Q&A: “Civilians Should Not Suffer the Effects of the Armed Conflict” in Colombia

Indigenous people in the province of Cauca in southwest Colombia want their territory to be free of war, and are organising a protest march to demand that the police and military close down their bases and the guerrillas abandon their camps in the native reservations in the north of this mountainous province.

COLOMBIA: Risky Games Against National Peace Meeting

One of Colombia's most popular national radio stations broadcast the wiretapped telephone conversations of a leader of a regional movement of displaced persons, David Martínez, misreporting that the voices heard were those of "guerrilla ringleaders".

Q&A: “Put Yourself in Our Shoes, Mr. President”

"I repeat: there will be no peace talks without concrete actions. Words are not enough," Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said on a visit to Argentina this week. Earlier, in Chile, he said for the first time since taking office a year ago that he was "willing" to eventually sit down to talks with the guerrillas.

COLOMBIA: Grassroots Rural Movement Unites Behind Call for Peace Talks

"Dialogue is the Path" is the slogan that drew 25,000 people to this northern Colombian oil port city on the Magdalena river that has a history of social struggle. Most of the participants came from remote corners of the country where the brutality of war is experienced in daily life in ways unimagined by city dwellers.

Q&A: “Climate Change Is Affecting Traditional Knowledge”

The traditional knowledge of nature developed since ancestral times by Colombia’s indigenous peoples is increasingly challenged by the unnatural effects of climate change, a phenomenon that is deeply troubling to the keepers of this knowledge, says biologist Brigitte Baptiste.

Climate Change Is Affecting Traditional Knowledge

Colombia has no system for monitoring biodiversity to determine how it could be affected by global warming, Brigitte Baptiste of the Humboldt Institute, a Colombian government institution devoted to biodiversity, reports in this exclusive interview.

RIGHTS-COLOMBIA: Government Apologises for Senator’s Murder

"I accept this apology as a sign of a new time in Colombia, when democratic participation by all political forces will be possible," leftwing legislator Iván Cepeda said – and a ripple ran through the crowd in the packed gallery in Congress.

COLOMBIA: Paramilitaries Dig in to Fight Return of Stolen Land

While President Juan Manuel Santos described his government's land restitution policy as "a veritable revolution" during a speech in northwest Colombia, some 300 far-right paramilitaries were taking up positions less than 100 km from there to fight the effort to return land to small farmers displaced by the violence, human rights activists say.

COLOMBIA: Native Groups Mobilise Against Escalation of War

The powerful Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca (CRIC), in southwest Colombia, has called a "minga" or protest march to "curb the militarisation driven by the army and the FARC," the main guerrilla group, which set off a car bomb on a busy market day in a Nasa Indian town on Jul. 9.

COLOMBIA: Europe Presses for Justice in Wiretapping Case

Colombia's DAS domestic secret police service was under the authority of then president Álvaro Uribe "and it is impossible to think that he didn't know about" the intelligence agency's illegal spying activities, Isabelle Durant, a vice president of the European Parliament, said on a recent visit to this South American country.

COLOMBIA: ‘Matriarch’ Leads Struggle to Recover Stolen Land

"God willing, we will make it" reads the sign on a rusty old all-terrain vehicle, ideal for the complicated drive to the remote Curbaradó river valley in the banana-producing region of Urabá in northwest Colombia.

COLOMBIA: ‘Impunity’ – Keeping the ‘Black Hand’ Anonymous

The film "Impunity" has only just now arrived in Colombia, although the filming was completed a year ago and it was first shown to the public in Geneva in January. But the wait was apparently worth it because the documentary contributes key elements to the heated debate on the so-called "black hand" behind many of the atrocities committed in this South American country.

COLOMBIA: Kidnapped in No Man’s Land

"Today we are launching the new campaign for demobilisation in Caguán. Planting seeds of hope against the terror of the FARC," Colombian Defence Minister Rodrigo Rivera recently wrote in his Twitter account.

RIGHTS-COLOMBIA: Murdered Activist’s Children Go into Exile

"They are very distressed. Their father, mother and two brothers have been killed. They have expressed the wish to leave the country," Colombian Vice President Angelino Garzón said after meeting Tuesday with the surviving daughters and son of Ana Fabricia Córdoba, a prominent land rights activist assassinated on Jun. 7.

RIGHTS-COLOMBIA: Putting a Face to the Numbers

"First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a communist; Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a socialist...." The celebrated quote by German anti-Nazi Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller remains frighteningly relevant today in some parts of the world, like Colombia.

Colombia Tests Forage Crops Against Climate Change

Colombia, with 24 million head of cattle, is showcasing two advances towards reducing the 13 percent of climate-changing gas emissions attributed to livestock production around the world.

COLOMBIA: Senator Piedad Cordoba’s Legal Battle

"I am Piedad Córdoba: a feminist, humanist and pacifist."

COLOMBIA: Devastating Blow for FARC Rebels

The death of guerrilla commander Luis Suárez, aka Jorge Briceño or "Mono Jojoy", is a "devastating blow" for Colombia's FARC insurgents, military affairs analyst Ariel Ávila told IPS.

COLOMBIA: The Violent “Agrarian Counter-Reform” Conspiracy

An unknown number of agribusiness owners and public employees at all levels, as well as far-right paramilitaries, have a common link with rural people who have been forced off their farms or killed in Colombia: the land stolen from the latter group in the armed conflict.

COLOMBIA-VENEZUELA: Sea Breeze Helps Restore Relations

"The Santa Marta breeze cools off any conflict, it calms tempers. The city is the ideal place for the Santos-Chávez summit," Colombian journalist Ernesto McCausland wrote on his Twitter blog ahead of Tuesday's meeting, which indeed patched up relations between Venezuela and Colombia.

COLOMBIA: Santos Inherits Country of Economic Contrasts

During the eight years that Álvaro Uribe governed Colombia, annual economic growth averaged 4.3 percent. Nevertheless, President Juan Manuel Santos, who was sworn in on Saturday, has taken over a country with the highest unemployment rate in Latin America.