ties with suppliers who do not respect the land rights of local communities. This company is Coca-Cola and its operations in its two African hubs, Nigeria and South Africa, will be affected.

As more of the world falls in love with chocolate, cocoa processing is consolidating in the hands of two giants who will control over 60 percent of the world supply. Cargill is in the process of buying out Archer Daniels Midland’s cocoa business and Barry Callebaut scooped up the cocoa unit of Petra Foods.

Meanwhile, Forbes reported that the number of African billionaires surged to 27. In 2012, it was 16, reaching a remarkable increase of over two-thirds.

Ericsson declared that it expected mobile subscription in sub-Saharan Africa to reach 930 million by 2019. It estimates smartphones to reach 476 million and mobile data traffic to grow 17 times by that year.

The eurozone grew by an anemic 0.1 percent between July and September. Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain — collectively referred to as PIGS — continue to remain mired in high unemployment, low productivity and poor public finances. Even Germany’s economy grew by a mere 0.3 percent and it is under scrutiny from Brussels for running persistent current account surpluses.

Many argue that Germany’s protection of its domestic services industry enables it to run massive surpluses, thereby skewing the eurozone economy. The truth is that an aging Europe with excessive regulation and little entrepreneurial energy is fast-losing its competitive edge in the new global economy.

Unemployment in parts of Europe has crossed the 50 percent mark. In France, unemployment has been over 10 percent since 1980 when Mitterand became president. The country has now suffered a credit ratings downgrade by Standard & Poor’s because of the disastrous performance of the Hollande government. Brussels has warned Spain and Italy over their debt and deficit levels. French and Dutch plans have barely passed muster. Eastern Europe is not doing much better and the Russian economy, despite its energy bonanza, is in a sorry state.

The economy is not the only thing in question in Europe. NATO launched a massive exercise in northern Poland, its biggest live wire exercise since 2006. At a time when its defense spending is falling fast, this exercise was supposed to be a signal to anyone intending to attack a NATO ally. Russia might have an increasing budget, but it has no intention of attacking a NATO ally; the exercise seems to have been carried out to reassure members looking for relevance in a post-Afghanistan era.

The far right in Europe is becoming more sophisticated. Dutch leader Geert Wilders and French leader Marine Le Pen held a conference in The Hague to announce cooperation in the next elections for the European Parliament to “fight the monster called Europe.” With Pew Research reporting just 41 percent of the French in favor of the EU, the ghosts of the wafer-thin approval of 1992 Maastricht Treaty and the 2005 rejection of the draft European constitution might be about to rise with renewed vigor in France.

In Germany, politicians seem close to a deal that would extend the right of dual citizenship to naturalized Germans and the children of immigrants. Former German President Christian Wulff has become the first German head of state to go on trial for a sum of €753.90 that equal $1,013. The sum is negligible but demonstrates that the principle of public propriety in Germany matters a great deal more than in other countries.

In the talks with Iran, France is taking the strongest line against Tehran. This is surprising because France is never going to play a major role in military action against Iran. French President Francois Hollande is in crisis at home and it seems he is compensating with an overly assertive foreign policy.

Already, the French have intervened in Mali and are stuck there with no end date in sight. On a visit to Israel, Hollande talked tough on Iran while completely omitting to mention Israeli settlements in the West Bank. US Secretary of State John Kerry has been much more even handed in comparison. A left-wing French government is incongruously more bellicose than the US or the UK on Iran and losing the goodwill that Jacques Chirac garnered for France by opposing the Iraq War.

Chile’s elections will go into the second round after Michelle Bachelet failed to achieve an outright majority. She received 47 percent of the vote; Evelyn Matthei, her main rival, got 25 percent. Bachelet is still expected to win.

Colombia has elections next year but is already gearing up for them. President Juan Manuel Santos will be competing with Oscar Ivan Zuluaga, who has the backing of former President Alvaro Uribe.

Talks with FARC guerillas suffered a minor hiccup because of the discovery of a purported FARC plot to murder Uribe. Negotiations with the guerillas continue as President Santos presses for a change in drug policy that includes alternatives to prohibition.

The murder rate in Latin America and the Caribbean rose by 11 percent in the first decade of the 21^st century. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) estimates that 1 million people died as a result of criminal violence in the region. Poverty, unemployment, low wages, lack of schooling and family breakdown were said to be some of the contributing causes.

The rate of deforestation in the Amazon rose by 28 percent in Brazil over a year. In the last few years, while deforestation was proceeding apace, the rate of this phenomenon was declining. Environmentalists blame last year’s controversial reform of the forest protection law as the main reason for the rising rate. The change has reduced protected areas on farms and declared an amnesty for areas destroyed before 2008. A Brazilian banker involved in a major corruption scandal fled to Italy. Henrique Pizzoloto has an Italian passport and was avoiding jail terms. Brazil’s Supreme Court has sent 25 businessmen, bankers and politicians, including the chief of staff of ex-President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, to prison.

Brazil is also going through the painful process of coming to terms with its past. The remains of Joao Goulart, a former president, were exhumed so that the cause of his death could be ascertained. He was deposed by a military coup and died in Argentina in 1976 of a heart attack. It has long been suspected that he was murdered on the behest of Brazil’s military rulers.

Obamacare, President Barack Obama’s healthcare reforms, has been the focus of attention again. The Affordable Care Act (ACA), the legislation that enacted Obamacare, compels insurers to offer a more comprehensive coverage, making many policies void under the new law. This leaves many Americans facing cancelled policies and increased premiums. The numbers who signed up for Obamacare were far fewer than estimated and many Republican governors have refused to implement ACA. Bill Clinton, the former Democrat president, turned on Obama and asked him to fulfill his promise to let Americans keep the healthcare they liked. As the new website for healthcare exchanges malfunctioned, Obama eventually bowed to pressure and deferred the implementation of ACA by a year.

The fumbles over the launch of healthcare reform has infused new life into the political battle for the control of the country. Not too long ago, the US government shutdown had led to a loss of momentum for the Republicans. Democrats were hopeful about the midterms; now they are nervous. In fact, 39 Democrats in the House of Representatives voted for a Republican bill that would allow insurance companies to sell policies that did not comply with the minimum standards of the ACA, blowing a hole through Obamacare. Needless to say, the Senate would not pass this and Obama has promised to veto it.

The partisanship in US politics will ratchet up because the Republicans no longer feel chastised and have smelt blood again. Democrats will have to shore up support from their core loyalists for the next midterm. Until then, everyone will be campaigning, covertly if not overtly. Until the midterms are over, expect more bickering and gridlock in Washington, and little reform on immigration, taxation or anything else.

While political wrangling goes on, the White House declared that, for the first time in two decades, the US is importing less foreign oil than it is producing domestically. It crowed about better gas mileage, more biofuels, less pollution and greater energy independence.

There is some truth to these claims. Gas mileage or, as the rest of the world would say, fuel efficiency has certainly improved as a result of legislation. Greater production of oil and gas in the US has pushed down energy costs for American companies, giving them a competitive advantage ±ąľ±˛ő-Ă -±ąľ±˛ő Europe, which has to pay through its nose for Russian gas, and Japan, which will no longer be able to meet its green house gas reductions because of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Yet, the environmental costs of increased domestic production are yet to be quantified properly and the US is a long way from energy independence.

Snapchat, a hot Silicon Valley startup that began in Stanford, rejected a $3 billion offer from Facebook. Snapchat is a photo messaging platform. It allows people to send messages that disappear once they are viewed. Unlike Facebook or Twitter, people do not leave behind a permanent record. The platform is particularly popular with teenagers. It is said to be used for sexting, the practice of sending sexually explicit pictures that are often used for what teenagers call “hookups.”

Such a large amount of money in social media might indicate another Silicon Valley bubble. Snapchat and Twitter are clever tools for communication, but they are not based on hard science or cutting edge technology. For all the talk of being the technology center of the universe, travelling in Silicon Valley is increasingly a third world experience. Interminable traffic jams, pathetic public transport, and poor roads reveal that all is not right in this mythic land.

Three other developments are most interesting this week.

Sony sold over 1 million Playstation 4s in the first 24 hours. It is an indication of the new era we are living in where young people increasingly spend more time behind their screens than playing with each other.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is building a long-range anti-ship missile to counter China. Back in the day, DARPA came up with the Internet and had a string of successes to its name. China’s development of an anti-ship carrier missile has spooked US policymakers but it is also possible that the defense establishment might be playing up the Chinese threat to avoid sequester cuts of about $500 billion over a decade.

Finally, Google won its copyright battle against publishers and authors. Its scanning project will put more than 30 million works in a digital library. The court accepted Google’s argument that its project is “fair use” and provides “significant public benefits.”

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

Image: Copyright © . All Rights Reserved

The post Make Sense of the World: Weekly Report appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

This is the second weekly commentary on key developments across the globe titled “Make Sense of the World: Weekly Roundup.” After much feedback, we are playing around with the format and please continue to send your feedback to atul.singh@fairobserver.com, with “Weekly Roundup” as the subject.

As we explained last week, this roundup examines the deeper story behind the most important events, trends and issues for the week. This is a summary version and you can click for the full report.

The big news in Asia Pacific was the third plenum of the 18^th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. It signaled some major changes.

First, markets have been called upon to play a “decisive” role in the allocation of resources. Second, a “State Security Committee” will be set up. It will emulate the US National Security Council. Third, President Xi Jinping has emerged as the most powerful Chinese leader since Deng Xiaopeng. Fourth, the one-child policy has been relaxed and a baby bonanza of a million extra births per year is expected. Fifth, education reforms are also on the horizon to foster creativity and develop more rounded students. Sixth, the dreaded labor camps will be abolished as part of a reform of the justice system. Finally, those who cause environmental damage will be held “criminally responsible” and there will be a tax on the use of almost every natural resource.

On November 11, celebrated in China as “Singles Day,” shoppers spent $5.7 billion buying online. This is thrice what American shoppers spend on Cyber Monday.

Elsewhere in Asia Pacific, the Philippine government has botched the relief effort after last week’s typhoon.

Meanwhile, India is in electoral circus mode. Accusations are flying on a daily basis. The Congress-led government has declined to grant autonomy to India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), making any independent investigation impossible.

India is in a row with Nigeria over the murder of a Nigerian in Goa, and is in the spotlight for its racist treatment of Africans.

In neighboring Pakistan, the Nawaz Sharif government is going to put former President Pervez Musharraf on trial for treason. Shi'a-Sunni violence has erupted in Rawalpindi, which remains under curfew. Dr. Nasiruddin Haqqani, son of Jalaluddin Haqqani, the founder of the Haqqani Network, was gunned down in Islamabad.

In Afghanistan, violence continues and opium production has reached a record high.

Saudi Arabia, with its massive oil wealth, has decided to clamp down on foreign workers. The kingdom aims for a Saudization of its labor market to decrease its 13 percent unemployment rate. However, it remains to be seen whether cosseted Saudis will take up the jobs so far done by poor immigrants.

It turns out that Saudi Arabia is not alone in mistreating immigrant workers. Amnesty International has Qatar for treating workers like animals and even referring to them as such.

Civil war continues in Syria. A bomb attack on a government building near Damascus has killed 31 people, while two explosions occurred near the Iranian Embassy in neighboring Lebanon.

Libya’s deputy intelligence chief has been kidnapped as the central government struggles to control powerful local militia.

In Iraq, just as in Pakistan, Shi'a pilgrims have been targeted. Bomb blasts in Baquba killed at least 20 people and left many more wounded. According to the UN, “.” Sectarian violence has reached its highest level since 2008.

Meanwhile, Egypt is conducting talks with Russia. The parties are discussing an arms deal worth $2 billion. If it were to go through, US influence on Egypt would diminish.

Hamas has appointed its first spokeswoman, while in Turkey, women can now wear trousers in parliament relaxing a regulation that only allowed them to wear suits.

Boeing has emerged as a big winner of the Dubai Airshow, netting $100 billion of orders from the four big carriers from the Gulf: Etihad, Qatar Airways, Emirates and flydubai.

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) rejected a proposal to suspend the trials of Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy, William Ruto, for a year at the International Criminal Court (ICC). The proposal was put forth by Rwanda and supported by other African states.

Kenyatta and Ruto are accused of crimes against humanity for the role they played in the ethnic bloodshed that swept across Kenya in the aftermath of the 2007 elections. More than 1,100 people were killed, 3,500 injured, and up to 600,000 forcibly displaced as a result of the violence.

A French hostage held for nearly a year escaped in Nigeria but Boko Haram, the Nigerian Islamist group, claimed that it had kidnapped a French priest in northern Cameroon. The kidnapping occurred soon after the US designated Boko Haram and its splinter group, Ansaru, as “foreign terrorist organizations.”

As per the UN, 460,000 people have been displaced in Sudan’s Darfur region in 2013. This figure is higher than the combined figure for 2011 and 2012.

Gambia broke its ties with Taiwan for “strategic national interest.”

Forbes reported that the number of African billionaires surged to 27. In 2012, it was 16, marking a remarkable increase of over two thirds.

Ericsson declared that it expected mobile subscription in sub-Saharan Africa to reach 930 million by 2019. It estimates smartphones to reach 476 million and mobile data traffic to grow 17 times by that year.

The eurozone grew by an anemic 0.1 percent between July and September. Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain —collectively referred to as PIGS — continue to remain mired in high unemployment, low productivity and poor public finances. Even Germany’s economy grew by a mere 0.3 percent and it is under scrutiny from Brussels for running persistent current account surpluses.

Unemployment in parts of Europe has crossed the 50 percent mark. France has suffered a credit ratings downgrade by Standard & Poor’s because of the disastrous performance of the Hollande government. Brussels has warned Spain and Italy over their debt and deficit levels. French and Dutch plans have barely passed muster. Eastern Europe is not doing much better and the Russian economy, despite its energy bonanza, is in sorry state.

The far right in Europe is becoming more sophisticated. Dutch leader Geert Wilders and French leader Marine Le Pen held a conference in The Hague to announce cooperation in the next elections for the European Parliament to “fight the monster called Europe.”

Chile’s elections will go into the second round after Michelle Bachelet failed to achieve an outright majority. She received 47 percent of the vote and Evelyn Matthei got 25 percent. Bachelet is still expected to win.

Colombia has elections next year but is already gearing up for them. President Juan Manuel Santos will be competing with Oscar Ivan Zuluaga, who has the backing of former President Alvaro Uribe.

Talks with FARC guerillas suffered a minor hiccup because of the discovery of a purported FARC plot to murder Uribe. Negotiations with the guerillas continue as President Santos presses for a change in drug policy that includes alternatives to prohibition.

The murder rate in Latin America and the Caribbean rose by 11 percent in the first decade of the 21^st century.

The rate of deforestation in the Amazon rose by 28 percent in Brazil over a year. In the last few years, while deforestation was proceeding apace, the rate of this phenomenon was declining.

Meanwhile, a Brazilian banker involved in a major corruption scandal fled to Italy. Henrique Pizzoloto has an Italian passport and was avoiding jail terms like 25 businessmen, bankers and politicians, including the chief of staff of ex-President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

The remains of Joao Goulart, a former Brazilian president, were exhumed so that the cause of his death could be ascertained. It is suspected that he was murdered by the military rulers who conducted a coup against him in 1976.

Obamacare, President Barack Obama’s healthcare reforms, has been the focus of attention again. Bill Clinton, the former Democrat president, turned on Obama and asked him to fulfill his promise to let Americans keep the healthcare they liked. As the new website for healthcare exchanges malfunctioned, Democrats facing reelection grew uneasy and turned on their president. Obama eventually bowed to pressure and deferred the implementation of his reforms by a year.

The White House declared that, for the first time in two decades, the US is importing less foreign oil than it is producing domestically.

Snapchat, a hot Silicon Valley startup that began in Stanford, rejected a $3 billion offer from Facebook. Snapchat is a photo messaging platform that allows people to send messages that disappear once they are viewed.

Sony sold over 1 million Playstation 4s in the first 24 hours.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is building a long-range anti-ship missile to counter China.

Finally, Google won its longstanding copyright battle against publishers and authors. Its scanning project will put more than 30 million works in a digital library. The court accepted Google’s argument that its project is “fair use” and provides “significant public benefits.”

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

Image: Copyright © . All Rights Reserved

The post Make Sense of the World: Weekly Roundup appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

In 2005, the government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero in Spain approved gay marriage. The big question was whether the approval was going to be the small landslide that would cause the avalanche in Latin America, the stronghold of the Catholic Church. December 2009 saw Mexico City become the first city in Latin America to approve gay marriage; although, this approval does not apply for all states in the country. The leading step taken by Mexico City motivated gay activists across the continent in the quest for their right to marry.

Argentina, in July 2010, became the first country in Latin America to recognize gay marriage. Other countries at the time, including Brazil, Uruguay and Colombia, had presented law proposals to their senates. In April 2013, Uruguay approved a law recognizing gay marriage with a vast majority of 71 out of the 92 members of parliament approving the measure. Four federal states of Brazil have also recognized the right to gay marriage.

This year started with the approval of gay marriage in France, New Zealand and Uruguay. Colombia was in line to approve gay marriage, and for the last week of April 2013, the political and religious struggle shook the country to its core.

The Gay Population in Colombia

According to several NGO estimates, nearly 8% of Colombia's population is gay, despite a strong Christian majority in the country.

Homosexuality was recognized as a crime in Colombia until 1936. Since then, the country has taken significant strides toward the recognition of gay rights. These steps include recognition since 2007 by the Constitutional Court, the right to inherit assets, and the right to receive life insurance and retirement money. 

In Colombia, gay couples can currently register their union. Although, they cannot adopt as a couple, nor can their union be considered a formal marriage. Gay Colombians cannot be discriminated against, cannot be fired from their job for their sexuality, and have the right to keep the custody of their children, among other recognized rights of the civil code.

Arguments in Favor

With the support of the Constitutional Court, the gay marriage movement has appealed to the constitutional principles of pluralism (Article 1), diversity (Article 7), and the measures to promote equality (Article 13). The court has been positively affirmed in their recognition of gay families in society, and has valued that nucleus on the same level as heterosexual families.

According to many experts, not recognizing gay marriage goes against human rights, which universally recognizes the right to have a family, regardless of the family’s sexual orientation.

Denying civil rights to a specific part of the population resembles the struggle against anti-Semitism and the call for equal rights by the African American population. A campaign against a new version of “apartheid” has been started among gay activists to counter the declarations of the Colombian Catholic Church and Senator Gerlein, who referred to gay sex as excremental. Both the church and Senator Gerlein started a campaign to keep the concept of family as heterosexual-only and the values it represents. This argument was also the basis against divorce, which was approved in Colombia and ratified in the 1991 constitution, even if the church proscribed it as adultery.

However, over 20 years later, the concept of family in Colombia has kept its values, and there has been no social chaos or collapse of the traditions of Colombian society.

Is the Struggle Over?

After 51 votes against 17 in favor, the project was temporally dismissed. However, the Constitutional Court established in the C57 sentence of 2011, that if by July 20, 2013, there was no legal recognition by Congress, gay couples would be able to register their union through a contract in any judge’s office. 

Being able to sign a contract starting July 20, does not mean the “union statement” is recognized as equal to the heterosexual marriage. For several gay activists, having a separate contract for their union is just as discriminating. This measure is a huge step back in a country that was a leader in promoting equality for their gay population. This legal defeat just means that a process that has taken years to progress will have to be restarted and could last many more years.

Gay activists have sounded a call to flood all legal offices with marriage requests starting July 20. The political defeat must not make us forget that the legal trend is still open, thanks to the Constitutional Court.

Despite this setback, the call for gay rights is still on its way and the struggle continues in other countries like Peru and Venezuela. Hopefully, the avalanche will soon make its effect in Colombia and its medieval segregationist mentality.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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The Emerging Society of Victims

“Draw the scaffolding so that the last step of the ladder comes in clearly. The criminal must be just stepping onto it, his face as white as note-paper. The priest is holding a cross to his blue lips, and the criminal kisses it, and knows and sees and understands everything. The cross and the head — there’s your picture; the priest and the executioner, with his two assistants, and a few heads and eyes below. Those might come in as subordinate accessories, a sort of mist. There`s a picture for you.”

—Fydor Dostoevsky, The Idiot

To the chagrin of the demigods of humanitarian law, Dostoevsky is always showing us that the act of justice makes the world more obscure, rather than (in that all-encompassing term so popular in civil society) making justice more “transparent.” Indeed, for Dostoevsky, reconciliation can prove far more dangerous than revenge. In this scene from The Idiot, that danger is captured by the criminals not only kissing the cross (as is mentioned in the passage above), but by kissing (as is said elsewhere) “greedily,” as though his aim was to devour the cross. Reconciliation is profanation when a corrupt criminal, still hungry for power up until his last breath, manages it. And precisely this danger of “eating” corruption under the pretext of reconciliation is the danger now facing Mexico.

A new law, directed particularly towards victims of the “Calderon War” on drugs that by some estimates has cost 130,000 lives since 2006, is a law that also promises to cover all violations of human rights in Mexico and is on the brink of coming into effect. El Ley General de las Victimas, or the General Law of Victims, was passed late last month by the legislature and signed by President Peña Nieto into law, after a similar law had been vetoed by Calderon in 2011. The law promises new tribunals controlled by human rights and civil society activists that would decide monetary retribution for victims (both ones whose cases are related to the drug war and not), as well as offering psychological services, educational services, and guarantees for the investigation of crimes. The new law even purports to deal with the cases of “potential victims” whose lives are under threat.

In short, Mexico may be on the verge of becoming a society of self-described victims. In Columbia, a more limited victims’ law (on which Mexico’s is partly based) has been wrapped up by some in slogans unabashedly and eagerly promising a society of victims: “One needs to view the victims as the builders of peace and as the builders of society,” declares Camillo Sanchez of Columbia’s Centro de Estudios de Justicia (Center for Legal Studies). Mexico seems to be heeding similar calls from its own activists and legal culture. But what of that worrying scene of Dostoevsky, in which reconciliation threatens, below all the grand rhetoric, to give more power and knowledge still to the criminals?

In the context of Argentina’s struggles with victims’ laws seeking to give overdue justice to victims of that nation’s “dirty war” against its citizens in the 1980s, the threat of aiding corruption has been far more sharply pointed out than is the case in Mexico today. The prominent Argentine victims’ organization, Madres de Plaza de Mayo, has famously refused to “eat corruption.” “Would you be able to bring a morsel to your mouth,” one member of the organization asks, “knowing that you bought it with the money they gave you because they killed your child?…The life of our children has no price.” In the end, the Madres famously rejected financial reconciliation offered by the Argentine government.

In Mexico, on the contrary, it has been victims’ organizations themselves — in particular the Movimiento por la Paz con Justicia y Dignidad (Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity) — which have spearheaded the law and been generally lauded in domestic and international press for their efforts.

The Society Behind the Civil

The cheers still echoing through civil society circles in Mexico would die down if a very strange fact were confronted. Namely, it is clear that in Mexico, the very complicity of families and local police (as well as some federal politicians) with the cartels is the social condition on which the possibility of this victims’ law rests. The notion that “local justice” (murders and disappearances that spurred the law are often crimes committed among formerly complicit or mutually-known parties) can be achieved by federal and state compensation is more than deceptive, it is calculated. If the society for which civil society tries to speak were truly in simple opposition to the cartels, the call would be for an end to impunity, not for a listing and reimbursement of victims; the legislation would be for citizen-monitoring and participation in investigations, rather than in further rounds of empty guarantees for justice (guarantees now to be sweetened with monetary pay-offs). Instead, citizen paramilitary groups in Oaxaca and Michoacán purporting to protect neighborhoods against criminals and protesters against police have been unsurprisingly condemned by the federal government as illegal nuances.

Calderon’s failed war on drugs was something approaching simple opposition to the cartels. That opposition produced the unmeasured violence that the present victims’ law must try to make sense out of — to make compensation in pesos and centavos (cents) as well. The victims’ law thus builds up a new zone of complicity, in which the power of the cartels is affirmed by the government taking responsibility for crimes attributable to anyone and no one (the cartels, the army, governmental policy, US drug law enforcement, families, and society).

Here, is a threatened repetition in Mexico of the very politics that the Madres de Plaza de Mayo has fought against in Argentina. In Argentina, government payoffs of victims arrived along with pardons of politicians already indicted for war crimes, and the emergence of new laws granting political immunity to soldiers who had been involved in crimes against Argentine citizens. The Madres declared: “We don’t judge our detained-disappeared children, nor do we ask for their freedom. We want to be told where they are, what they are accused of, and ask that they be judged according to legal norms with the legitimate right of defense if they have committed any crimes.”

This is another kind of stark opposition to corruption, distinct from the violent opposition of Calderon’s government; yet in Mexico, Calderon’s failure may have cast too large a shadow for civil society to face this difference. There are few similar calls, for instance, coming from leaders of the current Mexican victims’ movements. And even when Mexican critics speak out, the pressure to comply is evident in their muffled rhetoric.

In a New York Times article not directly concerned with the victims’ law, but concerning the related controversial construction of a victims memorial in Mexico City, we find a brief quote from Viridiana Rios, a Mexican researcher at Harvard University and former adviser to the Mexican Interior Ministry “We are fighting a war against an enemy we don’t know,” says Rios, and “we need to answer to the public. There are claims many of the victims are innocent. I would like to know if that is the case.” This is a coy manner of saying, of course, that it is the case — that many victims are not innocent. The delicacy, bordering on euphemism, with which Rios forwards his criticism suggests how dangerous the national situation has become with the new law.

While Calderon’s rhetoric ushered in a tide of bloodshed, the dawning political “society of victims” in Mexico is making language itself the first victim, plunging the crimes into an emerging bureaucracy. The government is scheduled to heavily pay (up to one million pesos per victim, one version of the law promises) for the right to manage public pressure concerning revelations of how deep the cartels and other sectors of Mexican society, such as local families and local police, are imbricated. As the Madres saw quite clearly in their own case, this amounts to bribery. In the Mexican case, it may more precisely become a legally mandated system of reciprocal blackmailing in which criminal investigations do not improve on the oft-cited track record of Mexican justice thatĚý currently sentences culprits in 4 percent of reported murders.

The absurdity of it all hit a high note in a rare critical article in the prominent political magazine El Proceso. The article quotes at length lawyer, Julio Hernández Barros, who was involved in the drafting of the new victims’ law. While a proponent of the law, Barros poses a question for himself that he is more than ill prepared to answer. Playing “devil’s advocate,” as the article puts it, Barros asks if “relatives of El Chapo (the notorious cartel leader) might seek compensation if he is killed by the army?” Barros affirms the possibility, offering a “victim of society” defense: “Many times they are victims of the society in which they happened to be born or live. I could not blame El Ponchis (for instance), who is fourteen, because the first culprit is your family, then your community, and thirdly the State.” The strangeness of this explanation should be obvious.

If Mexicans really thought like Barros, wouldn’t we be seeing families reimbursing the state for their children’s crimes, rather than the reverse? Barros’ logic, and the general structure of blackmail on which the new victims’ law is erected, relies on a common fantasy: It is the fantasy of families, friends, and spouses who “didn’t know” about the illicit actions of their loved ones, even among the gossip of the neighbors about new clothes, or new cars, or new friends and habits. We are not so far, then, from the psychological conundrum made famous by Hitler’s Third Reich, in which the question arises: “how much did you know?” If Mexico becomes a society of victims, in which communities acknowledge crimes only after funerals, or after trials without defendants, the criminals gain.

Dostoevsky’s narrator paints, in his verbal portrait of the criminal facing execution and justice, the aura of the criminal’s power: “[He]knows and sees and understands everything.” He tastes reconciliation in the kissing of the cross with the mouth of a trapped animal, yet feels in the vengeance of the state that looms over him (the guillotine, in this case) the bubbling of his own sovereign rule, the complicity in evil of a society that the criminal is said to fancy anĚý “accessory,” like a crown.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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The post The New General Victims’ Law in Mexico: Stories and Silences appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

Each bullet hole on the downtown AsunciĂłn, Paraguay light posts tells a story. Some of them are from civil wars decades ago, some from successful and unsuccessful coups, others from police crackdowns. The size of the hole, the angle of the ricochet, all tell of an escape, a death, another dictator in the palace by the river.

On June 22 of this year, a new tyrant entered the government palace. The right-wing Federico Franco became president in what has been deemed a parliamentary coup against democratically-elected, left-leaning President Fernando Lugo.

What lies behind today’s headlines, political fights and struggles for justice in Paraguay is a conflict over access to land; land is power and money for the elites, survival and dignity for the poor, and has been at the center of major political and social battles in Paraguay for decades. In order to understand the crisis in post-coup Paraguay it’s necessary to grasp the political weight of the nation’s soil. Here, a look at the history of Paraguay’s resource war for land, the events leading up to the coup, and the story of one farming community’s resistance places land at the heart of the nation’s current crisis.

The Coup and the Land

Hope surrounded the electoral victory of Fernando Lugo in 2008, a victory which ended the right wing Colorado Party’s 61 year dominance of Paraguayan politics. It was a victory against the injustice and nightmare of the Alfredo Stroessner dictatorship (1954-1989), and a new addition to the region’s left-leaning governments. The election of Lugo, a former bishop and adherent to liberation theology, was due in large part to grassroots support from the campesino (small farmer) sector and Lugo’s promise of long-overdue land reform.

Yet Lugo was isolated politically from the very beginning. He needed to ally with the right to win the election; his Vice President Federico Franco is a leader in the right wing Liberal Party and was a vocal opponent of Lugo since shortly after Lugo came to power. Throughout Lugo’s time in office the Colorado Party maintained a majority in Congress and there were various right wing attempts to impeach the “Red Bishop.” Such challenges have impeded Lugo’s progress and created a political and media environment dominated by near-constant attacks and criticism toward Lugo.

Fernando Lugo

At the same time, Lugo was no friend of the campesino sector that helped bring him into power. His administration regularly called for theĚýĚýof the country’s campesino movements. He was therefore isolated from above at the political level, and lacked a strong political base below due to his stance toward social movements and the slow pace of land reform. None the less, many leftist and campesino sectors still saw Lugo as a relative ally and source of hope in the face of the right wing alternative.

The issue that finally tipped the scales toward the June 22 Parliamentary coup against Lugo was a conflict over land. In April of this year, 60 landless campesinosĚýĚýin Curuguaty, in northeastern Paraguay. This land is owned by former Colorado Senator Blas N. Riquelme, one of the richest people and largest landowners in the country. ĚýIn 1969, the Stroessner administration illegally gave Riquelme 50,000 hectares of land that was supposed to be destined to poor farmers as a part of land reform. Since the return to democracy in 1989, campesinos have been struggling to gain access to this land. The April occupation of land was one such attempt. On June 15, security forces arrived in Curuguaty to evict the landless settlement. The subsequent confrontation during the eviction (the specific details of which are stillĚý) led to the death of 17 people, including 11 campesinos and 6 police officers. Eighty people were wounded.

The right blamed Lugo for the bloody events at Curuguaty, an accusation which was unfounded, but served as fodder for the ongoing political attacks against the president. In response to critics,ĚýĚýhis Interior Minister with Colorado Party member Candia Amarilla, a former State Prosecutor known for his criminalization of leftist social and campesino groups, and who was trained in Colombia to export Plan Colombia-style policies to Paraguay. Lugo also made the Police Commissioner Moran Arnaldo Sanabria (who was in charge of the Curuguaty operation) the National Director of Police.

In this way, Lugo handed over the state’s main security and repressive powers to the Colorado Party. The move was an an effort to avoid impeachment from the right,Ěý; the Liberal Party opposed Lugo’s replacements and, empowered by the criticisms leveled against Lugo’s handling of Curuguaty, collaborated with the Colorado Party and other right wing parties in Congress to move forward with the impeachment.

The backdrop to this political fight is a struggle over how to control, use and distribute Paraguay’s vast land. Approximately 2% of landowners control 80% of Paraguay’s land, and some 87,000 farming families are landless. While Lugo failed to meet many of his campaign promises to the campesino sector, he did in fact work to block many of the right’s policies that would worsen the crisis in the countryside. For example, Lugo and his cabinet resisted the use of Monsanto’s transgenic cotton seeds in Paraguay, a move that likelyĚý. Yet even before Lugo was elected, political alliances and victories were shaped by the question of land. Multinational agro-industrial corporations are fully entrenched in Paraguayan politics, and their fundamental enemies in this resource war have always been the Paraguayan campesino.

A Sea of Soy

For decades small farmers in Paraguay have been tormented by a tidal wave of GMO soy crops and pesticides expanding across the countryside. Paraguay is the fourth largest producer of soy in the world, andĚýĚý40 percent of Paraguayan exports and 10 percent of the country’s GDP. ĚýĚýtwenty million liters of agrochemicals are sprayed across Paraguay each year, poisoning the people, water, farmland and livestock that come in its path.

Managing the gargantuan agro-industry are transnational seed, agricultural and agro-chemical companies including Monsanto, Pioneer, Syngenta, Dupont, Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), and Bunge. International financial institutions and development banks have promoted and bankrolled the agro-export business of monoculture crops—much of Paraguayan soy goes to feed animals in Europe. The profits have united political and corporate entities from Brazil, the US, and Paraguay, and increased the importance of Paraguay’s cooperation with international businesses.

Since the 1980s, national military and paramilitary groups connected to large agribusinesses and landowners have evicted almost 100,000 small farmers from their homes and fields and forced the relocation of countless indigenous communities in favor of soy fields. While more than a hundred campesino leaders have been assassinated in this time, only one of the cases was investigated with results leading to the conviction of the killer. In the same period, more than two thousand other campesinos have faced trumped-up charges for their resistance to the soy industry. The vast majority of Paraguayan farmers have been poisoned off their land either intentionally or as a side effect of the hazardous pesticides dumped by soy cultivation in Paraguay every year.Ěý, as farmers saw their animals dying, crops withering, families sickening, and wells contaminated, most packed up and moved to the city.

The havoc wreaked by agro-industries has created some of the most grave human rights violations since Stroessner’s reign.A report produced by the Committee of Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights of the United Nations stated that “the expansion of the cultivation of soy has brought with it the indiscriminate use of toxic pesticides, provoking death and sickness in children and adults, contamination of water, disappearance of ecosystems, and damage to the traditional nutritional resources of the communities.”

The expansion of the soy industry has occurred in tandem with violent oppression of small farmers and indigenous communities who occupy the vast land holdings of the wealthy. Most rural Paraguayans cultivate diverse subsistence crops on small plots of ten to twenty hectares, but do not have titles to their land nor do they typically receive assistance from the state. The Paraguayan government has historically represented the soy growers in this conflict by using the police and judicial system to punish campesino leaders.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.Ěý

*[This article was originially published by on July 16, 2012].

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