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American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

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Colombia: The FARC’s new year “make hay with the UN while the sun shines” party UPDATED

The FARC got everything they asked for in the US-Cuba-Vatican-sponsored “peace talks” with the Santos administration, so the New Year’s Eve party was a big shindig. Even the UN peacekeepers joined in the dancing.

As you may recall, the agreement was fast-tracked on time for Santo’s Nobel Peace Prize ceremony.

The FARC’s New Year’s Eve celebration is narrated in emotional, dulcet tones,

U.N. staff in hot water for dancing with Colombian rebels

The U.N. mission in a statement late Monday said it would take appropriate measures.

“This behavior is inappropriate and doesn’t reflect the values of professionalism and impartiality of the mission,” it said without identifying the officials by name or nationality.

Emphasis added:

The U.N. mission is charged with receiving the weapons and providing periodic reports on the two sides’ adherence to the peace deal that seeks to bring to an end decades of bloody fighting

The same video, questioning the peacekeepers’ neutrality,

“Allegations of recruiting and prostitution in ZVTN [Zonas Veredales Transitorias de Normalización, or Transitional Pathway Normalization Zones]. How is the UN supposed to verify the allegations if it’s partying with the FARC? Neutral?”

In other reports, FARC Violate Demobilization Terms in New Year’s Bash

According to the report, some guerrillas also received visits from their relatives, including minors, which according to the agreement is prohibited. The Colombian government appeared to overlook the irregularities in the year end festivities, which featured one particularly poignant reunion of a child who had not seen his parents (both FARC soldiers) in more than two years.The party featured a barbecue, music, and even a beer, which is also technically prohibited, but was also overlooked in the spirit of the Holiday Season. To ring in the New Year, guerrillas turned in their rifles and camouflage fatigues for civilian clothes and makeovers, including manicures and new hairstyles.

Hey, I’m all for good grooming, but the terms of the agreement are foremost.

To add to the festivities, a FARC’s Frente 34 commander was touting “peace with social justice,” as reported in El Espectador.

InSight Crime reminds us about the world’s largest Communist narco-terrorist group,

The FARC are the oldest and most important guerrilla group in the Western Hemisphere. They have long financed their political and military battle against the Colombian government through kidnapping, extortion and participating in the drug trade on various levels.

Today Jay Nordlinger started a series, Colombian Plans. Here is Part 1.

Related:
Alvaro Uribe wrote about the three popes he’s met (prior post here):



UPDATE

Obama Could Pardon Extradited FARC Leader as Part of Peace Deal. Santos had previously denied agreeing to Simón Trinidad’s release, but four years ago I had posted about a possible release:

As such, it appears President Santos has been applying pressure on Washington to release the terrorist Trinidad to appease the FARC in hopes of making progress during their so-called “peace talks,” which in the past only served to embolden the terrorist group.

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Colombia: 5,000 FARC to be released from jail

Colombia approves amnesty for FARC combatants. Move will benefit estimated 5,000 former guerrillas, many in jail for political crimes

Colombia’s Congress on Wednesday took a major step forward in the country’s peace process when it approved an amnesty for former combatants of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The new law provides legal guarantees for around 5,000 ex-fighters from the guerrilla group, who will now move to holding areas from where they will start to make the transition to civilian life.

Alvaro Uribe tweets that drug trafficking will go unpunished as it falls under “political crimes:”


Additionally,

The law is seen as the key that will allow the 52-year-old guerrilla group to begin full-scale demobilization. Those accused of serious crimes, however, will have to go before a special tribunal. Even so, they will also have access to reduced sentences that will include “confinement” but not prison time.

Related:
Colombia child soldiers reluctant to leave FARC ‘family’ – rebel commander (emphasis added),

Victoria Sandino, a commander with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), has a seat at the negotiating table where the government and FARC are working to revive a peace accord signed by both sides but narrowly rejected by voters in a referendum earlier this month.

She said children are wary about leaving rebel ranks.

“They don’t want to leave the organization,” Sandino told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a telephone interview from Cuba where peace negotiators are gathered.

“One of the reasons they are telling us this is: ‘Well you protected us here during the fighting and the entire period of the war.”

“And now that there’s no fighting, we are expected to leave … the environment we know, the people we know, and our family because the FARC organization is a big family for all of us,” she said.

A big enslaved family, at that. Sandino stated “there are no more combatants under age 15” after the FARC released all of eight child soldiers last September.

A number that I consider as believable as the FARC’s happy family.

Post re-edited to add missing HTML.

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Colombia: Santos-Francis-Uribe meeting UPDATED

Last Friday Juan Manuel Santos and Alvaro Uribe met at the Vatican with Pope Francis to discuss the so-called peace agreement with the FARC.

“The Santos and Uribe boys, please go to the principal’s office”

It was part of Santos’s Nobel Peace Prize Victory Tour™, which so far includes pressuring the Spanish government to censor advertising billboards.

The WSJ reports,

Pope Francis Tries to Mend Colombian Rift Over Peace Accord With FARC. Pontiff holds meeting with President Juan Manuel Santos and his political rival, Álvaro Uribe (emphasis added)

The pope first held separate private meetings with each of the two men. Then the three met for an encounter in which Mr. Santos and his rival sat side by side across a desk from the pope. The arrangement was unusual because it seemed to suggest equal standing between Mr. Uribe and Mr. Santos, a head of state.

The Holy See said the pontiff “spoke about the ‘culture of encounter’ and emphasized the importance of sincere dialogue between all members of Colombian society at this historical moment.”

But it was clear that Mr. Uribe maintained his tough stance against the accord, which he says amounts to granting impunity by permitting former FARC commanders to hold 10 seats in congress.

Uribe’s correct; the current deal, redrafted on December 1 and fast tracked by the Supreme Court on December 14, legitimizes the FARC and turns it into a political power.

Francis’s spokesman said he won’t go to Colombia until the peace agreement is “bulletproof.”

Uribe spoke to the media after the meeting,

“I summarized to Pope Francis the basic elements on which there are disagreements and told him I hope they are allowed to be changed”

Among the Twitter reactions:

“After talking to Santos // After talking to Uribe”



Post corrected for HTML error.

UPDATE:
Colombian media reports that Santos wanted to discuss the peace agreement with Pope Francis. Pope Francis thought it would be a great idea, and to have Uribe join them. The Vatican sent a plane to fetch Alvaro Uribe, who flew in, attended the meeting, did not give into pressure, and flew back home right away.

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Colombia: Supreme Court “fast tracks” FARC deal

I couldn’t post on this earlier,
Colombia approves fast-track application of peace deal with FARC, granting president Santos special powers,

The peace deal was approved on December 1 by the Congress, which then proposed the fast track measure, also known as the “Special Legislative Procedure for Peace”.

The fast track procedure grants President Juan Manuel Santos, who spearheaded the peace drive, special powers to “facilitate and assure the peace agreements”, the news agency said.

It also calls for shorter or fewer legislative debates to speed up the adoption of the reform.

Former president Uribe points out (link in Spanish) that the Fast Track provision should have only come into effect if the so-called peace agreement was approved by plebiscite, which it wasn’t. He also notes that this ruling establishes a dangerous precedent, as the Supreme Court yields to pressure from both Congress and the FARC.

Santos basks in the afterglow of last week’s Nobel Peace Prize. His government wants Spain to censor billboards.

Cross-posted at WoW! Magazine.

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Colombia: Santos rides his Nobel Prize

He got what he was after, and now he’s free to ignore the will of the electorate:
Colombia’s President Hopes Nobel Prize Momentum Pushes Peace Deal to Finish Line

After four years of negotiations, Mr. Santos won congressional approval for the pact with the rebels last month, just weeks after voters narrowly rejected an earlier version in a plebiscite. But to fully implement a pact that gives the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, seats in congress in exchange for disarming requires constitutional reforms that must be debated and voted on by lawmakers.

That promises to take months amid stiff opposition from a former president turned senator, Álvaro Uribe, who argues that the government is selling out to a group many consider a terrorist organization.

“This is total impunity,” Mr. Uribe said in a speech Friday from Washington, where he was lobbying against the pact.

Mr. Santos said the award has given him momentum to end the Western Hemisphere’s last major conflict, an effort he called “a ray of hope” for other war-torn countries in the world.
. . .
The president could receive another boost on Monday if Colombia’s Constitutional Court gives his government “fast track” powers to quickly approve vital reforms that are in the pact. That would ease implementation of the peace deal, which calls for the FARC to convert to a political party and for the government to create a special tribunal to investigate war atrocities.

Santos gave an interview in Oslo, after which Uribe sent a press release,

Article at The Economist:

The president had promised time and again that Colombian voters would have the last say in any agreement with the FARC. But after his defeat at the polls in October, Mr Santos was forced to choose between unpalatable options. Putting the updated terms to a new referendum risked a devastating second rejection. Instead, he settled for legislative passage. That eliminated the risk of a return to war, but also meant the pact will lack the democratic reinforcement of a formal seal of approval from voters.

Santos lied.

UPDATE:
Peace Agreement? FARC Accused of Violating Ceasefire for Third Time

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Colombia: Uribe in Miami “Colombia could become the next Venezuela”

Alvaro Uribe explained his opposition to the so-called “peace agreement” at a conference in Doral yesterday,

Uribe said that if the accords prevailed without substantive changes they could turn Colombia into another Venezuela, a reference to the government of leftist President Nicolás Maduro, perceived as a friend of Cuba and increasingly undemocratic. Maduro replaced President Hugo Chávez, who established an alliance with Havana, became friendly with FARC and set Venezuela on a path toward socialism.

“This is an agreement that opens up the possibility of Colombia opening the doors to ‘Castro-chavismo,’” Uribe told South Florida Colombians at Mondongo’s restaurant, 3500 NW 87th Ave., Doral. “The accords would resolve the Venezuelan problem, but it would create a similar one in Colombia.”

. . .

Uribe then launched into a detailed explanation of why he opposed the accords.

First, he said, FARC’s promises cannot be trusted because it is not merely a revolutionary group, but a major drug cartel.

“The FARC became the first narco-terrorist cartel in the world and the world’s first cocaine cartel,” Uribe said.

“Days before the referendum, FARC reaffirmed its Marxist-Leninist platform and expressed that the president of Colombia had recognized their insurgency and the accords were a recognition of the triumph they had obtained,” Uribe said.

As a result, he added, FARC cannot be a reliable partner in the peace agreement, one that would foster democracy and economic growth.

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Colombia says No the FARC

Yesterday the people of Colombia rejected the so-called peace accord that would have placed 10 unelected members of the Marxist narco-terrorist organization in Congress, after granting amnesty for their war crimes.

Here’s a roundup:
WSJ Colombian Voters Reject Peace Deal With FARC Rebels. Narrow dismissal of accord with FARC is a blow to President Santos, thrusting nation into uncertainty. Like in Brexit,

The results mark another instance of voters rejecting counsel from their government and the establishment, after the U.K. vote to leave the European Union in June.
. . .
With 99.9% of votes counted in Sunday’s plebiscite, “No” votes—totaling more than 6.4 million—outnumbered “Yes” votes by fewer than 54,000.

Instapundit’s Austin Bay:

COLOMBIANS REJECT PEACE DEAL: Polls projected a narrow victory for the peace agreement. The result was a narrow defeat. Former president Alvaro Uribe was against it. He argued rebel leaders would be treated too leniently.

Business Insider:

The geographical breakdown of the voting posted online by Colombian electoral authorities indicated that much of the country’s western, southeastern, eastern, and northern regions — areas where the FARC has been more active — voted in support of the peace plan. That contrasted with the country’s center, which leaned toward “No.”

The BBC has a map of the vote.

Capitol Hill Cubans: Lesson of the Day: For Colombians (and Cubans), Justice Prevails Over Impunity

NYT: Colombia Peace Deal Is Defeated, Leaving a Nation in Shock

Jazz Shaw: Failure of FARC peace deal vote leaves Colombia in flux

Javier Lafuente for El País (Spain): Shock as voters in Colombia reject FARC peace dealDeep distrust of the guerrilla group and a high abstention rate were key in the surprise result

Polls had predicted solid backing for the ‘yes’ camp in a country exhausted by decades of war, but an abstention rate of more than 60% in the plebiscite made a mockery of those predictions. Massive levels of distrust in the guerrilla group also played a major factor in the outcome.

While talking about distrust on one hand on the other hand, Lafuente opines (emphasis added),

The failure of the ‘yes’ camp to carry the day also shines a light on the lack of leadership in the Colombian political landscape where there is a desperate need to tackle chronic cronyism. Uribe’s Democratic Center was the big winner of Sunday while President Santos was the big loser after calling a plebiscite that he never needed to hold.

Lafuente ignores the fact that one of the reasons for distrust was Santos’s backtracking on the referendum.

The polls may have predicted it, but, like in Brexit, there appears to have been some of the Bradley effect,

The Bradley effect (less commonly the Wilder effect)[1][2] is a theory concerning observed discrepancies between voter opinion polls and election outcomes in some United States government elections where a white candidate and a non-white candidate run against each other.[3][4][5] The theory proposes that some voters who intend to vote for the white candidate would nonetheless tell pollsters that they are undecided or likely to vote for the non-white candidate. It was named after Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, an African-American who lost the 1982 California governor’s race despite being ahead in voter polls going into the elections.[6]

El Nuevo Herald: Colombia no olvida: Se impone el rechazo al acuerdo de paz con las FARC

Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo:

“It’s a very simple formula: Vote against anything that the Castros support, vote against anything the Castros believe in.”

Carlos Alberto Montaner:

“Defeated by the Colombian NO: FARC, Santos, Raúl Castro, Maduro, Bachelet, John Kerry, pope Francis, Ban Ki-moon, King Juan Carlos.”

Last, but not least, Uribe’s speech following the results,



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