Sunday, September 27, 2015

The Year's Most Underreported Story--The End of The Colombian Civil War

++Off radar,the Colombian government and FARC have been negotiating the end of the civil war since 2012.  The swag began in 1948 and was said to radicalize Fidel Castro. It ignited again in 1964 and has been going on ever since. 220,000 civilians have been killed and countless displaced. 

++If you wanted a political problem with very long odds of being solved, this one is it. A war that began before I was born now looks like it is ending.

++The date for the final signing of the peace agreement is March 23,2016. FARC would lay down its arms within 60 days. 

++What is unique in this peace agreement is the attempt to do justice to the victims and to have a humane method of dealing with those culpable in the fighting. A side benefit will be a sweeping land reform,thew curtailment of the drug trade and the incorporation of the guerrillas into the politics process with guarantees of legal protection.

++The unique contribution of this agreement may be the "Special Jurisdiction for Peace", which calls for obtaining the "truth" for the Colombian Society,reparations for the victims,legal security for  those who directly or indirectly participated in armed struggle.

++The agreement calls for a special court to be created within the justice system to "Judge" those who come forward and admit their culpability. These people,after telling the truth for the record, would be sentenced to supervised work, not prison for three to five years.

++Everything has been agreed to except for the timing of the disarmament and demobilization of the guerrilla army. So far the talks are way ahead of schedule.

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