The failure of Colombia’s peace forces to unite in that country’s June 17 Presidential election could ensure the election of far-rightist candidate Ivan Duque and scuttle the fragile peace agreement that ended the more than 50 year civil war.
October 2, when the peace accords were defeated in a referendum, should not be remembered solely as the day in which dreams of a peaceful Colombia were deferred. Although absent the implementation of the peace accord, participatory action will remain largely confined to the local and regional level, the resiliency of Colombian social life in the face of violence will still help to define a new Colombian democracy.
The simple yes-or-no choice presented by the October 2 referendum does not take into account how the accord will be implemented and the profound divisions that exist after decades of civil war, militarization and politically motivated violence, and is a historic achievement. Nowhere is the resistance to any agreement with FARC more visible or vocal than in the rightwing political movement founded and led by Sen. Alvaro Uribe Vélez, Colombia's former president.
Led by executive producer and director José Padilha (2014's RoboCop), the series tracks the rise and fall of "King of Cocaine" Pablo Escobar, and the bloody drug war between the American Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Colombia’s notorious Medellín Cartel. A well-crafted blend of The Wire and Goodfellas, Narcos takes an unflinching look at one of the War on Drugs’ single most violent conflicts.
Heidi Andrea Restrepo Rhodes
Matter: A (somewhat) monthly journal
This poem references the violence of enforced disappearance and forced displacement that is rampant in Colombia. Colombia has over 50,000 reported disappearances, and about 5 million internally displaced.
The AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center’s Colombia representative still adheres to the old policy of taming Colombia’s radical unions and encouraging them to follow the AFL-CIO’s business unionism approach.
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