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Photo: Government and FARC negotiators finalize details of the Peace Accords where the Ethnic Chapter will be included

After four and a half years of preliminary and formal negotiations and 52 years of war, the Colombian state and FARC guerillas have concluded their peace negotiations and finalized the Peace Accords.

This moment is certainly historic and will mark the first experience of official peace ever experienced by many Colombians. And while we celebrate an end to the fighting between the Colombian state and FARC guerrillas, we also know that the months and years to come will be deeply challenging as real peace is hopefully established for the many sides of Colombian society, not just these two sides of the armed conflict.

CRLN first heard about the finality of the Accords on Tuesday, August 23rd, when our partners at Black Communities’ Process (PCN, their acronym in Spanish) alerted us that the agreements would be signed without the inclusion of an ‘Ethnic Chapter’. For years, African descendant and Indigenous communities have been fighting for a place at the negotiating tables and have organized themselves into an Ethnic Commission constituted by the National Afro-Colombian Peace Council (CONPA), the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC), and the High Government of Indigenous Authorities.

The Ethnic Commission is crucial to a successful and sustainable peace, because much of the peace process concerns rural land that is ancestral territory to the disproportionately African descendant and Indigenous survivors of displacement and violence.

The Ethnic Commission drafted an in-depth ‘Ethnic Chapter’ for the negotiating parties to include in their final accords that would help guarantee successful implementation of the accords in many rural, Indigenous and African-descendant territories. This Ethnic Chapter represents the concerns of organized communities most affected by the violence of the conflict and will help ensure that this final agreement complies with international and Colombian law and anti-racism agreements.

When the Ethnic Commission called for action on Tuesday morning, CRLN and coalition partners across the country responded with as much pressure as possible on Colombian and U.S. officials to include the Ethnic Chapter in the final accord language. Black and Indigenous leaders flew to Havana late Tuesday night and Wednesday morning to negotiate the final version of the Ethnic Chapter. Late on Wednesday night, August 24th, we heard from Colombian partners that the ethnic chapter was included, albeit reduced from nine pages to four, in the official Colombian Peace Accords.

Due to consistent pressure, solidarity work and on the ground mobilizations by African descendant and Indigenous peoples, the Ethnic Commission has helped shape what peace will look like in their territories for the mostly Black and Indigenous survivors of violence, most of whom are women.

At CRLN, we will continue working in coalition with national and international allies until true peace is achieved in Colombia. We will continue monitoring the situation as the accords move through a plebiscite vote by the Colombian people. We’ll continue following the lead of our partners in Colombia’s Ethnic Commission, who will be monitoring the implementation of the Accords, ensuring that the Colombian state integrate the Ethnic Commission’s recommendations for peace in their communities.

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Photo: Jesús Abad Colardo / archive SEMANA

CRLN, along with many in the international community and our partners in Colombia, is surprised and saddened by this weekend’s NO vote on Colombia’s proposed Peace Accords. The final count came down to 50.21 percent ‘NO’ and 49.78 ‘YES’, a difference of 53,894 votes. The turnout was 37 percent, out of 34 million eligible voters.

 

The motivations of NO voters are myriad and complicated, some not knowing what was actually in the accords, some feeling excluded from the peace process, some seeing the Colombian state giving too many concessions to FARC guerillas, especially voters in FARC strongholds. Meanwhile, in areas where the worst massacres of the war were committed, like Bojayá, 96% of the voters cast their ballots for ‘YES’. Likewise, in regions with the most intensive ongoing conflict, the majority of people voted in favor of the Peace Accords.

 

The other political split that affected the vote was between President Juan Manuel Santos and former President, now Senator Alvaro Uribe. Uribe was one of the main campaigners against the Peace Accords, some suspecting that his opposition is linked to his history of connections with paramilitary groups and extrajudicial killings by Colombian state security forces during his time in the presidency. (Unlike what you read in most U.S. newspapers, the FARC was not responsible for all of the violence against civilians during the war. Paramilitary groups have been active forces of violence and displacement throughout the war and continue to displace people from their territories, often in the interest of mining and other extractive industries.) Meanwhile, President Santos, who did not campaign as effectively in favor of his Peace Deal, also has one of the lowest approval ratings of any president in Colombia’s modern history.

While we continue to sift through the various reports, we offer a news round up of some of the stories published since Sunday in English and Spanish. We believe that there is still a path toward peace and we will continue working with our partners to achieve that goal. We will also continue working with organized African descendant and Indigenous peoples, who have been disproportionately affected by the violence and displacement and who worked so hard to win the inclusion of the Ethnic Chapter last month.
English, WBEZ: Worldview’s Jerome McDonnel’s Interview with Gimena Sanchez of the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) / Entrevista de Jerome McDonnell de Worldview con Gimena Sanchez de la Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA)

Spanish, BBC: Bojayá, la población donde las FARC cometieron una de sus peores masacres y que votó abrumadoramente por el Sí / Bojayá, the population where the FARC committed one of the worst massacers y and which voted overwhelmingly for Yes

English, NACLA: A Dark Day in Colombia / Un Día Oscuro en Colombia

Video, English / Spanish, MSN: Colombia’s FARC victims campaign for ‘Yes’ vote in peace deal / Víctimas de la FARC en Colombia hacen campaña por ‘Si’ a los Acuerdos en el plebiscito

Spanish, Semana: Las víctimas votaron por el Sí / The victims voted ‘Yes’

English, Latin American Herald Tribune: Colombia’s Santos Gives Peace Negotiator a Vote of Confidence / Santos en Colombia le da al Negociador de Paz un Voto de Confianza

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