Portside

Vijay Prashad on Venezuela, Vietnam's New President, UK: Labour Party Meets, Pan-Africanism Conference in Ghana, Murder Wave in Colombia, Breakthrough for Québec Solidaire, Euro Left Seminar

Indigenous Andean Women, Lula Renounces, Modi's Crackdown, Swedish Election, Nazis on the Street; Basra Uprising

German "Movement of Movements", Bengladeshi Students Protest, Disabled Unite in UK, Colombian Contender, Class in China

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.

In northeastern Colombia, corruption, climate change and coal mining have collided to unleash a fatal drought.

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.

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.