
Colombia’s Milestone in World Peace - JBReefer
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/26/opinion/colombias-milestone-in-world-peace.html
======
desiderantes
I'm really saddened to see such uninformed comments here, regarding Colombia's
situation. I am victim of FARC's wrongdoing, i've lost family members, peace
and a place to live to them. I've also suffered similar damages from
paramilitar actors here in the Caribbean coast. A peace agreement kills FARC
legitimacy and their international position. If they «agree» to stop their
actions, you'll see a bunch of former supporters (like those insane danish
supporters) moving to the mainstream left of this country, Polo Democrático,
who've failed to distance themselves from Venezuela, and indirectly, from FARC
(just like the right wing, which is deeply entangled with paramilitarism).
People who live away from the war zones are most ikely to support the NO,
after all, it's not their kids, brothers and fathers whose lives are being
sacrficed. People living in war zones just want it to stop. Seriously. Uribe
moved the conflict to rural and underdeveloped areas of this country, so peope
living on the big cities (Bogotá, Medellín, Cali, etc.) do not see the big
influence of FARC's actions, they live instead under the horror of ex-
paramilitar criminal bands, same who signed a peace agreement with Uribe. So
it comes to me as a surprise how the least affected by the war, and the ones
getting a huge slice of the paramilitar violence, are the ones voting for NO
(Antioquia is understandable, Uribe is like a god there). I support the peace
agreement, but i see concerning flaws in its current form. I am, however, no
FARC apologist, and honestly a part of me would like to personally kill some
of them, but we need to move forward, end this part of the conflict, and when
we move the criminals away from a ideological umbrella, we can see and stop
them as they are, criminals who do not give a FUCK about left or right, and
i'm damn sure we'll see a chunk of guerilleros forming armed bands, so it's
far from over. But this is the first step, and it needs to be done.

~~~
santiagogo
I agree, as a Colombian I think the most important part about the peace
agreement is that it will delegitimize the position for using weapons in
politics, which has become a long tradition in our country. It is also a huge
step for a country that has solved it's political differences historically by
killing the other party, that we have now had the capability of negotiating
for 5 years under a truce, and that the right wing government is willing to
accept political participation from the guerilla, and to entertain ultra
leftist policies under a new bipartisan congress, and that it is recognizing
that there is a huge social gap and inequality which led to the formation of
the guerrilla in the first place, which should be fixed.

Unfortunately violence probably will not end instantly, since the drug trade
will continue to be a big business, and that a part of the trained militias
will not be able to readjust to normal civilian life once the peace is signed.
But at least criminals and narcos will not be shielded under a political left
wing speech and be united under a flag, which will eventually lead to violence
ending.

I am completely confident that the Colombians will vote Yes for the peace
process, and that the implementation will be successful. Some very big war
criminals will probably walk away scot-free, but the huge overall benefit for
the entire country will far outweigh the short term injustice.

Expect a lot of big startups coming out of Colombia and some very interesting
investment possibilities, since the peace agrement shows confidence in the
Colombian institutions and constitution, which will lead to a booming middle
class in a 50 million person country which has a lot of space to grow in since
it has been historically been overlooked because of the security issues.

~~~
baristaGeek
Excelent arguments santiagogo.

We're already becoming LatAm's most important tech hub. Rappi (YC W16) became
the first Andreessen Horowitz investment in LatAm. Authy (YC S12) was acquired
by Twilio (first time a big Silicon Valley company acquires a colombian one).
.CO was acquired by Neustar. There are other startups doing really well such
as Platzi (YC W15) and Torre (formerly Bunny Inc).

~~~
santiagogo
Yep, Rappi is proving that there is a very big untapped market. Authy, Platzi,
Torre and .CO etc have already proved that there is top talent.

We just need investor confidence for more capital to reach the country and
more startups to launch.

Disclaimer: I was an early employee at .CO and am good friends with the Authy,
Platzi and Torre founders.

------
owly
Dear my dead friends in Sarajevo, Europe has enjoyed 7 decades of peace. NYT
told me, so it must be true. Kiza and Lana, you must've faked your deaths
along with many of your friends based on the brilliant minds at the NYT.
Please come home. Love always...

~~~
phreeza
Do you count the states of former yugoslavia as western europe? I would
suspect that the author just doesn't, and thats why they wrote what they did.

------
cgriswald
Official war is over, but there are still all kinds of violence; and where
there is not violence there is the subjugation by threat of violence. Much of
this has to do with US policy w.r.t. the Americas for the last ~200 years and
more recently the War on Drugs.

Defining "peace" as a lack of official war is utter nonsense.

We only have to look south across a single border to see a country very much
at war.

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jedmeyers
Yeah, last "war" ended since no one declare wars anymore. Just look at Russian
annexation of Crimea with the armed forces of "noname" country.

~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
FYI, Crimea's not in the western hemisphere.

~~~
daveslash
I think jedmeyers' point was that it's possible to have conflicts without it
officially being designated a war - and he/she was holding Crimea as an
example of such. There's still rebel paramilitaries in Southern Mexico who
have declared war against the state (e.g. Zapatista Army of National
Liberation) - but it's not "officially" a war (whatever that means)

[edit] gender pronoun

~~~
joyinsky
No. The EZLN (Zapatista Army) surrendered in 1994 and in 1996 there was signed
a Peace Accord with them.

The conflict in Colombia isn't ended yet though, the ELN hasn't signed the
cease-fire.

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joyinsky
The conflict in Colombia isn't ended yet, the ELN hasn't signed the cease-
fire.

~~~
baristaGeek
Yup. But FARC is 30,000 people and ELN is 1,500. This agreement will probably
serve as a framework to negotiate with this smaller group.

------
oblio
The Cold War is the gift that keeps on giving. Many of our current worries
(ISIS, for example) are things frozen in time by the appropriately called Cold
War.

Maybe some day within my lifetime North Korea will stop being a dictatorship..

~~~
dragonwriter
> Many of our current worries (ISIS, for example) are things frozen in time by
> the appropriately called Cold War.

The entity calling itself "The Islamic State" \-- ISIS is an acronym for one
English translation of its _previous_ name for itself -- isn't "frozen in
time" by the Cold War (you can certainly argue that a number of aspects of the
Cold War formed important historical bases for its development, but the
proximate trigger for it developing from al-Qaeda in Iraq into the Islamic
State in Iraq (and then Iraq and the Levant -- or "Iraq and Syria" to much of
the US news media, etc.) comes from the US invasion of occupation of Iraq,
which was sort of the culmination of more than a decade of post-Cold War US-
Iraq conflict and confrontation.

~~~
int_19h
And yet it is indirectly tied - it was CIA support for the more radicalized
mujaheddin factions in Afghanistan (which in turn was caused by listening to
and trusting Pakistani ISI advice too much) that produced Taliban later, and
indirectly accelerated the creation of al-Qaeda. Remember this?

[https://imgur.com/CRaBPOx](https://imgur.com/CRaBPOx)

~~~
dragonwriter
That's a really indirect tie, because the group that became al-Qaeda in Iraq
(and later the Islamic State in Iraq, etc.) was an unrelated homegrown Iraqi
Islamist group that only adopted the al-Qaeda brand temporarily after al-Qaeda
became the dominant public face of anti-American Islamic extremism in the wake
of 9/11, dumping that branding as soon as they had their own local success and
didn't need the al-Qaeda brand for increased visibility.

~~~
int_19h
Not the same people, obviously. The tie here is the continuation of the same
ideology. And while the ideology predates Cold War (Wahhabi, Deobandi, and
even Qutb, from whom most of modern extreme Salafi directly derive), its quick
proliferation is largely due to outside assistance in proxy wars.

------
simonmd
Read the final agreement (if you dare and don't vomit easily): \- Those
responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity will NOT go to jail, in
a blatant violation of the Rome statute. \- Despite earning BILLIONS from drug
trafficking, they will not issue any reparations to the victims, instead,
ordinary colombians will be taxed for that purpose. \- They will be GIVEN
between 10-30% of control of the senate. No election necessary. \- They will
be GIVEN 26 regions where there will be no state presence. Coincidentally in
every strategic drug corridor. \- They will not return the recruited minors.
\- They will participate in the creation of a "super-tribunal" with absolute
legal powers, even over cases that have been sentenced and closed.

This is not an agreement, it is the surrender of a state and should be an
international disgrace. In a real country this would constitute high treason.

[https://www.mesadeconversaciones.com.co/sites/default/files/...](https://www.mesadeconversaciones.com.co/sites/default/files/24_08_2016acuerdofinalfinalfinal-1472094587.pdf)

~~~
mc32
I think this is the pragmatic approach vs an ideological approach. What would
the cost be if the peace were not agreed upon? More kidnappings, more drugs,
more innocent deaths, etc. Or you could try and continue the stalemate for
another 30 years and vindicate justice.

At some point you have to cut your losses and consider sunken costs. It's not
easy. Lots of people will be displeased, but in the end it might be the best
outcome for their society.

~~~
simonmd
There was no 'stalemate'. FARC in 2010 were 5000 strong, taking heavy losses
and on the run. Then came Santos, who obsessed over winning international
recognition that has eluded him at home, legitimized FARC, gave them an
international stage and set in motion a 6 year 'peace process' that has left
FARC in congress and senate, with all their crimes whitewashed, and with our
already weak justice system mortally wounded.

------
doozy
I'm living in Colombia, and my perception is most people want the agreement
rejected and the President impeached.

There's going to be a referendum on the agreement, and in spite of the
government being heavily campaigning for it, odds are voters will side against
it.

If they don't I'm out of here. This will become Venezuela 2.0.

~~~
pastProlog
Doozy admits the truth you won't see in the US corporate media. The Colombian
bourgeoisie does not want peace. It's why they murdered Gaitán. It's why when
the left unilaterally put down the gun in the mid 1980s and ran for office,
they had right wing death squads, the AUC etc. kill off the candidates,
campaign workers etc.

They want to run things with the army, with the US army and billions coming in
from Plan Colombia etc. They don't want to let people vote or campaign, they'd
prefer the FARC control a few departments in the south and they rule by force
in the rest of the country.

Thanks for making things clear. You don't see this kind of clarity in the US,
where liberals say FARC wants violence and other nonsense.

~~~
doozy
Actually the peace process of the M19/UP of the 1980s is a chilling precedent
of what will happen in Colombia if this agreement goes on: The government may
grant immunity to the FARC, but their victims will not forget nor forgive.

Peace with impunity will mean more war, as the victims of the kidnapping,
racketeering and murdering (or their surviving relatives) will want their
revenge, just as they did after the government forgave M19's crimes.

In the (unlikely) case this agreement is approved, it wouldn't surprise me if
it leads to a coup. And that's a rare thing in Colombia, one of the oldest
democracies in the world and a country where the last coup attempt took place
in the 19th century.

~~~
throwaway1953
Have you heard of Rojas Pinilla? He led the last successful military coup in
1953.(not 19th century like you implied) If not I'm sure you are at least
aware of his grandson Samuel Moreno and his infamous "carrusel de las
contrataciones"

You come across as one of those well-to-do Colombians who had the privilege of
avoiding the draft through the purchase of a libreta militar, am I right? You
don't want this war to end but you sure as heck won't risk your own neck to
fight against the enemy that you so viciously despise. Let other Colombians
from less affluent families keep fighting your war while you get your passport
and your VISA ready to jump ship if things get a little too hairy for you.

------
skylan_q
Official wars between geographic factions and nations coming to an end in the
west.

Fourth generation warfare only starting.

------
zpallin
War on drugs hasn't ended.

------
afarrell
Isn't El Salvador in the middle of a war?

~~~
zhemao
No their civil war ended long ago. But they do still have a lot of violence
caused by gangs like Mara Salvatrucha (MS13) and the armed vigilante groups
that hunt them.

~~~
afarrell
Right, isn't that gang violence enough of a war that the US is getting
refugees?

~~~
zhemao
MS13 was started by Salvadoran prisoners deported from the US, so I guess the
whole thing is coming full circle.

I suppose it depends on what where you draw the line between violent crime and
civil war. Usually when we think of war, we think of the combatants having
clear political goals. As in they are trying to take or hold onto territory or
political power. I'm not sure MS13 has any such goals.

I could see how the level of violence would be about the same as that of a
war, but for various reasons we don't call it such.

------
Ericson2314
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Hemisphere](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Hemisphere)
better stick to "the Americas"

~~~
seliopou
A good old friend of mine just linked me directly to this comment, and with
good reason. Somewhere around the years 2005-7 I was involved in a light edit
war with a Dutch gentleman that rewrote this page to wipe away all reference
to the Western Hemisphere as a geopolitical term. Rather than taking into
account its historical usage, and _current_ usage in various fields, he
instead approached the term on purely etymological, and consequently
mathematical, basis. Western? Surely the part to the left. Hemisphere? That
can only mean exactly half. I spent a good amount of time in the library
researching this. Old books with old maps from rare collections, simple google
searches, and more casual physical references. None really really backed up
the etymological definition. I made a few attempts to edit, but eventually
gave up. Mostly, because it seemed so pointless. The information out there (as
opposed to online) was so apparently and plentiful, it felt like I was to
argue that the sky is blue. So I let it be.

A decade later, and the results still stand. A bland, technical page with with
a tabulation of the countries Within, Without and Somewhere In Between the two
Sets dominating the page.

~~~
nol13
Well he is technically correct, the best kind of correct!

~~~
Nimitz14
TIL Germany is not part of the Western Hemisphere.

------
S_Daedalus
Thank goodness, now it's just a bunch of "local conflicts" and "police
actions".

But no "war".

Safe! /s

