Entrance to the Hangar Convention Center of the Amazonia in the northeastern Brazilian city of Belém. The climate summit, which began on November 10 and is due to conclude on Friday the 21st, is debating issues such as the phase-out of fossil fuels and adaptation goals. Credit: Emilio Godoy / IPS

By Emilio Godoy
BELÉM, Brazil, Nov 20 2025 (IPS)

The heat in the Hangar Convention Center of the Amazonia, in the northeastern Brazilian city of Belém, has reached the negotiation rooms of the climate summit. Over the past 72 hours, one of the most delicate and significant discussions of this climate meeting has been taking place: the path to progressively abandon the production and use of coal, gas, and oil.

In recent hours, a global coalition of rich and developing countries, led by Colombia, has doubled down on pushing for a fossil fuel phase-out roadmap, while major producer countries resist it.

“The plan must have differentiated commitments, the elimination of fossil fuel subsidies, and the reform of the international financial system, because foreign debt payments are punishing us,” Colombian Environment Minister Irene Vélez explained to IPS.

For the official, the 30th United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP30) on climate change must result in a roadmap. “People are mobilizing, demanding climate action; we have to start now,” she urged.

In Belém, the gateway to the planet’s largest rainforest, it is no longer just about reducing emissions but about transforming the foundation of the energy system, thus acquiring a moral, political, and scientific urgency. What was initially meant to be the “Amazon COP” has mutated into the “end-of-the-fossil-era-COP,” but the roadmap to achieve it is a toss-up.“The plan must have differentiated commitments, the elimination of fossil fuel subsidies, and the reform of the international financial system, because external debt payments are punishing us” –Irene Vélez.

Two years after the world agreed at COP28, held in 2023 in Dubai, to move away from fossil fuels, Belém is the moment of truth, upon which the effort to keep global warming below the 1.5° Celsius limit largely depends—a goal considered vital to avoid devastating and inevitable effects on ecosystems and human life.

Thus, the discussion among the 197 parties to the United Nations climate convention has shifted from the “what” to the “how,” and especially to the “when,” questions that have turned potential coordinates into a geopolitical labyrinth.

In that vein, a coalition of over 80 countries emerged on Tuesday the 18th to push the roadmap, including Colombia, Chile, Guatemala, and Panama among the Latin American countries.

One challenge for the roadmap advocates is that the issue is not explicitly part of the main agenda, a resource that the Brazilian presidency of COP30 could use to shirk responsibility on the matter.

The issue appears on the thematic menu of COP30, which started on the 10th and is scheduled to conclude on the 21st, and whose official objectives include approving the Global Goal on Adaptation to climate change and securing sufficient funds for that adaptation.

Approximately 40,000 people are attending this climate summit, including government representatives, multilateral agencies, academia, and civil society organizations.

An unprecedented indigenous presence is also in attendance, with about 900 delegates from native peoples, drawn by the ancestral call of the Amazon, a symbol of the menu of solutions to the climate catastrophe and simultaneously a victim of its causes.

Also present and very active in Belém are about 1,600 lobbyists from the hydrocarbon industry, 12% more than at the 2024 COP, according to the international coalition Kick Big Polluters Out.

The clamor from civil society demands an institutional structure with governance, clear criteria, measurable objectives, and justice mechanisms.

“The roadmap has become a difficult issue to ignore; it is already at the center of these negotiations, and no country can ignore it. The breadth of support is surprising, with rich and poor countries, producers and non-producers, indicating that an agreement is about to fall,” Antonio Hill, Just Transitions advisor for the non-governmental and international Natural Resource Governance Institute, told IPS.

Activists protest on Wednesday the 19th against fossil fuel exploitation at the entrance to the venue of the Belém climate summit, in the Amazonian northeast of Brazil. Credit: Emilio Godoy / IPS

Poisoned

The push for the roadmap comes from the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, promoted by civil society organizations, strongly adopted by Colombia, and which so far has the support of 18 nations, but no hydrocarbon-producing Latin American country, such as Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico, or Venezuela.

Colombia, despite also being a producer and exporter of fossil fuels, has presented its Roadmap for a Just Energy Transition, with which it seeks to replace income from coal and oil with investments in tourism and renewable energy.

Colombia’s 2022-2052 National Energy Plan projects long-term reductions in fossil fuel production. The country announced US$14.5 billion for the energy transition to less polluting forms of energy production.

But for the rest of the region, the duality between maintaining fossil fuels and promoting renewable energies persists.

A prime example of this duality is the COP30 host country itself, Brazil. While the host President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and his Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Marina Silva, have insisted on the need to abandon fossil fuels, the government is promoting expansive oil and gas extraction plans.

In fact, just weeks before the opening of COP30, the state-owned oil group Petrobras received a permit for oil exploration in the Atlantic, just kilometers from the mouth of the Amazon River.

But Lula and his team committed that this summit in the heart of the Amazon would be “the COP of truth” and “the COP of implementation,” and the issue of fossil fuels has become central to the negotiations, which Lula joined on Wednesday the 19th to give a push to the talks and the outcomes.

In their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)—the set of mitigation and adaptation policies countries must present to comply with the Paris Agreement on climate change signed in 2015 at COP21—Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, or Chile avoid mentioning a managed phase-out of fossil fuels.

Simply put, they argue they cannot let go of the old vine before grasping the new one. This stance also involves a delicate aspect, as nations like Ecuador depend on revenues from hydrocarbon exploitation.

Therefore, the Global South has insisted on its demand for funding from rich nations, due to their contribution to the climate disaster through fossil fuel exploitation since the 17th century.

The result of the presented policies is alarming: although many countries have increased their emission reduction targets on paper, they lack details on phasing out production. The only existing roadmap is the growing extractive one.

In fact, the Global Stocktake of the Paris Agreement process, originating from COP28, demanded that countries take measures to move towards a fossil-free era.

The argument is unequivocal: various estimates indicate that fossil fuels contribute 86% of greenhouse gas emissions, the cause of global warming.

But a key point is where to start. For Uitoto indigenous leader Fanny Kuiru Castro, the new general coordinator of the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin –which  brings together the more than 350 native peoples of the eight countries sharing the biome–, the starting point must precisely be at-risk regions like the Amazon.

“It is a priority. If there isn’t a clear signal that we must proceed gradually, it means the summit has failed and does not want to adopt that commitment. We will have another 30 years of speeches,” she told IPS, alluding to that number of summits without substantial results.

In the Amazon, oil blocks threaten 31 million hectares or 12% of the total area, mining threatens 9.8 million, and timber concessions threaten 2.4 million.

And in that direction, a major obstacle arises: how to finance the phase-out. The roadmap has a direct link to the financial goals aimed at the Global South, with a demand for US$1.2 trillion in funding for climate action starting in 2035.

“Can the COP deliver the financial backing that countries need to reinvent their economies in time to guarantee just and inclusive development?” Hill questioned.

The atmosphere in Belém is of a different urgency compared to Dubai or Baku, where COP29 was held a year ago. The roadmap to a world free of fossil fuel smoke remains a blurry map, drawn freehand on ground that is heating up far too quickly.

In Belém, humanity is deciding whether to brake gradually or to accelerate, with the air conditioning on and a full tank.

A report ‘Oil and Gas Expansion in the Colombian Amazon: Navigating Risks, Economics, and Pathways to a Sustainable Future, warns oil and gas projects threaten over 483,000 km² of Colombian Amazon forest, home to more than 70 indigenous groups, and risk becoming stranded assets as global fossil fuel demand declines.

By Umar Manzoor Shah
BOGOTÁ and SRINAGAR, India, Aug 27 2025 (IPS)

A report has warned about the risks of expanding oil and gas exploration in the Colombian Amazon, which may undermine environmental goals, Indigenous rights, and long-term economic stability, unless the government pivots toward sustainable development pathways.

The study, “Oil and Gas Expansion in the Colombian Amazon: Navigating Risks, Economics, and Pathways to a Sustainable Future”, lays out the stakes for one of the planet’s most biodiverse and climate-critical regions.

Colombia’s Amazon region, covering nearly one-third of the country, is not only a biodiversity hotspot but also home to hundreds of indigenous communities and vast carbon-storing forests. Yet beneath its soils lie oil and gas reserves that the government and industry see as potential drivers of energy security and economic growth.

According to the report released by Earth Insight, the International Institute of Sustainable Development (IISD), and the National Organisation of Indigenous Peoples of the Colombian Amazon (OPIAC), some political leaders in recent years have signalled openness to further exploration and production in the Amazon, despite its public commitments to environmental protection and the global push to decarbonise.

“The Colombian Amazon is at a crossroads. The decisions taken in the next few years will either lock in a path of fossil fuel dependency and ecosystem degradation or open the door to a sustainable, diversified economy,” reads the report.

Oil and gas operations in the Amazon, the report warns, could trigger cascading ecological consequences. Roads and seismic lines fragment forests; drilling operations risk oil spills; and increased human access often accelerates deforestation and wildlife loss. “Infrastructure associated with oil and gas projects tends to create long-lasting environmental footprints that extend far beyond the drilling sites themselves,” the authors claim.

The Amazon is already under stress from illegal mining, logging, and agricultural expansion. Adding industrial petroleum activity could push ecosystems toward tipping points, including irreversible shifts in forest cover and carbon balance.

Ignacio Arroniz Velasco, Senior Associate for Nature & Climate Diplomacy at Earth Insight, told IPS news that the Amazon is an integrated ecosystem. As of 2022, according to The Amazonia 80×2025 Initiative, preserving 80 percent of the Amazon by 2025 was still possible with urgent measures to safeguard the 74 percent (629 million hectares) of the Amazon that are Intact Key Priority Areas (33 percent) and with Low Degradation (41 percent); and restoring 6 percent (54 million hectares) of land with high degradation is vital to stop the current trend.

“Although still under threat from industrial expansion, ca. 80 percent of the Colombian Amazon is preserved; however, unless other Amazon countries do the same, the whole ecosystem could collapse. This would mean a shortage of food supplies, medicine (stable forest), and water (water productivity and headwaters). As well as the regulation of floods (aquatic systems) and areas with the highest carbon stock for climate stability,” Velasco told IPS.

Proponents argue that oil and gas projects could generate royalties, jobs, and infrastructure for remote areas. But the report questions whether these benefits outweigh the long-term costs. “Global demand for fossil fuels is projected to decline as the world accelerates toward net-zero emissions. New investments in oil and gas risk becoming stranded assets before they recoup their costs,” it warns.

According to Pablo Jamioy from OPIAC, enforcing environmental protections in the Colombian Amazon in the face of armed groups and illegal economies is a major challenge that cannot be addressed solely through repressive measures, as these tend to increase local tensions and negatively affect communities, especially indigenous peoples.

“The reality is that without first guaranteeing basic conditions for well-being—such as security, access to health services, education, and legal economic opportunities—and without strengthening local governance, particularly the leadership and territorial rights of indigenous peoples, any attempt at environmental control is likely to generate conflict and resistance.”

Jamioy told IPS that from a realistic perspective, a comprehensive, long-term strategy is needed that combines effective state presence with inclusive policies that respect and empower Amazonian communities. “Only in this way can illegal economies be discouraged and the influence of armed actors reduced without exacerbating social tensions,” he said, adding that in this sense, environmental protection necessarily involves strengthening local capacities, recognising the importance of indigenous knowledge systems in conservation, and promoting sustainable development models that link the care of nature with real improvements in living conditions in the region.

The authors stress that the volatility of oil prices and the finite nature of reserves make heavy dependence on fossil fuels a risky economic bet for Colombia. They also point out that historically, resource extraction in remote regions has delivered limited lasting benefits for local communities.

Beyond economics, the expansion raises deep concerns for indigenous peoples, who have constitutionally protected rights to their lands and resources. The report documents cases where extractive projects proceeded without adequate consultation, undermining the principle of consulta previa (prior consultation) required by Colombian law and International Labour Organization Convention 169. “Indigenous territories, when respected and supported, are among the most effective barriers to deforestation. Disregarding their rights for short-term gains would be both unjust and environmentally counterproductive,” the report notes.

Communities fear that oil and gas activity will disrupt traditional livelihoods, pollute rivers, and erode cultural heritage. Many have voiced opposition, warning that once exploration begins, social and environmental change becomes difficult to reverse.

Colombia has pledged to achieve net-zero deforestation by 2030 and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to the Paris Agreement. Yet the licensing of new oil and gas blocks in the Amazon appears at odds with these goals.

Velasco said that Colombia has not issued new exploration licences under the current government. It has also lowered its deforestation rate to record low levels, although this latter trend was recently reversed. “Both achievements place Colombia at the very top of the world’s climate and environmental leaders. However, millions of hectares of the Colombian Amazon are still threatened by oil and gas blocks that have not been licensed to investors yet. These “available” blocks would allow future Colombian governments to undo all the hard-earned progress and issue new fossil fuel licenses in the Amazon.”

According to Velasco, to avoid this economic, social and ecological risk in the Amazon, the current Colombian government could choose to permanently remove the unlicensed blocks from its official records. He said that the report suggests different pathways to achieve this, such as via new national legislation, administrative acts grounded on Colombia’s international commitments, expanding natural protected areas or legally recognising more Indigenous territories.

The report identifies governance gaps, including insufficient enforcement of environmental safeguards, lack of transparent data on exploration plans, and inadequate inter-agency coordination. “Without coherent policy alignment, Colombia risks pursuing mutually incompatible objectives — expanding fossil fuel extraction while professing climate leadership,” the authors write.

The report goes beyond merely calling for a halt to oil and gas expansion by presenting concrete alternatives such as expanding renewable energy in non-Amazonian regions, investing in sustainable forest economies, and directing state resources toward rural development that aligns with conservation goals. Key recommendations include strengthening land tenure for indigenous and rural communities to improve forest stewardship, redirecting subsidies from fossil fuels to clean energy and low-impact livelihoods, enhancing environmental monitoring with community participation, and ensuring that all projects in indigenous territories prioritize free, prior, and informed consent.

Pablo Jamioy from OPIAC told IPS News that one of the fundamental mechanisms for strengthening free, prior, and informed consent in indigenous territories in Colombia is to guarantee the legal formalisation of territories requested for collective titling, as well as ancestral territories that have been subject to protection and recovery strategies from Amazonian indigenous peoples. These territories, according to Jamioy, must be recognised under special conservation categories and be subject to their own environmental governance systems. “In addition, it is necessary to implement and ensure the recognition and effective exercise of indigenous environmental authorities, in accordance with Decree 1275 of 2024, which recognises their environmental competencies to consolidate their own systems of administration and use of the territory based on ancestral knowledge.”

He added that it is essential to implement Decree 488 of 2025, “Which establishes the necessary fiscal regulations and others related to the functioning of indigenous territories and their coordination with other territorial entities,” a key regulation for the implementation of Indigenous Territorial Entities. “This decree strengthens their autonomy, both in the management of their systems of government and in dialogue with external actors for the implementation of public policies and the guarantee of the fundamental and collective rights of indigenous peoples.”

Colombia’s Amazon protection efforts receive significant funding from international donors, including Norway, Germany, and the United Kingdom, as well as multilateral initiatives like the Amazon Fund. The report urges these partners to condition future support on clear progress toward phasing out high-risk extractive activities in sensitive ecosystems. “International finance can catalyse progress, but it must be coupled with genuine political will and local participation to be effective,” the briefing states.

Industry representatives contend that modern drilling technologies can minimise environmental harm and that oil and gas revenues are essential for national development. They also argue that Colombia cannot yet afford to forgo these resources given fiscal pressures.

Environmental advocates counter that the country’s long-term prosperity depends on avoiding the boom-and-bust cycles of extractive industries and capitalising instead on its unparalleled natural capital.

The report has predicted that the coming years will see heightened legal, political, and grassroots battles over new oil and gas blocks in the Amazon.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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Colombian President Gustavo Petro presented his environmental plans at COP28 in Dubai and added his country to the small group of nations that support the negotiation of a binding treaty to prevent the proliferation of fossil fuels, despite his country being an oil producer. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS

By Emilio Godoy
DUBAI, Dec 12 2023 (IPS)

One of the most heated debates at the annual climate summit coming to a conclusion in this United Arab Emirates city revolved around the phrasing of the final declaration, regarding the “phase-out” or “phase-down” of fossil fuels within a given time frame.

This is an essential calculation on the decommissioning of refineries, pipelines, power plants and other infrastructure that, in some cases, have been in operation for years, as discussed at the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Experts who talked to IPS at the summit agreed on the magnitude of the bill, which for some Latin American nations could be unaffordable."Financial support will be needed. There must be a differentiated approach, differentiated timing, and developed countries must come up with the resources." -- Fernanda Carvalho

Fernanda Carvalho of Brazil, global leader for Energy and Climate Policy at the non-governmental World Wildlife Fund (WWF), referred to the amount without specifying a figure.

“Financial support will be needed. There must be a differentiated approach, differentiated timing, and developed countries must come up with the resources,” the expert, who was present at COP28, held at Expo City on the outskirts of Dubai, told IPS.

COP28 engaged in an acrimonious debate between phase-out and phase-down, with a definite date, of oil, gas and coal, which has already anticipated a disappointing end in Dubai, that in line with the tradition at these summits extended its negotiations one more day, to conclude on Wednesday, Dec. 13.

The “phase-down” concept has been in the climate-energy jargon for years, but it really took off at the 2021 COP26 in the Scottish city of Glasgow, whose Climate Pact alludes to the reduction of coal still being produced and the elimination of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies.

Throughout the climate summits since 1995, developing countries have insisted on differentiated measures for them, in accordance with their own situation, the need for financing from developed nations and the transfer of technology, especially energy alternatives.

Enrique Maurtúa of Argentina, senior diplomacy advisor to the Independent Global Stocktake (iGST) – an umbrella data and advocacy initiative – said they hoped for a political signal to determine regulations or market measures regarding a phase-down or phase-out.

“If a target date is not set, there is no signal. If you set a phase-out for 2050, that is a pathway for the transition. With a deadline, the market can react. And then each country must evaluate its specific context,” the expert told IPS in the COP28 Green Zone, which hosted civil society organizations at the summit.

Available scientific knowledge indicates that the majority of proven hydrocarbon reserves must remain unextracted by 2030 to keep the planetary temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius, the threshold agreed in the 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement to avoid massive disasters.

On Sunday, Dec. 10 the non-governmental Climate Action Network (CAN) delivered at COP28 a dishonorable mention to the United States for its role in Israel’s carnage in Gaza, in the traditional Fossil of the Day award for “doing the most to achieve the least” in terms of progress on climate change at the summits. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS

Failed attempts

In the Latin American region there are unsuccessful precedents of fossil fuel phase-outs.

In 2007, the then president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa (2007-2017), launched the Yasuní-Ishpingo Tambococha Tiputini initiative, which sought the care of the Yasuní National Park in the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest, in exchange for funds from governments, foundations, companies and individuals of about 3.6 billion dollars by 2024 to leave the oil in the ground.

The aim was to leave 846 million barrels of oil untouched underground. But a special fund created by Ecuador and the United Nations Environment Fund only raised 13 million dollars, according to the Ecuadorian government. So Correa decided to cancel the initiative in 2013, at a time when renewable energies had not yet really taken off.

In a referendum held in August, Ecuadorians decided to halt oil extraction in a block in Yasuní that would provide 57,000 barrels per day in 2022 – the same result sought by Correa, but without foreign funds.

The result of the referendum is to be implemented within a year, although the position of the government of the current president, banana tycoon Daniel Noboa, who took office on Nov. 23, is still unclear.

Meanwhile, in Colombia, President Gustavo Petro has put the brakes on new oil and coal exploration contracts, a promise from his 2022 election campaign.

In addition, the president announced on Dec. 2 in Dubai that his country was joining nine other nations that are promoting the formal initiation of the negotiation of a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Colombia will thus become the first Latin American nation and the largest oil and coal producer to join the initiative that first emerged in 2015 when several Pacific Island leaders and NGOs raised the urgent need for an international mechanism to phase out fossil fuels.

For the undertaking of a just energy transition to cleaner fuels, Petro estimates an initial bill of 14 billion dollars, to come from governments of the developed North, multilateral organizations and international funds.

The latest summit of hope for the climate kicked off on Nov. 30 in this Arab city under the slogan “Unite. Act. Deliver” – the least successful in the history of COPs since the first one, held in Berlin in 1995.

The hopes included commitments and voluntary declarations on renewable energy and energy efficiency; agriculture, food and climate; health and climate; climate finance; refrigeration; and just transitions with a gender focus.

In addition, there were financial pledges of some 86 billion dollars, without specifying whether it is all new money, to be allocated to these issues.

Like many countries, the host of COP28, the United Arab Emirates, has had a pavilion in the so-called Green Zone, which hosts non-governmental organizations, companies and other institutions. The Emirati government bet a lot on the climate summit to deliver results, but without directly targeting the fossil fuels on which its economy depends. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS

Billions

Given the production and exploration plans of the main hydrocarbon producing countries in the region, the magnitude of the challenge in the medium and long term is enormous.

In October, Brazil, the largest economy in the region and the 11th largest in the world, extracted 3.543 billion barrels of oil and 152 million cubic meters (m3) of gas per day.

This represented approximately two percent of the domestic economy that month.

Mexico, the region’s second largest economy, extracted 1.64 million barrels and 4.971 billion m3 of gas per day in October, equivalent to 52 million dollars in revenues.

Meanwhile, Colombia produced 780,487 barrels of oil in the first eight months of 2023 and 1,568 cubic feet per day of gas, equivalent to 12 percent of public revenues.

“We have to think about decarbonization measures. We want Latin America to be a clean energy powerhouse,” said Carvalho.

As of September, Brazil’s state-owned oil giant Petrobras was working on obtaining 9.571 billion barrels of oil equivalent, according to the Global Oil & Gas Exit List produced by the German non-governmental organization Urgewald.

This represents an excess of 94 percent above the limit set by the 2015 Paris Agreement to keep global warming below two degrees Celsius.

Meanwhile, Mexico’s state-owned oil company Pemex is producing 1.444 billion barrels of oil equivalent, 56 percent above the threshold set by the Paris Agreement.

Finally, the public company Ecopetrol, mostly owned by the Colombian state, is working to obtain 447 million barrels, 98 percent above the Paris Agreement limit, according to Urgewald.

In addition, the cost of action against the climate crisis is far from affordable for any Latin American nation.

For example, Mexico estimated that the implementation of 35 measures, including in the power, gas and oil generation sector, would cost 137 billion dollars in 2030, but the benefits would total 295 billion dollars.

But Maurtúa says the budget question is only relative. “There is a lot of public money with which many things can be done,” complemented by international resources, he argued.

In the Bosque de Niebla, located in the department of Antioquia in northwestern Colombia, biodiversity bonds have emerged to push for protection of the ecosystem from threats such as deforestation and rising temperatures. But these instruments are still very green in Latin America. CREDIT: Courtesy of Terraso

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Aug 28 2023 (IPS)

Located in northwestern Colombia, the Bosque de Niebla is home to 154 species of plants, 120 bird species, 21 species of mammals, 16 water springs and five hectares of wetlands.

Forming part of the Cuchilla Jardín-Támesis Integrated Management District in the department of Antioquia, the ecosystem provides water and climate regulation to the entire northwestern region of the country."Not all ecosystem services are the same, it has to be a very judicious system. And there have to be local regulations, from green taxonomies (classification of activities) to regulations. Therein lies the dilemma of where the sector has to go." -- Lía González

For this reason, an innovative financing scheme, biodiversity bonds, seeks to strengthen the protection of this area for 30 years, in the face of threats such as deforestation, drought and rising temperatures due to the climate crisis.

Private Colombian investor Terraso and Spanish carbon offset seller ClimateTrade, a climate solutions company that utilizes blockchain technology to facilitate large-scale decarbonization efforts through innovation, created voluntary biodiversity bonds for the Bosque de Niebla in May 2022.

The aim is to care for 340 hectares registered as a habitat bank by the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development of Colombia, one of the 10 most biologically diverse countries in the world.

Habitat banks are areas where conservation initiatives are aggregated and ecosystem preservation, enhancement or restoration actions are implemented to generate quantifiable biodiversity gains.

Each biodiversity credit represents 10 square meters of threatened, conserved or restored land. Technical, financial and legal guarantees will sustain the project for at least 30 years. Each bond, worth 30 dollars, corresponds to 30 years of conservation and/or restoration.

But the scheme raises concerns about the commercialization of wildlife and the pursuit of profit over ecological benefits.

Patricia Balvanera, an academic at the Institute for Research on Ecosystems and Sustainability of the public National Autonomous University of Mexico, said the financial market approach does not address the full spectrum of environmental, cultural and social issues, which can cloud the vision of the integral importance of nature.

“Other non-integrated values have to do with social, ethical principles that have developed around nature. We have bought ourselves an image as a factory of resources at the service of people and we have discarded the role of nature and society through a relationship of care and reciprocity,” she told IPS from the northern Mexican city of San Luis Potosí.

The expert is co-author of the study “Diverse values of nature for sustainability”, published on Aug. 9, which addresses a more holistic view of care.

Unlike offsets for environmental damage due to infrastructure projects, biodiversity credits are an economic instrument that can be used to finance actions that result in measurable positive outcomes through the issuance and sale of biodiversity units.

The buyers of biodiversity bonds gain in reputational aspects, by promoting the restoration and protection of ecosystems, and obtain funds by reselling the bonds, as it is a voluntary market.

These are different from carbon credits, where companies and individuals can buy the reduced emissions credits in what is known as the voluntary carbon market, to offset their polluting emissions: each one represents the elimination of one metric ton of carbon from the atmosphere.

For the carbon dioxide equivalent trapped and stored in ecosystems such as forests, project owners can issue certificates for sale in national and international markets to national and international corporations and individuals who want to reduce their polluting emissions.

Mangroves, such as these in the municipality of Paraíso in the southeastern Mexican state of Tabasco, are candidates for biodiversity bonds because of the services they provide and the need to protect them, like other ecosystems. But these credits still need international standards, verification and monitoring guidelines, as well as tangible results. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy / IPS

On hold

In Honduras, a project similar to the Colombian one is advancing in Cusuco National Park, in the northwestern department of Cortés.

In the 22,200-hectare forest, decreed in 1987, the international alliance of environmental organizations rePlanet seeks the conservation of 1,883 hectares in 25 years in the face of threats such as deforestation and the risk to 24 species.

The project could issue bonds this year.

Lía González, director for Latin America of the Belgian social impact investment firm Incofin, said the instrument involves several challenges, such as monetization, assigning value to the blocks of land, the creation of standards for measurement, verification, monitoring and issuance, as well as the involvement of the communities.

“Not all ecosystem services are the same, it has to be a very judicious system. And there have to be local regulations, from green taxonomies (classification of activities) to regulations. Therein lies the dilemma of where the sector has to go,” she told IPS from Bogotá.

The executive stressed that the scheme should avoid the carbon credits model and learn from its mistakes, such as inaccurate calculation of carbon sequestration and violations of community rights.

In 2022, Incofin’s portfolio covered 111 clients in 14 Latin American countries for a total of 400 million dollars in segments such as sustainable agriculture and microfinance. In Colombia, it supported eight clients and totaled 44.3 million dollars.

The company focuses on medium-term investments, so that beneficiaries have an additional source of income within the area being protected or restored.

So far, so-called green bonds have fallen short in financing for the conservation of natural wealth and sustainable land use, according to a 2020 report by the Luxembourg Green Exchange and the Global Landscapes Forum, entitled: “How can Green Bonds catalyse investments in biodiversity and sustainable land-use projects?”

Colombia and Honduras are the countries that have moved forward with these instruments, because they have regulations and several financial instruments related to biodiversity, although bonds are still a rarity.

In this regard, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which groups the world’s 38 most developed economies, noted in its 2021 report “Tracking Economic Instruments and Finance for Biodiversity” that, despite the progress made, the substantial potential depends on increasing the use and ambition of biodiversity-relevant economic instruments.

In its Sixth National Biodiversity Report 2020, Honduras recognized the need to improve the monetary and non-monetary valuation of environmental services.

Financing schemes are essential to the development of the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030, adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 2019, which seeks to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of terrestrial and marine ecosystems, to eradicate poverty, combat climate change and prevent the mass extinction of species.

Moving towards a take-off?

In order for it to be successful, the mechanism requires integrity of the projects and the inclusion of all stakeholders, according to the World Economic Forum, dedicated to multinational business lobbying.

The Colombian Bosque de Niebla initiative has already placed 62,063 credits and has 61,773 available.

The investor Terraso has seven other habitat banks in various areas of Colombia that could generate more bonds.

Balvanera warned of perverse incentives that could undermine protection.

“If we think about financial schemes, the link should not only be transactional. There must be involvement of different stakeholders who collectively identify the mechanism that promotes conservation, respects the vision of care and maintains the livelihoods of the inhabitants of these areas,” she said.

The academic argued that “this generates a circular system that connects forest protection, water care, food production and sustainable consumption.”

For her part, González was open to analyzing these investments.

“Water could be a viable focus for climate resilience and its impact on the region’s climate. We are interested in learning about monetization and that additional sources of income can benefit protection processes, so that it is complementary to what we do,” she said.

Last December, the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which includes cumulative biodiversity funding of at least 200 billion dollars by 2030 from public and private sources.

One of its goals is to encourage innovative schemes such as payment for environmental services, green bonds, offsets, biodiversity credits and benefit-sharing mechanisms that include environmental and social safeguards.

To meet these objectives, the 196 States Parties to the CBD created the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund, which is managed by the Global Environment Facility and whose governing council was approved in June in Brazil.

In addition, the agreement includes the complete or partial restoration of at least 30 percent of degraded terrestrial and marine ecosystems by 2030, as well as the reduction of the loss of areas of high biological importance to almost zero.

A photo of journalists dedicated to covering the agendas of nearby communities, like these ones in a town in Colombia, is uncommon in poor areas of Latin American countries, where millions of people have no access to information of local interest. CREDIT: Chasquis Foundation

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Jun 14 2023 (IPS)

Without the means to receive information about what is happening around them, millions of Latin Americans who live in poor remote rural or impoverished urban areas inhabit veritable news deserts, according to an increasing number of studies conducted by journalistic organizations in the region.

There are, for example, 29 million people in Brazil, 10 million in Colombia, seven million in Venezuela and up to three-quarters of the Argentine territory without access to journalism due to the absence of media outlets, or because the few existing local outlets are dedicated to entertainment, rather than news.“When we talk about information deserts, we are also talking about what a robust media ecosystem implies: that there are not only enough media outlets, but also pluralism.” -- Jonathan Bock

“When we talk about information deserts, we are also talking about what a robust media ecosystem implies: that there are not only enough media outlets, but also pluralism,” said Jonathan Bock, director of the Colombian Foundation for Press Freedom (FLIP).

This plurality must encompass “the topics that are covered, diversity of formats, media that address different audiences. A healthy ecosystem,” Bock added in a conversation with IPS from the Colombian capital.

A Jun. 7 forum organized by the Venezuelan branch of the Press and Society Institute (IPYS) displayed atlases and maps on news deserts in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela, based on research by organizations of journalists and academics from those countries.

Even without extrapolating from the results of these assessments, it is possible to estimate that news deserts affect a good part of the region, judging by the structural deficiencies of the population, and by conflictive situations in the media and journalism in nations such as those of Central America and the Andes.

“The social and geographical marginalization found in parts of our countries means that important segments of the population are in these news deserts. For example, indigenous populations lacking media outlets in their languages,” Andrés Cañizález, founder and director of the Venezuelan observatory Medianálisis, told IPS.

Journalistic organizations from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela show maps or atlases that indicate, using colors, the most and least deserted areas in terms of access to news in their respective countries. CREDIT: IPS

Atlases and statistics

A study by the Argentine Journalism Forum (FOPEA), coordinated by Irene Benito, took a census of 560 areas in that country and considered 47.9 percent of them news deserts, 25.2 percent in “semi-desert” conditions, 17.1 percent as “semi-forests”, and 9.8 percent as “forests”, or areas with an abundance of media outlets and news.

“As in other Latin American nations, in many areas there are media outlets and journalists, but there is no quality coverage. They deal with other things, not the interests of their communities, while the propaganda apparatus of the powers-that-be is in overly robust health,” Benito said in the IPYS forum.

In Brazil, the most recent News Atlas, released in March, recorded the existence of 13,734 media outlets in that country of 208 million inhabitants, but not a single one in 312 of its 5,568 municipalities. These 312 municipalities are home to 29.3 million people with no access to local news.

Although hundreds of online media outlets emerge every year “and now more municipalities have at least one or two media outlets, many are not independent or are biased, because they depend on the city government or religious movements,” said Cristina Zahar, from the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (ARAJI).

In a third of Colombia, where 10 of the country’s 50 million inhabitants live – many areas far from the big cities – there are no mass media, and in another third, home to 16 million people, the existing media outlets are dedicated to entertainment, according to FLIP’s Cartography of Information.

In Venezuela, seven million people live in municipalities where there are no media outlets, and that figure rises to 15 million – in a country of 28 million people – if municipalities with only one or two media outlets, considered “semi-deserts”, are included, according to IPYS.

Unlike other countries, “the situation has worsened, with the massive closure of radio stations ordered by the government – at least 81 in 2022 alone, and 285 since 2003 – with radio being the medium that has the greatest penetration in remote areas,” Daniela Alvarado, head of freedom of information at IPYS, told IPS.

Remote rural areas far from the main cities and often in border regions are among the most affected by deficient infrastructure and lack of media outlets that enable local residents access to general information about their local environment and possibilities of participation in decisions that concern them. CREDIT: ECLAC

Exclusion, once again

In the case of Colombia, one cause for the breadth of news deserts is violence, “war, one of whose strategic aims is to pressure or close down news, journalism that can reveal, report, warn and monitor what happens in areas of conflict,” said Bock.

In 45 years of armed conflict in Colombia, 165 journalists were murdered, “strategic killings, because they reported on things, and became symbols,” Bock stressed.

“But it also has to do with a different kind of exclusion, of weak economies and little interest on the part of politics and government institutions in promoting independent and plural journalism, seen in some contexts as the enemy, and with society getting used to it and not demanding” independent reporting, the Colombian analyst said.

Another thing that has happened in countries in the region is that “traditional media, and many new digital outlets, emerged and are concentrated where there was already an audience and sources of advertising, which is combined with pre-existing inequalities to create an abyss between big cities and small towns and the countryside,” said Cañizález.

In news deserts, infrastructure failures abound and there are absences or deficiencies in internet services, with providers that do not access these territories, aggravating the situation of local inhabitants who often only have simple mobile phones and cannot obtain news and information through digital or social networks.

However, news deserts are not exclusive to rural, remote or border areas; in cities themselves there is a dearth of local media outlets, or the outlets have their own agendas on issues in poor urban communities, which are also impacted by the crises that face journalism in general.

This is the case of Venezuela, which “is caught up in a complex and continuous economic, political and social crisis that has led to the deterioration of its media ecosystem,” Alvarado said, adding that it also faces “a communicational hegemony (on the part of the State) that is manifested in censorship and self-censorship.”

Newspapers and television stations were driven to shut down, by government decision or suffocated due to lack of paper and advertising, or their sale paved the way for their closure; or, as in the case of many radio stations, closure is a constant looming threat. Online media suffer from internet cuts and harassment of their journalists.

Even in urban areas, such as this one in Caracas, the adverse climate of news deserts has an impact, for example with the closure of print media outlets caused by political decisions or economic crises, which forces traditional kiosks to subsist by replacing newspapers, which are no longer available, with candy and snacks. CREDIT: Public domain

What can be done?

“The challenge seems immeasurable, but we are not sitting quietly by, we must not give up on what is our right as a community public service,” said Benito.

The State “should promote, at least in the area of ​​its competence, which is radio, television and internet, inclusive policies throughout the nation’s territory, guaranteeing basic rights, including the right to communication and information for all citizens,” stated Cañizález.

Zahar said that “sustainability is the challenge,” due to the difficulties many new media outlets, local or not, face in supporting themselves, and the advantages of digital media “that have fewer barriers to entry, can experiment with formats and financing mechanisms, and make quick changes.”

Bock said “we must think about the financing of journalism where there are fragile economies, see it as a public service but an independent one, to address the training of people practicing journalism in those places.”

Together with the support of the government and the international community, “models could be developed in which the big media sponsor local media in very small places or where there is clearly a news desert,” Cañizález said.

“But that’s still not even discussed in a number of our countries,” he said. “It is an issue that concerns journalism but has not drawn public attention. The debate is still very much confined to reporters.”

Young women from the Brazilian state of Bahia attend an informational campaign which also hands out menstrual hygiene products. Poverty and the lack of adequate information on this subject affect millions of girls, adolescents and adult women. CREDIT: Government of Bahia

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, May 26 2023 (IPS)

Menstrual hygiene management is elusive for millions of poor women and girls in Latin America, who suffer because their living conditions make it difficult or impossible for them to access resources and services that could make menstruation a simple normal part of life.

“When my period comes, I miss class for three or four days. My family can’t afford to buy the sanitary napkins that my sister and I need. We use cloths for the blood, although they give me an uncomfortable rash,” says Omaira*, a 15-year-old high school student.

From her low-income neighborhood of Brisas del Sur, in Ciudad Guayana, 500 kilometers southeast of Caracas, she speaks to IPS by phone: “We can’t buy pills to relieve our pain either. And my period is irregular, it doesn’t come every month, but there are no medical services here for me to go and treat that.”

In Venezuela, “one in four women does not have menstrual hygiene products and they improvise unhygienic alternatives, such as old clothes, cloths, cardboard or toilet paper to make pads that function as sanitary napkins,” activist Natasha Saturno, with the Solidarity Action NGO, tells IPS.

“The big problem with these improvised products is that they can cause, at best, discomfort and embarrassment, and at worst, infections that compromise their health,” says Saturno, director of enforceability of rights at the NGO that conducts health assistance and documentation programs and surveys.

Campaigns that adult and young women have carried out in Mexico and Colombia demanding the right to menstrual health managed to get the authorities to eliminate the value added tax on essential feminine hygiene products. CREDIT: Nora Hinojo/UN Mexico

Universal problem, comprehensive approach

Is this a local, focalized problem? Not at all: “On any given day, more than 300 million women worldwide are menstruating.  In total, an estimated 500 million lack access to menstrual products and adequate facilities for menstrual hygiene management (MHM),” states a World Bank study.

“Today more than ever we need to bring visibility to the situation of women and girls who do not have access to and education about menstrual hygiene. Communication makes the difference,” said Hugo González, representative of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in Peru.

UNFPA says there is broad agreement on what girls and women need for good menstrual health, and argues that comprehensive approaches that combine education with infrastructure and with products and efforts to combat stigma are most successful in achieving good menstrual health and hygiene.

The essential elements are: safe, acceptable, and reliable supplies to manage menstruation; privacy for changing the materials; safe and private washing facilities; and information to make appropriate decisions.

UNFPA’s theme this year for international Menstrual Hygiene Day, which is celebrated every May 28, is “Making menstruation a normal fact of life by 2030”, the target date for compliance with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the international community at the United Nations.

United Nations Population Fund workers prepare packages of menstrual hygiene items for women from poor communities in Central America. The cost of some of these products makes them unaffordable for many families. CREDIT: UNFPA

The pink tax

Nine out of 31 countries in the region consider menstrual hygiene products essential, which makes them exempt from value added tax or reduced VAT, according to the study “Sexist Taxes in Latin America” ​​by Germany’s Friedrich Ebert Foundation.

After a “Tax-free Menstruation” campaign, in 2018 Colombia became the first country in the Americas to eliminate VAT – 16 percent – on menstrual hygiene products. Its neighbor Venezuela still charges 16 percent VAT, and Argentina, Chile, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay charge VAT between 18 and 22 percent on such products.

Colombia was joined by Ecuador, Guyana, Jamaica, Mexico – where street demonstrations were held against charging VAT on menstrual products – Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago. Other countries have reduced VAT, such as Costa Rica, Panama, Paraguay and Peru, while in Brazil VAT differs between states and averages 7 percent.

The so-called “pink tax” obviously affects the price of menstrual hygiene products such as disposable and reusable sanitary pads and menstrual cups, which becomes especially burdensome in countries with high inflation and depreciated currencies, such as Argentina and Venezuela.

According to the average price of the cheapest brands, ten disposable sanitary pads can cost just under a dollar in Mexico, 1.50 dollar in Argentina or Brazil, 1.60 dollar in Colombia, Peru or Venezuela, and almost two dollars in Costa Rica.

“It’s an important problem,” Saturno points out, “in a country like Venezuela, where the majority of the population lives in poverty and the minimum wage – although it has been increased with some stipends – is still just five dollars a month.”

Adult women, young women and girls participate in a session to share information and experiences organized by the Colombian association Menstruating Princesses, which emphasizes the importance of education to combat taboos and make menstruation a normal, stress-free experience. CREDIT: Menstruating Princesses

Hostile environment, scarce education

“If you often can’t buy sanitary pads, that’s the smallest problem. The worst thing is the shame you feel if you go to work and the cloth fails to keep your clothes free of blood, or if you catch an infection,” Nancy *, who at the age of 45 has been an informal sector worker in numerous occupations and trades in Caracas, told IPS.“Poverty causes women and adolescent girls to miss days of secondary school or work because they do not have the supplies they need when they menstruate. It becomes a vicious circle, because their academic or work performance is affected, hindering their chances of developing their full potential and earning a better income.” -- Natasha Saturno

The mother of four young people lives in Gramoven, a poor neighborhood in the northwest of the capital. Her two unmarried daughters, ages 18 and 22, have had experiences similar to Nancy’s on their way to school, in the neighborhood, on the bus, and on the subway.

“The thing is, the period is not seen as something natural, boys and men see it as something dirty, at work they sometimes do not understand that if you are in pain you have to stay at home,” said Nancy. “And when you work for yourself, you have to go out no matter what, because if you don’t go out, no money comes in.”

Saturno says that “poverty causes women and adolescent girls to miss days of secondary school or work because they do not have the supplies they need when they menstruate.”

“It becomes a vicious circle, because their academic or work performance is affected, hindering their chances of developing their full potential and earning a better income,” she adds.

But the problem “goes far beyond materials, it does not end just because someone obtains the products; it includes education and decent working conditions for women,” psychologist Carolina Ramírez, who runs the educational NGO Menstruating Princesses in the Colombian city of Medellín, tells IPS.

For this reason, “we do not use the term ‘menstrual poverty’ and speak instead of menstrual dignity, vindicating the need for society, schools, workplaces and States to promote education about menstruation and combat illiteracy in that area,” says Ramírez.

To illustrate, she mentions the widespread rejection of using tampons and cups “because of the old taboo that the vulva shouldn’t be touched, that the vagina shouldn’t be looked at,” in addition to the fact that many areas and communities in Latin American countries not only lack spaces or tools to sterilize products but often do not have clean water.

A concern raised by both Saturno and Ramírez is the great vulnerability of migrant women in the region – which has received a flood of six million people from Venezuela over the last 10 years, for example – in terms of menstrual and general health, as well as safety.

Another worrying issue is women in most Latin American prisons, which are unable to provide adequate menstrual hygiene, since they do not have access to disposable products or the possibility to sterilize reusable supplies.

Throughout the region, “greater efforts are required to break down taboos that violate fundamental rights to health, education, work, and freedom of movement, so that menstruation can be a stress-free human experience,” Ramírez says.

*Names have been changed to protect the privacy of the interviewees.

Excerpt:

ECW High-Level Mission to Colombia ECW Executive Director Yasmine Sherif meets a young female student at the ECW-supported learning facility ‘Eustorgio Colmenares Baptista’, in Cúcuta, Colombia. Disability and inclusion are at the forefront of ECW-supported learning activities. Credit: ECW

By Joyce Chimbi
NEW YORK & NAIROBI, Apr 24 2023 (IPS)

The largest external displacement crisis in Latin America’s recent history is unfolding as countries open their borders to an influx of refugees from Venezuela following unprecedented political turmoil, socio-economic instability, and a humanitarian crisis.

“Venezuela’s ongoing regional crisis is such that more than 6.1 million refugees and migrants have fled the country, triggering the second largest refugee crisis today. Colombia alone is host to 2.5 million Venezuelan refugees and migrants in need of international protection,” Yasmine Sherif, Executive Director of Education Cannot Wait (ECW), tells IPS.

Sherif applauds Colombia for opening its borders despite ongoing challenges within its borders. For, 2.5 million refugees and migrants from Venezuela are in addition to Colombia’s own 5.6 million internally displaced persons (IDPs).

“The Government of Colombia has taken remarkable measures in providing refugees and migrants from Venezuela with access to life-saving essential services like education. By supporting these efforts across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus, we are creating the foundation to build a more peaceful and more prosperous future not only for the people of Colombia but also for the refugees and migrants from Venezuela above all,” she emphasizes.

An influx of refugees and IDPs has heightened the risk of children and adolescents falling out of the education system. As life as they knew it crumbles and uncertainty looms, access to safe, quality, and inclusive education is their only hope.

Girls, children with disability, and those from indigenous and Afro-Colombian peoples are highly vulnerable as they are often left behind, forgotten as a life of missed learning and earning opportunities beckons.

ECW High-Level Mission Delegation, led by Executive Director Yasmine Sherif, and in-country partners, Fundación Plan, Norwegian Refugee Council, Save the Children, UNICEF, World Vision at the ECW-supported learning facility ‘Eustorgio Colmenares Baptista’ in Cúcuta, Colombia.
Credit: ECW

To avert an education disaster, as many children risk falling off the already fragile education system, ECW intends to continue expanding its investments in Colombia. To deliver the promise of holistic education and give vulnerable children a fighting chance.

ECW has invested close to USD 16.4 million in Colombia since 2019. The fund intends to extend its support with an additional USD 12 million for the next three-year phase of its Multi-Year Resilience Programme, which, once approved, will bring the overall investment in Colombia to over USD 28 million.

The new Multi-Year Resilience Programme will be developed during 2023 – in close consultation with partners and under the leadership of the Government of Colombia – and submitted to ECW’s Executive Committee for final approval in due course.

Sherif, who announced the renewed support during her recent one-week visit to Colombia, stresses that ECW works closely with the Ministry of Education and other line ministries in Colombia to support the government’s efforts to respond to the interconnected crises of conflict, forced displacement, and climate change and still provide quality education.

This collaboration is critical. Despite the government’s commendable efforts to extend temporary protection status to Venezuelans in Colombia, children continue to miss out on their human right to quality education.

In 2021 alone, the dropout rate for Colombian children was already 3.62 percent (3.2 percent for girls and 4.2 percent for boys). The figure nearly doubles for Venezuelans to 6.4 percent, and reaches 17 percent for internally displaced children.

“But even when children are able to attend school, the majority are falling behind. Recent analysis shows that close to 70 percent of ten-year-olds cannot read or understand a simple text, up from 50 percent before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down schools across Colombia,” Sherif observes.

Against this backdrop, she speaks of the urgent need to provide the girls and boys impacted by the interconnected crises of conflict, displacement, climate change, poverty, and instability with the safety, hope, and opportunity of quality education.

ECW’s extended programme will advance Colombia’s support for children and adolescents from Venezuela, internally displaced children, and host-communities, as well as indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities impacted by these ongoing crises.

“ECW’s investment closely aligns with the Government of Colombia’s strategy on inclusion and will strengthen the education system at the national level and in regions most affected by forced displacement. The programme will also have a strong focus on girls’ education so that no one is left behind,” she says.

A young girl does arts and crafts at the ECW-supported Yukpa indigenous school of the Manüracha community in Cúcuta, Colombia. Credit: ECW

As of November 2022, over half a million Venezuelan children and adolescents have been enrolled in Colombia’s formal education system. ECW investments have reached 107,000 children in the country to date.

“Financing is critical to ensure that no child is left behind. But funds are currently not enough to match the challenges on the ground and the growing needs. An estimated USD 46.4 million is required to fully fund the current multi-year resilience response in Colombia,” Sherif explains.

 ECW’s Multi-year Resilience Programme in Colombia is delivered by UNICEF and a Save the Children-led NGO consortium, including the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), World Vision, and Plan International.

ECW investments in Colombia provide access to safe and protective formal and non-formal learning environments, mental health and psychosocial support services, and specialized services to support the transition into the national education system for children at risk of being left behind. A variety of actions to strengthen local and national education authorities’ capacities to support education from early childhood education through secondary school.

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A technician dressed to withstand the freezing temperatures holds a tray of seeds in the Seeds of the Future gene bank. The last phase of the process consists of storing the bags of classified seeds in a room with a temperature of -18 degrees Celsius, awaiting shipment to those interested in using them, from the headquarters of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) in Palmira, in southwestern Colombia. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

By Emilio Godoy
PALMIRA, Colombia , Mar 30 2022 (IPS)

As he points to a white shelf that holds bean seeds, Austrian biologist Peter Wenzl explains that one of them, obtained in Ecuador, provided a gene for the discovery that major seed protein arcelin offers resistance to the bean weevil.

The finding made it possible to develop varieties tolerant to this common pest and thus avoid substantial losses in one of the crops that feed humanity.

“Our aim is to do research, to understand the development of improved varieties. The seed bank is genetic insurance for the future,” said the biologist, who directs the germplasm bank of the Alliance of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and Biodiversity International.

They are two of the 15 scientific centers of the CGIAR, formerly the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, a consortium of food research organizations promoting food security that is based in Montpellier, France.

The new gene bank, Seeds of the Future, was inaugurated on Mar. 16 with the presence of Colombian President Iván Duque, in an event that also announced a donation of 16 million dollars from the Bezos Earth Fund, created by the founder of U.S. e-commerce giant Amazon, Jeff Bezos.

The facility represents an architectural, environmental and technological leap forward from the previous bank operated by CIAT in the town of Palmira in the southwestern Colombian department of Valle del Cauca.

Founded in 1973, the former seed bank already stored the largest number of cassava (Manihot esculenta), bean and tropical forage seeds on the planet.

Seeds of the Future, the name of the new gene bank, seeks to safeguard global crop diversity and protect the future of food, as well as to study and understand genetic traits to discover more nutritious crops that are resistant to pests and to the effects of the climate crisis.

It also aims to share seeds, information and technology with partners and vulnerable farmers around the world.

The new seed bank, whose construction began in 2018 with an investment of 17 million dollars, has seed modules, a digital laboratory, a seed health laboratory and a laboratory for in vitro testing of cassava.

Of this total, the Alliance contributed 11 million dollars, the Colombian government provided three million dollars and several donors made up the rest. It employs some 60 people, while around 900 work at the center.

In addition, the new facility plans to deep freeze seeds by means of cryopreservation using liquid nitrogen, for long-term storage.

During a tour of the new seed bank by a small group of journalists, including IPS, Wenzl said that with the new facilities there will be more capacity for storage, research and new projects.

The new germplasm bank Seeds of the Future, inaugurated on Mar. 16 in Palmira, in the southwestern Colombian department of Valle del Cauca, has eco-technologies such as rainwater harvesting, a water recycling system and solar panels. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

Faced with the effects of the climate emergency on agriculture, such as higher temperatures, intense droughts and the proliferation of pests, the work of the gene bank shows the importance of adaptation, such as safeguarding the best seeds, and the search for improved varieties.

In fact, in its report on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability to the climate crisis, released on Feb. 28, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) called for greater diversity in food production.

The IPCC’s demand arises from the fact that climate risks go beyond drought, since by the end of this century almost a third of the world’s crop fields will be unfit for production unless the world reduces polluting emissions.

Since its creation, the bank has distributed more than 500,000 samples from 141 countries to more than 160 nations.

It has done so on the basis of 37,938 bean varieties (46 species from 112 nations), 23,100 forage varieties (734 variants from 75 countries) and 6,600 cassava varieties (the largest number in the world, with more than 30 species from 28 countries).

The material belongs to the nations of origin, but the samples are freely available.

The gene bank also has wild varieties of five domesticated bean species and germplasm from 40 wild specimens. The cassava collection has 250 genotypes of wild species. More than a third of the tuber’s diversity comes from Colombia and almost a quarter from Brazil.

The operations at the new headquarters will strengthen the work with similar collections, such as the 100 gene banks operating in Mexico, 88 in Peru, 56 in Brazil, 47 in Argentina and 25 in Colombia.

The process of storing seeds with the embryos of future plants in the new facility in Palmira, in southwestern Colombia, begins with the analysis of their characteristics, as practiced by researcher Mercedes Parra at the Seeds of the Future gene bank. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

Laborious process

When material arrives from a university, scientific center or grower group, researchers examine its characteristics to verify that it meets quality and biosafety requirements. They then inspect its genetic structure, in a first step to reveal properties that can lead to resistance to pests or drought or to better yields.

This information goes to the center’s database and to the digital laboratory equipment, which performs technological feats to collate, sift and correlate the information. The last step consists of vacuum storage in small bags at -18 degrees Celsius, in a process that takes three to four months.

The bank only collects single seeds, to make the effort of safeguarding the germplasm – of which it creates three backup copies – efficient.

It shares each one with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, another CGIAR partner located in central Mexico, epicenter of the so-called green revolution that increased food production in the developing world at the cost of polluting the soil with synthetic fertilizers.

It also sends another to the Global Seed Vault, the Noah’s Ark of future food built in 2008 and located on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen in the remote Arctic Svalbard archipelago, and managed by the Norwegian government, the Global Crop Diversity Trust and the Nordic Genetic Resource Center.

CIAT, with 400 hectares of land in the municipality of Palmira, near the city of Cali, Colombia’s third largest city in terms of population and economy, has 22 hectares planted with cassava, two with beans and another 10 with forage plants, to test techniques to improve these crops.

CIAT incorporates cutting-edge technology, such as the autonomous robot “Don Roberto”, in a collaboration with Mineral, a sustainable agriculture project of X, the innovation plant of the U.S. transnational Alphabet, parent company of Google. Don Roberto collects data on the status of beans and other seeds critical to global food security. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

In addition, the center has four other research sites on farms in the area to study crops and silvopastoral systems.

A seed holds ancestral secrets and is at the same time memory and inheritance, a reminder of what its family was and a potential announcement of what it can be.

The seed bank also contains a paradox, since the basis of its collection dates back to a time when anyone could appropriate a material and take it far from its place of origin.

But with the advent of biodiversity and species protection treaties in the 1990s, this flow, also intended to safeguard that same biological wealth, stopped.

Today, 20 species are the basis of the world’s food supply, due to the concentration and assimilation of previously more diverse diets. Historically, humankind has used 5,000 species, but another 369,000 could serve as food.

“Many of these materials have been lost in agriculture. In Valle del Cauca there are no longer bean or cassava crops, only sugarcane,” said Daniel Debouck, director emeritus of the germplasm bank.

Another view of the new state-of-the-art building that houses the Seeds of the Future gene bank in Palmira, in southwestern Colombia, at the headquarters of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), where the seeds of the world’s agricultural future are stored in times of uncertainty due to the climate crisis. CREDIT: Courtesy of Ciat-Biodiversity International Alliance

The data revolution in agriculture

One of CIAT’s innovations consists of the use of massive data and artificial intelligence, i.e. the use of computer codes to process the information.

“We work to avoid duplication of seeds and to interconnect the data to improve varieties. If the data yield important information on genes, they can be used for genome editing (cutting out harmful genes),” seed bank researcher Mónica Carvajal told IPS.

Of the total number of materials, 7,000 already have a complete digital sequence; in the case of beans, only 400. This year, the team is concentrating on the series of the entire collection of the common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) and the tepary bean (Phaseolus acutifolius), native to the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico and more resistant to dry climates than the common bean.

“We are interested in finding resistance to heat and drought,” the expert said.

Information from digital sequencing has gained relevance in recent years, due to the advances made by information technology. In fact, CGIAR has a big data platform in place to enhance collaboration between its partners and research.

As part of its strategy to link research and consumption, the Alliance is developing a project to biofortify rice, beans and corn with iron and zinc. Since 2016, they have released more than 40 bean varieties in Central America and Colombia, benefiting some 500,000 people. In Colombia, they have distributed two types of beans, one of rice and one of corn.

The seed bank building holds Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification from the U.S. Green Building Council and the Living Building Challenge from the Seattle-based International Living Future Institute.

Among its innovations, it operates with a rainwater harvesting system that meets its water needs, backed by a water recycling scheme; solar panels that provide half of the electricity; and a pergola made of certified wood that prevents heat accumulation.

One phase of Colombia's sugarcane agroindustrial production consists of burning bagasse to generate biofuels. In the picture, workers arrange sugarcane waste in a field in the municipality of El Cerrito, in the southwestern department of Valle del Cauca. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

By Emilio Godoy
BOGOTA, Mar 17 2022 (IPS)

As a visitor drives across the plains of the department of Valle del Cauca in southwestern Colombia, green carpets dominate the view: sugarcane fields that have been here since the area got its name.

The long tentacles of dirt roads draw the visitor into the thicket of golden-crested flowering green plants, which will be cut to ground level in a few months, the start of an industrial process and the restart of an annual agricultural cycle.

But this crop has left a lasting and damaging imprint on the soils, some of the most fertile in this South American nation of 51.7 million people.

Irene Vélez, an academic at the public University del Valle, said legislative changes and the opening of the market to imported sugar have led to the shift from sweetener to fuel.

“One of the consequences of this process is the expansion of the agricultural frontier to other regions of the country, because the land is cheaper and there is a different system of relations between landowners and the agro-industrial sector,” she told IPS from the Portuguese city of Coimbra, where she is doing post-doctoral studies.

Along with sugar and molasses for industrial consumption, sugarcane also provides ethanol or ethyl alcohol, which by law has been blended since 2005 in a volume of 10 percent per liter of gasoline in Colombia.

Proponents argue that this biofuel helps curb dependence on oil, and improves the octane rating of gasoline by oxygenating, which reduces urban pollution.

But in contrast, a vehicle consumes more blended fuel for the same trip due to its lower calorific value than gasoline and, the higher the mix, the higher the emission of the carcinogens formaldehyde and acetaldehyde and ozone, especially in winter, which cause respiratory problems, according to a 2007 study by researchers at Stanford University in the United States.

Colombia is the world’s 15th largest sugarcane producer, supplying 22.87 million tons of milled sugarcane per year, according to data from 2021, when it fell by a slight three percent compared to the previous year, according to data from the Sugarcane Association (Asocaña), which groups sugarcane producers.

In parallel, the country refined 396 million liters of ethanol in 2021, 0.5 percent less than the previous year. But domestic production does not meet demand, so last year it imported an additional 64 million liters, mostly from the United States, a drop of almost 400 percent compared to a year earlier, according to Asocaña.

Colombia is the third largest ethanol producer in the region, after Brazil and Argentina. This South American nation extracts ethanol from sugarcane and biodiesel from palm oil. The industry enjoys tax exemptions and subsidies, thanks to the Sugar Price Stabilization Fund, which has been in operation since 2000.

The expansion of sugarcane cultivation in Colombia has its epicenter in the Cauca River valley, in the southwest of the country, and has left a trail of water exploitation, reduction of biodiversity and pollution from the use of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, which is not compensated by the use of part of the crop to produce biofuels. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

Problematic expansion

The appearance of ethanol on the energy scene extended the sugarcane frontier in Colombia and fortified the vertical integration of the industry.

In the Cauca River valley, where most of the country’s crop is concentrated, sugarcane covers more than 225,000 hectares, which “is close to the total area available for planting sugarcane” in the region, according to Asocaña.

There are 14 sugar mills operating in the area, which directly cultivate 25 percent of the fields, while buying the rest of the cane from some 2,750 producers. The average size of the 3,300 farms that supply the mills is 63 hectares. In addition, they operate 12 energy cogeneration facilities, powered by sugarcane bagasse.

But that expansion has left social, environmental, economic and cultural impacts on local communities, says the report “The Green Monster. Perspectives and Recommendations from the Black Communities of Northern Cauca, Colombia regarding the Sugar Sector in Colombia”, published in June 2021 by the non-governmental organizations Palenke Alto Cauca-PCN and the UK-based Forest Peoples Programme.

The main impacts include the effects on soil, rivers and groundwater due to the use of pesticides such as glyphosate, soil compaction caused by the intensive use of agricultural machinery, soil erosion, polluting emissions due to the practice of burning sugarcane fields before replanting, deforestation arising from the increase in the area planted, and the monopolization of water sources.

The expansion of large-scale sugarcane plantations in Valle del Cauca has resulted in loss of land, damage to water resources, health problems, displacement and violence.

Carlos Molina, director of the El Hatico nature reserve in the municipality of El Cerrito, in the southwestern Colombian department of Valle del Cauca, stands in the middle of a cut sugarcane field on his farm. He advocates the transition from conventional sugarcane to an organic crop that contributes to the use of biofuels for energy decarbonization. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

Seeking more sustainable sugarcane production

Carlos Molina, legal representative and one of the owners of the El Hatico company, said it is possible to reverse the damage caused by sugarcane, as he gestured to the surrounding fields.

“If we don’t restore now, we are going to run out of fuel. If they don’t change things, producers are going to go bankrupt. The solution is to show the alternatives and offer incentives for transformation,” he told IPS during a tour of his farm’s sugarcane crop in the municipality of El Cerrito, in Valle del Cauca.

El Hatico is a 285-hectare farm, of which 110 hectares are used for organic sugarcane production and 76 hectares for 245 grazing dairy cows. Thanks to the farm’s sustainability, it has achieved nature reserve status.

Faced with the loss of income due to soil deterioration, in the early 1990s the owners began a shock therapy program to abandon irrigation, pesticides and synthetic fertilizers and introduce natural fertilizers and other agroecological practices.

“We made an abrupt transition and that cost us 30 percent of our production, then we recovered. Sustainable management and value-added improve yields,” said Molina, who belongs to the eighth generation of sugarcane growers in his family.

For example, a conventional hectare requires about 180 kilograms of nitrogen and 12 billion cubic meters of water per year, while an organic farm needs much less.

The legal framework for biofuels began in Colombia in 2001 with regulations on their use and the creation of incentives for their production, use, marketing and consumption. In 2004, another regulation expanded the conditions to stimulate the production and marketing of biofuels of plant and animal origin to obtain biodiesel.

Thus, the introduction of the blend began in 2005 with the E10 combination, while the production of biodiesel began in 2008, with the addition of five percent of this fuel.

That same year, the National Council for Economic and Social Policy, which brings together seven ministries and the governmental scientific sector, issued guidelines to promote the sustainable production of biofuels in the country, proposing strategies to this end.

As a result, sugarcane refineries for biofuels started up in 2006, six of which operate in Valle del Cauca and one in the central department of Meta.

In 2013, the blend of ethanol per liter of gasoline increased to 10 percent and that of biodiesel to 12 percent.

A sugarcane plantation in the municipality of El Cerrito, in the department of Valle del Cauca, in southwestern Colombia. Cutting, slashing and burning are the three steps of cultivation: cutting the sugarcane, harvesting the crop and setting fire to the residues, a practice that is harmful to the health of the soil and the air. CREDIT: Emilio Godoy/IPS

Pros and cons

The shift of sugarcane towards ethanol production is paradoxical, as the crop causes environmental impacts but the fuel reduces emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), the gas generated by human activities that is responsible for global warming.

Sugarcane ethanol reduces 74 percent of polluting emissions, compared to corn and canola ethanol – 45 percent and 25 percent, respectively – according to the 2012 study “Life Cycle Assessment of the Biofuels Production Chain in Colombia“, sponsored by the Inter-American Development Bank and the national Ministry of Mines and Energy.

By law, ethanol emissions have had limits in the country since 2017. Data from the non-governmental Sugarcane Research Center for six mills indicate that the average in 2016 was 551 kilograms of CO2 per cubic meter of fuel and 558 in 2017.

These results were below the regulatory ceiling of 924 kilograms for 2017 and 889 for the following year. In 2021, the ceiling stood at 780 kilograms.

The sugarcane manufacturing process generates the greatest amount of pollution, with 249 kilos of CO2, followed by planting and harvesting (181 kilos), effluent treatment (89) and transportation to blending centers (39).

Biofuels, part of the NDC

In its 2020 Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) update, Colombia pledged to reduce its emissions by 51 percent by 2030, down from 258 million tons of CO2 in 2015, the base year, to 169 million tons, mainly by combating deforestation.

Within this voluntary goal, Colombia pledged that at least 20 percent of its energy mix would be made up of biofuels by that year, subject to financial support from industrialized countries.

The independent Climate Action Tracker calls the NDC “highly insufficient”, as other approaches are needed, especially in energy and transportation. Although transportation accounts for 12 percent of the country’s total emissions, mitigation actions, such as the deployment of electric cars, are insufficient.

The Colombian government projects stable ethanol demand between 2022 and 2025, of about 60,000 barrels per day of the biofuel.

“The agroecological transition could be completed in three years, without any problem,” said Molina.

But Vélez disagreed. “It is associated with an agro-technological package that involves improved seeds that need pesticides, fertilizers and privatized seeds from transnational corporations. There is no point in switching from sugarcane to organic pineapple, for example. If land grabbing continues, we are not generating the necessary transition,” he said.

A Venezuelan family carrying a few belongings crosses the Simon Bolivar Bridge at the border into Colombia. Over the years, the migration flow has grown due to increasing numbers of people with unsatisfied basic needs. CREDIT: Siegfried Modola/UNHCR

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Jul 26 2021 (IPS)

The exodus of more than five million Venezuelans in the last six years has led countries in the developing South, Venezuela’s neighbours, to set an example with respect to welcoming and integrating displaced populations, with shared benefits for the new arrivals and the nations that receive them.

In this region “there is a living laboratory, where insertion and absorption efforts are working. The new arrivals are turning what was seen as a burden into a contribution to the host communities and nations,” Eduardo Stein, head of the largest assistance programme for displaced Venezuelans, told IPS.

According to figures from the United Nations refugee agency, the UNHCR, and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), 5,650,000 people have left Venezuela, mainly crossing into neighbouring countries, as migrants, displaced persons or refugees, as of July 2021.

“This is the largest migration crisis in the history of Latin America,” Stein said by phone from his Guatemala City office in the Interagency Coordination Platform for Venezuelan Refugees and Migrants (R4V), created by the UNHCR and IOM in partnership with 159 other diverse entities working throughout the region."This region is a living laboratory, where insertion and absorption efforts are working. The new arrivals are turning what was seen as a burden into a contribution to the host communities and nations." -- Eduardo Stein

Colombia, the neighbour with the most intense historical relationship, stands out for receiving daily flows of hundreds and even thousands of Venezuelans, who already number almost 1.8 million in the country, and for providing them with Temporary Protection Status that grants them documentation and access to jobs, services and other rights.

Colombia’s Fundación Renacer, which has assisted thousands of child and adolescent survivors of commercial sexual exploitation and other types of sexual and gender-based violence, is a model for how to welcome and help displaced persons.

Renacer, staffed by activists such as Mayerlin Vergara, 2020 winner of the UNHCR’s annual Nansen Refugee Award for outstanding aid workers who help refugees, displaced and stateless people, rescues girls and young women from places like brothels and bars where they are forced into sexual or labour exploitation, often by trafficking networks that capture the most vulnerable migrants.

“In Colombian society as a whole there has been a process of understanding, after the phenomenon was the other way around for several decades in the 20th century, of people displaced by the violence and crisis in Colombia being welcomed in Venezuela,” Camilo González, president of the Colombian Institute for Development and Peace Studies, told IPS.

When the great migratory wave began in 2014-2015, “many Venezuelans were taken on as half-price cheap labour by businesses, such as coffee harvesters and others in the big cities, but that situation has improved, even despite the slowdown of the pandemic,” said González.

Stein mentioned the positive example set by Colombia’s flower exporters, which employed many Venezuelan women in cutting and packaging, a task that did not require extensive training.

The head of the R4V, who was vice-president of Guatemala between 2004 and 2008 and has held various international positions, noted that in the first phase, the receiving countries appreciated the arrival of “highly prepared Venezuelans, very well trained professionals.”

Yukpa Indians from Venezuela register upon arrival at a border post in Colombia. The legalisation and documentation of migrants arranged by the Colombian government allows migrants to access services and exercise rights in the neighbouring country. CREDIT: Johanna Reina/UNHCR

“One example would be the thousands of Venezuelan engineers who arrived in Argentina and were integrated into productive activities in a matter of weeks,” he said.

But, Stein pointed out, “the following wave of Venezuelans leaving their country was not made up of professionals; the profile changed to people with huge unsatisfied basic needs, without a great deal of training but with basic skills, and nevertheless the borders remained open, and they received very generous responses.”

But, he acknowledged, in some cases “the arrival of this irregular, undocumented migration was linked to acts of violence and violations of the law, which created internal tension.”

Iván Briscoe, regional head of the Brussels-based conflict observatory International Crisis Group, told IPS that in the case of Colombia, “it has been impressive to receive almost two million Venezuelans, in a country of 50 million inhabitants, 40 percent of whom live in poverty.”

Colombia continues to be plagued by social problems, as shown by the street protests raging since April, “and therefore the temporary protection status, a generous measure by President Iván Duque’s government, does not guarantee that Venezuelan migrants will have access to the social services they may demand,” Briscoe said.

The large number of Venezuelans “means an additional cost of 100 million dollars per year for the health services alone,” said González, who spoke to IPS by telephone from the Colombian capital.

Against this backdrop, there have been expressions of xenophobia, as various media outlets interpreted statements by Bogotá Mayor Claudia López, who after a crime committed by a Venezuelan, suggested the deportation of “undesirable” nationals from that country.

There were also demonstrations against the influx of Venezuelans in Ecuador and Panama, as well as Peru, where the policy of President-elect Pedro Castillo towards the one million Venezuelan immigrants is still unclear, as well as deportations from Chile and Trinidad and Tobago, and new obstacles to their arrival in the neighbouring Dutch islands.

“Not everything has been rosy,” Stein admitted, “as there are still very complex problems, such as the risks that, between expressions of xenophobia and the danger of trafficking, the most vulnerable migrant girls and young women face.”

However, the head of the R4V considered that “we have entered a new phase, beyond the immediate assistance that can and should be provided to those who have just arrived, and that is the insertion and productive or educational integration in the communities.”

Migrants who have benefited from Operation Welcome in Brazil, where there are more than 260,000 Venezuelans, shop at a market in the largest city in the country, São Paulo. CREDIT: Mauro Vieira/MDS-UNHCR

Throughout the region “there are places that have seen that immigrants represent an attraction for investment and labour and productive opportunities for the host communities themselves.”

Another example is provided by Brazil, with its Operação Acolhida (Operation Welcome), which includes a programme to disperse throughout its vast territory Venezuelans who came in through the northern border and first settled, precariously, in cities in the state of Amazonas.

More than 260,000 Venezuelans have arrived in Brazil – among them some 5,000 indigenous Waraos, from the Orinoco delta, and a similar number of Pemon Indians, close to the border – and some 50,000 have been recognised as refugees by the Brazilian government.

Brazil has the seventh largest Venezuelan community, after Colombia, Peru, the United States, Chile, Ecuador and Spain. It is followed by Argentina, Panama, the Dominican Republic and Mexico.

Throughout the region, organisations have mushroomed, not only to provide relief but also to actively seek the insertion of Venezuelans, in some cases headed by Venezuelans themselves, as in the case of the Fundacolven foundation in Bogota.

“We are active on two fronts, because first we motivate companies to take on workers who, as immigrants, are willing to go the ‘extra mile’,” said Venezuelan Mario Camejo, one of the directors of Fundacolven.

As for the immigrants, “we help them prepare and polish their skills so that they can successfully search for and find stable employment, if they have already ‘burned their bridges’ and do not plan to return,” he added.

On this point, Stein commented that the growing insertion of Venezuelans “shows how this crisis can evolve without implying an internal solution in Venezuela,” a country whose projected population according to the census of 10 years ago should have been 32.9 million and is instead around 28 million.

Based on surveys carried out in several countries, the head of R4V indicated that “the majority of Venezuelans who have migrated and settled in these host countries are not interested in going back in the short term.”

Julio Meléndez is a young Venezuelan who has found employment in food distribution at a hospital in Cali, in western Colombia. Labour insertion is key for the integration of migrants in host communities. CREDIT: Laura Cruz Cañón/UNHCR

According to Filippo Grandi, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, they have benefited from the fact that the countries of the region “are an example, and the rest of the world can learn a lot about the inclusion and integration of refugees in Latin America and the Caribbean.”

In the north of the region, Mexico is dealing with a migration phenomenon on four fronts. On one hand, 12 million Mexicans live in the United States. And on the other, every year hundreds of thousands of migrants make their way through the country, mainly Central Americans and in recent years also people from the Caribbean, Venezuelans and Africans.

In addition, the United States sends back to Mexico hundreds of thousands of people who cross its southern border without the required documents. And in fourth place, the least well-known aspect: Mexico is home to more than one million migrants and refugees who have chosen to make their home in that country.

Major recipients of refugees and asylum seekers in other regions are Turkey, in the eastern Mediterranean, hosting 3.7 million (92 percent Syrians), and, with 1.4 million displaced persons each, Pakistan (which has received a massive influx of people from Afghanistan) and Uganda (refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo and other neighbouring countries).

In Sudan there are one million refugees, Bangladesh, Iran and Lebanon host 900,000 each, while in the industrialised North the cases of Germany, which received 1.2 million refugees from the Middle East, and the United States, which has 300,000 refugees and one million asylum seekers in its territory, stand out.

Credit: SEWA BHATTARAI

By Sewa Bhattarai
Oct 29 2019 (IPS)

Children sit in a circle experimenting with different colours on palettes at a shelter in Godavari one morning this week. Some design flowers in bright colours, others draw homes nestled below mountains. Many of the children are survivors of rape or domestic violence, from rural parts of Nepal. The one thing they have in common is mental trauma.

For Colombian painter Dairo Vargas (pictured with students of Kitini College) who is coaching these and other Nepali children, the situation is very familiar to that of his own country. Vargas himself suffered depression as a teenager, and believes art can be a great healer in a country wracked by war.

“Traumatised people often cannot express their suffering to other people, and art is a space where they can free themselves. Completing a piece of art also helps the brain make connections, and gives a sense of achievement and confidence.”

“When I was depressed, I could not focus on anything. But when I start painting, I am able to concentrate on what I am creating. That gives me a sense of calm, and slowly helped me overcome depression,” says Vargas, who now helps others like him around the world.

Nepal and Colombia share the common burden of war trauma — people in both countries today struggle with the violence of their past, and seek closure. Nepal signed a peace accord with the Maoists in 2006, and Colombia made peace with the FARC rebel group 10 years later, ending a conflict that killed over 220,000 people and displaced 7 million.

While many victims and their families have received compensation for physical wounds or loss in Nepal, mental trauma has been largely ignored. Likewise, various studies indicate that up to 40% of the population in Colombia suffer from mental illness at some point, and lifetime prevalence may be up to 20%. There too, the Ministry of Health has recognised that the issue is under-reported and inadequately addressed.

Vargas works with former FARC guerrillas and others in Colombia who suffer post-traumatic stress, but finds it hard.

“Of course the guerrillas have many mental health issues, but they are not happy to do anything about it at the moment. Also, they have made so many enemies in society that reintegrating them is very difficult,” he says.

Vargas is attempting to bring his own experience in Colombia to fill this gap in Nepal. His mission is to spread awareness about mental illness, and make painting more accessible to traumatised people through his movement #TheArtListens. He is using the technique with children at a shelter for rescued children in Godavari, where they paint, sketch and draw.

Credit: SEWA BHATTARAI

As in Colombia, mental health is still a stigma in Nepal, especially for families of the disappeared, children who witnessed violence and victims of war rape.

These survivors rarely seek help, even though a 2012 study showed 80% of conflict-affected people suffer anxiety and depression, 50% have PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), and former child soldiers are far more likely (45-50%) to suffer from these symptoms than children never conscripted (20-37%). Social reintegration continues to be a challenge, and many former combatants and relatives suffer stigma.

Suraj Koirala of TPO (Transcultural Psychosocial Organisation) has surveyed and counselled many conflict-affected Nepalis, and says the most common problems are depression, anxiety and PTSD.

“Children and women have suffered the most, and it is prolonged for victims of sexual abuse and family members of the disappeared,” says Koirala.

One of them is Bhagiram Chaudhary of the Conflict Victims’ Common Platform, whose brother and sister-in-law were disappeared during the conflict but who has never sought counselling or therapy.

“If I see anyone who looks like my brother, I still take a second look, wondering if it is him,” he says. “We are unable to perform his last rites, because we don’t know if he is still out there. Not having closure means that we are still undecided about how to take our life forward.”

Gita Rasaili of the Conflict Victims’ National Network was 13 when she saw soldiers taking away her sister. Her family later found the decomposed remains of her body. After that, Rasaili’s mother used to faint often and was unable to perform household chores. After years of therapy, she did get better.

Credit: SEWA BHATTARAI

“There are many war victims like me who suffer from mental health crises, but we do not recognise it and never seek help,” says Rasaili. “If you go to a mental hospital people think you are mad. A lot more needs to be done for the nation to heal.”

Like Rasaili, other war survivors suffer from symptoms like lack of sleep and concentration, inability to focus, disruptive memories and depression. The bigger concern is that these problems could transcend generations.

“If parents are unable to deal with trauma and express their mental state in unhealthy ways, their children could be impacted as well,” says Koirala of TPO. “Social reintegration is already difficult for combatants, and this could create another generation of outcasts.”

As in Colombia, some victims of the conflict and the 2015 earthquake in Nepal have found ways to express themselves through art. Rasaili keeps a journal, saying it helps her find relief from stress, and she knows others who paint and sketch. But they all found these outlets through personal effort — there is no systematic approach to artistic therapy in Nepal.

Says Vargas: “Traumatised people often cannot express their suffering to other people, and art is a space where they can free themselves. Completing a piece of art also helps the brain make connections, and gives a sense of achievement and confidence.”

This story was originally published by The Nepali Times

Yolanda Flores, an Aymara indigenous woman, speaks to other women engaged in small-scale agriculture, gathered in her village square in the highlands of Peru's southern Andes. She is convinced that participating in local decision-making spaces is fundamental for rural women to stop being invisible and to gain recognition of their rights. Credit: Courtesy of Yolanda Flores

By Mariela Jara
LIMA, Oct 12 2018 (IPS)

Rural women in Latin America play a key role with respect to attaining goals such as sustainable development in the countryside, food security and the reduction of hunger in the region. But they remain invisible and vulnerable and require recognition and public policies to overcome this neglect.

There are around 65 million rural women in this region, and they are very diverse in terms of ethnic origin, the kind of land they occupy, and the activities and roles they play. What they have in common though is that governments largely ignore them, as activists pointed out ahead of the International Day of Rural Women, celebrated Oct. 15."They play key roles and produce and work much more than men. In the orchards, in the fields, during planting time, they raise the crops, take care of the farm animals, and disproportionately carry the workload of the house, the children, etc., but they don't see a cent." -- JulioBerdegué

“The state, whether local or national authorities, neglect us,” Yolanda Flores, an Aymara woman, told IPS. “They only think about planting steel and cement. They don’t understand that we live off agriculture and that we women are the most affected because we are in charge of the food and health of our families.”

Flores, who lives in Iniciati, a village of about 400 indigenous peasant families in the department of Puno in Peru’s southern Andes, located more than 3,800 metres above sea level, has always been dedicated to growing food for her family.

On the land she inherited from her parents she grows potatoes, beans and grains like quinoa and barley, which she washes, grinds in a traditional mortar and pestle, and uses to feed her family. The surplus is sold in the community.

“When we garden we talk to the plants, we hug each potato, we tell them what has happened, why they have become loose, why they have worms. And when they grow big we congratulate them, one by one, so our food has a lot of energy when we eat. But people don’t understand our way of life and they forget about small farmers,” she said.

Like Flores, millions of rural women in Latin America face a lack of recognition for their work on the land, as well as the work they do maintaining a household, caring for the family, raising children, or caring for the sick and elderly.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) urges governments in the region to assume a commitment to reverse the historical disadvantages faced by this population group which prevent their access to productive resources, the enjoyment of benefits and the achievement of economic autonomy.

“Depending on the country, between two-thirds and 85 percent of the hours worked by rural women is unpaid work,” Julio Berdegué, FAO regional representative for Latin America and the Caribbean, told IPS.

Women engage in subsistence agriculture at more than 3,300 metres above sea level in the highlands of the southern department of Cuzco, in the Andes of Peru, in the municipality of Cusipata. With the support of nongovernmental organisations, they have built greenhouses that allow them to produce a range of vegetables despite the inclement weather. Credit: Janet Nina/IPS

Berdeguè, who is also deputy director general of FAO, deplored the fact that they do not receive payment for their hard work in agriculture – a workload that is especially heavy in the case of heads of families who run their farms, and during growing season.

“They play key roles and produce and work much more than men,” the official said from FAO’s regional headquarters in Santiago. “In the orchards, in the fields, during planting time, they raise the crops, take care of the farm animals, and disproportionately carry the workload of the house, the children, etc., but they don’t see a cent.”

“We say: we want women to stay in the countryside. But for God’s sake, why would they stay? They work for their fathers, then they work for their husbands or partners. That’s just not right, it’s not right!” exclaimed Berdegué, before stressing the need to stop justifying that rural women go unpaid, because it stands in the way of their economic autonomy.

He explained that not having their own income, or the fact that the income they generate with the fruit of their work is then managed by men, places rural women in a position of less power in their families, their communities, the market and society as a whole.

“Imagine if it was the other way around, that they would tell men: you work, but you will not receive a cent. We would have staged a revolution by now. But we’ve gotten used to the fact that for rural women that’s fine because it’s the home, it’s the family,” Berdegué said.

The FAO regional representative called on countries to become aware of this reality and to fine-tune policies to combat the discrimination.

A global workload greater than that of men, economic insecurity, reduced access to resources such as land, water, seeds, credit, training and technical assistance are some of the common problems faced by rural women in Latin America, whether they are farmers, gatherers or wage-earners, according to the Atlas of Rural Women in Latin America and the Caribbean, published in 2017 by FAO.

But even in these circumstances, they are protagonists of change, as in the growth of rural women’s trade unions in the agro-export sector.

Afro-descendant Adela Torres (white t-shirt, L-C, front), secretary general of the National Union of Agricultural Industry Workers (Sintrainagro) in the banana region of Urabá, in the Colombian department of Antioquia, sits on the floor during a meeting of women members of the union. Credit: Courtesy of Sintrainagro

With the increased sale of non-traditional products to international markets, such as flowers, fruit and vegetables, women have swelled this sector, says another regional study, although often in precarious conditions and with standards that do not ensure decent work.

Trade unions fight exploitative conditions

But trade unions are fighting exploitative labour conditions. A black woman from Colombia, Adela Torres, is an example of this struggle.

Since childhood and following the family tradition, she worked on a banana farm in the municipality of Apartadó, in Urabá, a region that produces bananas for export in the Caribbean department of Antioquia.

Now, the 54-year-old Torres, who has two daughters and two granddaughters, is the secretary general of the National Union of Agricultural Industry Workers (Sintrainagro), which groups workers from 268 farms, and works for the insertion of rural women in a sector traditionally dominated by men.

“When women earn and manage their own money, they can improve their quality of life,” she told IPS in a telephone conversation from Apartadó.

Torres believes that women’s participation in banana production should be equitable and that their performance deserves equal recognition.

“We have managed to get each farm to hire at least two more women and among the achievements gained are employment contracts, equal pay, social security and incentives for education and housing for these women,” she explained.

She said rural women face many difficulties, many have not completed primary school, are mothers too early and are heads of households, have no technical training and receive no state support.

In spite of this, they work hard and manage to raise their children and get ahead while contributing to food security.

Making the leap to positions of visibility is also a challenge that Flores has assumed in the Andes highlands of Puno, to fight for their proposals and needs to be heard.

“We have to win space in decision-making and come in as authorities; that is the struggle now, to speak for ourselves. I am determined and I am encouraging other women to take this path,” Flores said.

Faced with the indifference of the authorities, more action and a stronger presence is the philosophy of Flores, as her grandmother taught her, always repeating: “Don’t be lazy and work hard.” “That is the message and I carry it in my mind, but I would like to do it with more support and more rights,” she said.

With reporting by Orlando Milesi in Santiago.

Excerpt:

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos signs the peace agreement, observed by FARC chief Rodrigo Londoño, Latin American presidents and other dignitaries, in an open-air ceremony in the city of Cartagena de Indias. Credit: Colombian presidency

By Constanza Vieira
BOGOTA, Sep 27 2016 (IPS)

It was like a huge party in Colombia. “Congratulations!” people said to each other, before hugging. “Only 20 minutes to go!” one office worker said, hurrying on her way to Bolívar square, in the heart of Bogotá. And everyone knew what she was talking about, and hurried along too. Complete strangers exchanged winks of complicity.

Starting at 5:00 PM on Monday Sept. 26, the people in the square watched a live broadcast of the ceremony in Cartagena de Indias, 664 km to the north, where the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels signed a peace agreement, putting an end to 52 years of armed conflict.

Fifteen presidents, 27 foreign ministers and three former presidents, as well as United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, took part in and witnessed the historic event.

The first big test for peace will come on Sunday Oct. 2, when Colombians will vote for or against the peace deal, in a referendum.

The ceremony began with one minute of silence for the Colombians who were killed or forcibly disappeared in the last half century, while dozens of white flags were raised.

This was followed by an a capella song by traditional singers from Bojayá, a town in the northwestern department of Chocó where 79 people were killed in May 2002, including 44 children. The United Nations blamed the FARC, the far-right paramilitaries and the army for the war crime.

“We are very happy/full of joy/that the FARC guerrillas/are laying down their arms,” they sang. During the war, “in our community/they didn’t even let/us go out to fish or work. We want justice and peace/to come from the heart/for health, peace and education to reach our fields.”

At 5:30 PM, President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC leader Rodrigo Londoño, known by his nom de guerre Timochenko, signed the “final agreement to end the conflict and build a stable and lasting peace”, agreed on Aug. 24 in Havana after five years of peace talks held with international observers.

Colombians are “bidding farewell to decades of flames and sending up a bright flare of hope that illuminates the world,” Ban Ki-moon said.

The two leaders signing the accord spoke next.

The former rebel leader apologised “to all the victims of the conflict for all of the pain that we have caused in this war,” receiving a standing ovation in Cartagena as well as Bogotá, while thousands of people chanted “Yes we could!”

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon speaks at the ceremony for the signing of the peace deal in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia. Credit: UN

The FARC rebel organisation will now become a new political party. ““No one should doubt that we are moving into politics without arms,” Londoño said. “The war is over. We are starting to build peace.”

Santos said “I welcome you to democracy. Exchanging bullets for votes, weapons for ideas, is the bravest and most intelligent decision…you understood the call of history.”

“We will undoubtedly never see eye to eye about the political or economic model that our country should follow, but I will staunchly defend your right to express your ideas within the democratic regime,” the president said.

After 14 years, the European Union removed the FARC from its list of terrorist organisations. And U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said his government would “review” doing the same.

Ban confirmed that the signing of the agreement marked the start of the U.N. Security Council peacekeeping mission to verify and monitor the ceasefire and the laying down of arms within 180 days.

On the sunny afternoon in Bolívar square, 70-something Graciela Laverde, wearing a colourful cotton dress, told IPS her biggest wish was “peace, education and recreation for so many children, an end to all the corruption and the killing of so many innocent people….If God wills, there will be peace.”

The referendum

The first big step along the complex route to consolidating peace will be the Oct. 2 referendum in which Colombians will vote whether or not they back the final peace deal.

The campaigns urging people to vote “yes” have been diverse and have included initiatives too numerous to count. For example, grandmothers playing with their grandchildren cut out large signs reading “si” (yes) to tape in their windows.

The campaign for the “no” vote, meanwhile, was led first and foremost by the far right: former president Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010) and former attorney general Alejandro Ordóñez, who may be Uribe’s candidate in the 2018 presidential elections.

The campaign has targeted Colombians in urban areas, who make up 70 percent of the population. “The people living in rural areas are prepared to vote ‘yes’,” analyst Jesús Aníbal Suárez told IPS, adding that it was urban residents who had the most doubts.

Suárez expects low voter turnout of around 35 percent, which would still be high enough to meet the legal requirements for the referendum. He projects a 60-40 percent result in favour of “yes”.

President Juan Manuel Santos (R) shows FARC chief Rodrigo Londoño the symbolic pen made from a bullet that the two used to sign the peace agreement putting an end to over half a century of conflict in Colombia. Credit: Colombian presidency

“There is a great deal of uncertainty, and that leads people to abstain from voting,” he said. “Uribe’s effort has made its mark, it has managed to confuse people,” by widely disseminating false information about the peace agreement, he added.

But there is a new segment of the population in favour of the “yes” vote: the military and police, who total nearly half a million people in this country of 48 million.

“The members of the military can’t vote, but their families, the people around them, can,” said Suárez. “I heard retired general (former police chief) Roso José Serrano say: ‘I don’t want one more police officer to die.”

“Soldiers and police officers feel like they have been cannon fodder. Their families will vote for the ceasefire, just as a matter of logic,” because the deaths in combat have been reduced to zero.

During the 2014 presidential elections voters were polarised between reelecting Santos, so he could continue the peace talks with the FARC, and voting for Uribe’s candidate Óscar Zuluaga, who wanted to suspend the negotiations and relaunch them on a different footing.

Today, the “no” camp is calling for a renegotiation of the accord.

Suárez believes that in 2014, the families and friends of the half million soldiers and police voted for Zuluaga, but will now vote “yes”.

At the same time, the “no” campaign has complained about the government’s new sex education for preteens.

Because the peace agreement has a gender perspective, an unprecedented aspect in any peace deal anywhere in the world, Ordóñez’s followers protested on the day of the signing ceremony, in a small demonstration in Cartagena, that the peace accord represented a threat to children because of its “gender ideology.”

Evangelical Christians, who number several million in Colombia, vote in a disciplined manner, and their preachers have told them to vote “no”. The local Catholic Church leaders, despite Pope Francis’ support for the peace talks, declared themselves neutral with regard to the referendum.

“The referendum will define which direction this will take,” said Carlos Lozano, director of the Communist weekly publication Voz, who was close to the Havana talks.

“If the ‘no’ vote wins, which I don’t believe will happen, things would change a great deal, even if the war didn’t break out again,” he told IPS.

“It would be very difficult to hold another process of peace talks and reach another agreement,” he said. “It’s a document that has consensus support, which is worthy of the state, worthy of the guerrillas, and was built with great care, in a very detailed manner.”

Representatives of the gender subcommittee to Colombia’s peace talks alongside the U.N. Secretary General’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Zainab Hawa Bangura (centre-left) and U.N.-Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, during the Jul. 23 presentation of the preliminary results of the novel initiative, in Havana, Cuba. Credit: Karina Terán/U.N.-Women

By Patricia Grogg
HAVANA, Jul 29 2016 (IPS)

The novel inclusion of a gender perspective in the peace talks that led to a historic ceasefire between the Colombian government and left-wing guerrillas is a landmark and an inspiration for efforts to solve other armed conflicts in the world, according to the director of U.N.-Women in Colombia, Belén Sanz.

In statements to IPS, Sanz described as “innovative and pioneering” the incorporation of a gender subcommittee in the negotiations between the administration of President Juan Manuel Santos and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which began in November 2012 in the Cuban capital and ended in late June with a definitive ceasefire.

She said the large proportion of women who spoke with the negotiating teams, in regional and national forums, and during visits by victims and gender experts to Havana showed the growing openness on both sides to the inclusion of gender proposals in the final accord and the mechanisms for its implementation.

The results of the work by the subcommittee, made up of representatives of both sides, were presented in Havana during a special ceremony on Jul. 23, exactly one month after the ceasefire was signed, putting an end to over a half century of armed conflict.

Taking part in the ceremony were U.N.-Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka; the U.N. Secretary General’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Zainab Hawa Bangura; and Sanz, whose office has worked closely with the subcommittee.

Other participants were María Paulina Riveros, the Colombian government’s delegate to the subcommittee, and Victoria Sandino, the FARC’s representative, along with the rest of the members of the subcommittee, the delegates to the peace talks, and representatives of the countries that served as guarantors to the peace process.

The results of the subcommittee´s work, presented on that occasion, include the incorporation of a gender perspective and the human rights of women in each section of the agreement, starting with guarantees for land access and tenure for women in rural areas.

Other points agreed on were women’s participation in decision-making to help ensure the implementation of a lasting, stable peace; prevention and protection measures for a life free of violence; guarantees of access to truth and justice and measures against impunity; and recognition of the specific and different ways the conflict affected women, often in a disproportionate manner.

“These are some examples that can be illustrative and inspiring for other peace processes around the world,” Sanz said from Bogotá, after her return to the Colombian capital.

Victoria Sandino, a FARC commander, who headed the guerrillas’ representatives to the gender subcommittee in the peace talks with the Colombian government (second-left, wearing red headscarf), poses with members of civil society during the signing of the definitive ceasefire on Jun. 23 in Havana, Cuba. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

In her view, “these strides forward represent milestones in the promotion of women’s rights and the transformation of gender inequality during the construction of and transition to peace, which could be exported to other places in the world and adapted to their particular conditions and contexts.”

The introduction of a gender focus also includes the search for ensuring conditions for people of different sexual orientations to have equal access to the benefits of living in a country free of armed conflict.

“For women and people with different sexual identities to be able to enjoy a country at peace is not only a basic human rights question: without their participation in the construction of peace and, as a result, without their enjoying the benefits of peace, peace and stability themselves are threatened,” said Sanz.

She cited a study commissioned in 2015 by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, 15 years after the approval of Security Council Resolution 1325, designed to promote the participation of women in peace processes.

The report showed that women’s participation increases by 20 percent the probability that a peace agreement will last at least 20 years, and by 35 percent the chance that it will last 15 years.

“So if women don’t participate in peace-building processes, not only as ‘beneficiaries’ but as drivers of change and political actors, it’s hard to talk about a stable, lasting peace,” said Sanz.

Erika Paola Jaimes, a survivor of Colombia’s armed conflict, holds a sign about peace during a trip to Havana to participate in the peace talks between the government and the FARC rebels, which led to a ceasefire signed Jun. 23 in the Cuban capital. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

The U.N. study also shows the risks faced by women in the post-peace deal stages.

According to the report, women in areas affected by the conflict have fewer economic opportunities and suffer the emotional and physical scars of the conflict, without support or recognition – besides often facing routine violence in their homes and communities and shouldering the burden of unpaid care for children and the elderly and household tasks.

In a broader sense, “the structures of inequality remain in place and measures are needed to dismantle them, as well as a commitment by society as a whole,” said Sanz, who described a transition process like the one that Colombia is facing as “a key opportunity” to transform women’s status in society.

She said the continued work of the gender subcommittee is “crucial”, as well as that of women’s organisations, with the support of international aid, in order to incorporate provisions in the agreements to enable these situations of inequality to gradually be transformed, with a view to the period following the signing and implementation of the accords.

The inclusion of gender provisions in peace agreements “opens a window of opportunity for the transformation of existing structures of inequality and can also be an opportunity for other peace processes, during the signing of the agreements and the stage of implementation,” said the head of U.N.-Women.

According to estimates, women account for over 40 percent of the members of the FARC, whose exact numbers are not publicly known.

Overall, women represent slightly over half of the general population of 48 million. However, Colombia is one of the countries in Latin America with the lowest levels of female representation in politics.

In 2015, women represented only 14 percent of town councilors, 17 percent of the members of the lower house of Congress, 10 percent of mayors and nine percent of governors. These figures are still far below the parity that would do justice to the proportion of women in society, states a U.N.-Women report.

A Libyan drug and alcohol trafficking police squad. Credit: Maryline Dumas/IPS

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 24 2016 (IPS)

A new report has found that global drug use largely remains the same, but perspectives on how to address the issue still vary drastically.

The new World Drug Report, released by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), provides a review on drug production and use and its impact on communities around the world.

UNODC has estimated that 1 in 20 adults, or quarter of a billion people between the ages of 15 and 64 years, used at least one drug in 2014. Though the figure has not changed over the past four years, the number of people classified as suffering from drug use disorders has increased for the first time in six years to over 29 million people.

Of those, 12 million are people who inject drugs and 14 percent of this population lives with HIV.

UNODC’s Executive Director Yury Fedotov noted the significance of such a comprehensive review, stating: “The 2016 World Drug Report highlights support for the comprehensive, balanced and integrated rights-based approaches.”

However, Kasia Malinowska, Director of Open Society Foundation’s (OSF) Global Drug Policy Program, expressed her disappointment in the document.

“It’s a little bit of business as usual,” she told IPS.

She particularly pointed to the lack of recognition of drug prohibition policies.

For instance, in the report, UNODC notes that drug-associated violence is higher in Latin America than in Asia. Malinowska told IPS that this overlooks a history of militarised narcotics interventions in Latin America that did not exist in Asia.

In the 1990s, the United States funded anti-narcotics police operations in Colombia which contributed to a spike in drug-fuelled violence as well as the longest war in the Western hemisphere which killed over 220,000 civilians.

Although the Government of Colombia and the FARC-EP signed a historic ceasefire agreement this week, Colombia continues to be a major coca and cocaine producing country.

“My question is how have external actors contributed to violence…and there is no recognition of that bigger context, and that’s the problem with the report,” Malinowska told IPS.

“It does not take responsibility of how much current prohibitionist policies have contributed to that problem,” she continued.

Malinowska highlighted the need to recognize that prohibition is not the only way to address drugs, and that policies must be contextualised according to the wellbeing of countries’ own citizens rather than international conventions.

UNODC’s Director of Policy Analysis and Public Affairs Jean-Luc Lemahieu echoed similar sentiments during a briefing, stating that “not one shoe fits all.”

He pointed to Netherlands and Sweden as two examples.

In the Netherlands, the government implemented a “separation of markets” approach, which separated cannabis from other hard drugs. Its aim was to limit exposure and access to harder drugs.

This proved to be a success for the country as cannabis use remained low. The Dutch government also invested in treatment, prevention and harm reduction approaches which helped it to maintain low rates of HIV among people who use drugs and low rate of problem drug use.

Sweden, on the other hand, implemented more restrictive drug policies that punish drug use and curb drug supply. UNODC noted that the country’s approach is a “success” as it has low rates of drug abuse and needle-associated HIV transmission.

Both Lemahieu and Malinowska also stressed the need to integrate sustainable development with global drug policy.

In the report, UNODC recognized the contribution of poverty and lack of sustainable livelihoods to the cultivation of crops such as coca leaves.

“Illicit drug cultivation and manufacturing can be eradicated only if policies aimed at the overall social, economic and environmental development communities,” the report states.

Malinowska, however, told IPS of the need to offer “proper” choices and opportunities to poor smallholder farmers engaged in the drug economy. Though not everyone may choose other economic activities, she remarked that no one has tried the approach.

“What we need is thoughtful, sustainable development…we are using the same matrix, the same paradigm, the same language and that really needs to dramatically change,” she said.

“It is really important that we stop thinking of it as a drug problem but that we look at it as a problem of severe underdevelopment in some regions,” Malinowska concluded.

The World Drug Report 2016 has been published following the Special Session of the UN General Assembly on the World Drug Problem (UNGASS) held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York in April.

During the launch of the report, UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson described it as an issue of “common global concern” that affects all nations and sectors of society.

Social actors and government representatives sign a social and political pact for reparations and peace in Colombia on Apr. 11, the National Day of Remembrance and Solidarity with the Victims of the Conflict. Credit: UARIV

By Constanza Vieira
BOGOTA, May 16 2016 (IPS)

“If you’re going to talk about Colombia and the peace process, do it somewhere else,” was heard at a regional preparatory meeting for the World Humanitarian Summit, according to Ramón Rodríguez, with the Colombian government’s Unit for Attention and Integral Reparation for Victims (UARIV).

“Cuba’s representative, for example, stated: ‘This is a World Humanitarian Summit, we’re going to talk about humanitarian questions in general, and not specific cases,” the official said with respect to the preparations for the first gathering of its kind, to be held May 23-24 in Istanbul.

“For the organisers of the World Humanitarian Summit, disasters are the main issue. They practically fobbed us off,” added Rodríguez, UARIV’s director of social and humanitarian questions, in an interview with IPS in his Bogotá office.

This is true even though United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, when he called the summit, declared that “We must ensure no-one in conflict, no-one in chronic poverty, and no-one living with the risk of natural hazards and rising sea levels is left behind.”

In any case, “the issue (of the Colombian armed conflict) draws a lot of attention, although it is very limited,” said Rodríguez, an industrial engineer who organised and directs the world’s biggest humanitarian aid logistics system, in terms of percentage of a national budget that goes to citizens of the country itself.

Colombia is the only country in Latin America and the Caribbean where a humanitarian crisis has been declared due to internal armed conflict.

In nearly seventy years of civil war in different shapes and formats, the counting of and attention to victims has undergone major changes. Today there is basically industrial-level aid, adapted to a lengthy, calculated disaster.

“We, the government, are the main humanitarian actor in Colombia,” said Rodríguez. “We have an emergency response team. We work with humanitarian organisations through local humanitarian teams.”

Perhaps the main lesson that the Colombian government learned was that it had to count the number of victims and people affected by the conflict, in order to address the humanitarian crisis in its true magnitude. Until 2004, getting the government to admit the number of victims was a tug-of-war.

In 1962, a study on Violence in Colombia (by Guzmán, Fals and Umaña) estimated that 200,000 people were killed between 1948 and 1962.

The victims of forced displacement began to be counted in 1985 by the Catholic Church, at the time the only non-governmental institution with the capacity to carry out a national census of displaced persons.

In 1994, the government put the number of displaced persons at 600,000; however, the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) counted 900,000.

But it was a 2004 Constitutional Court sentence that ordered the government to – gradually – acknowledge the real number of displaced persons, thus recognising the effects of the war.

The Court has been able to verify compliance with the ruling thanks to the support of a non-governmental alliance of academics and researchers: the Follow-up Commission on Public Policies on Forced Displacement.

Finally, in 2011, on the initiative of the government of current President Juan Manuel Santos, whose term began in 2010, the Victims and Land Restitution Law was approved. Among the many measures it involved, it created the UARIV.

At the time, the government recognised 4.5 million people affected by the war in a country of 48 million.

The UARIV opened a Single Registry of Victims, which up to Apr. 1, 2016 had counted a total of 8,040,748 victims since 1985.

Apart from the debate on whether the victims were undercounted, or the number of victims grew, or what grew was the number counted by the state, today UARIV knows that 84.2 percent of the registered victims are displaced persons, and that 45.4 percent come from the geostrategic, resource-rich and dynamic department of Antioquia in northwest Colombia.

It also reports that when the threats peak, this coincides with a peak in forced displacement of people from their land, which intensified between 1995 and 2007, while kidnappings (which account for 0.5 percent of victims) peaked in 2002 and are now becoming a thing of the past.

The UARIV also recognises that the worst years of the war were between 2000 and 2008, and that 2015 has been the most peaceful year since 1985.

In addition, the unit reports that among the victims there are slightly more women than men, while children are the single largest group. And it says one-fourth of the victims are black or indigenous people.

Rodríguez has kept up his monitoring as the peace talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas continue in Havana.

“I asked for a report for the Jan. 1-Apr. 30 period,” he said. “In the same period last year we had 15 mass displacements. In 2016 we had 16. In 2015 1,425 families were affected, 5,721 people. So far this year we have 1,200 more people. Which means that there was an increase in the number of people affected between 2015 and 2016.”

The increase is attributed to criminal bands made up of former far-right paramilitaries, and to the National Liberation Army (ELN), a smaller left-wing rebel group, with which the government recently announced the start of talks.

Colombia is now on the verge of a peace deal. But Rodríguez said it will take “three to five years to achieve peace. There will be an upsurge in violence,” not only because of former paramilitaries but also guerrillas who refuse to lay down their arms.

“Something that should be shown at the World Humanitarian Summit is the rise in violence that is going to occur when the peace agreement is signed. The question of control territory is of great importance to the armed actors, and converges with economic aspects,” said the official.

For Rodríguez, the “victim response, assistance and reparations model” that Colombia has come up with is another key element that would be useful to share at the Istanbul summit.

The model has two phases. The first, immediate humanitarian aid, operates within 48 hours after acts of violence, and comes in two forms: funds, through the municipalities, and in kind, through operators who are subcontracted, who were paid a combined total of more than five million dollars in 2015 for providing services.

Several months later, the victims are registered in the Single Registry of Victims, and emergency and transition aid (for housing and food) begins. The last phase is reparations, which includes indemnification of different kinds.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

Black Women are leading the resistance in Northern Cauca, Colombia. Credit: ACONC (Association of Community Councils of Northenr Cauca).

By Charo Rojas
Cauca, COLOMBIA, May 1 2016 (IPS)

While Colombia’s peace talks continue in Havana, Cuba, back home in the region of North Cauca, Black Colombians have found their cries for access to their ancestral lands met with tear-gas and rubber bullets.

We saw them approach, the ESMAD, the dreaded special police unit called out to squelch popular mobilizations against the government. We pressed even closer together to maintain our lines on one of the main highways that connects Colombia’s north and south. Over a thousand of us, black Colombians from one of the poorest regions of the country, gathered to demonstrate to the government that we would not be silenced while our territories are taken away. Suddenly, without warning, the ESMAD began their assault and soon elders, children, women and our young people were choking from the tear-gas and holding parts of their bodies stinging from rubber bullets indiscriminately fired at us.

The ESMAD’s assault took place on April 25 in the region of North Cauca, Colombia. The next day, the ESMAD sabotaged conversations between the community councils and the authorities, their renewed attacks this time also effecting some of the government officials. A three month-old baby and several children were hurt by a tear-gas grenade that exploded inside their house. We black Colombians are more or less held hostage by the ESMAD, while the national government had promised a meeting at the Mayor’s office in the nearest town.

The Northern Cauca region, located in the department of Cauca, is a critical area in the negotiations between the Colombian government and FARC that are currently taking place in Havana, Cuba. Yet Black communities and our interests have not been considered during these discussions, even though our ancestral territories will be compromised by at least one of the agreements: the 63 so-called campesino reserves. Most of the areas the FARC wants to settle or continue to control are in the middle of or close to black and Indigenous lands.

The main national Black organizations have been concentrated in the National Afro-Colombian Peace Council (CONPA by its acronym in Spanish), which with the Interethnic Commission of Peace, has demanded and lobbied the Colombian government to bring our voice and interests to the table in Havana. But since our demands have been ignored we have had to find new ways to make our voices heard.

As has often been the case in our long history of struggle and resistance in Colombia we have again had to turn to protest. In November 2014, eighty Afro-descendant women mobilized and walked across the country to Bogotá, the capital of Colombia, where we seized the building of the Ministry of Interior to demand a stop to the increase in illegal mining in our territories. These mining activities have brought death, violence and tragedy. In one mine collapse alone, over 40 of our people were killed.

These mobilizations have often been led by Black women, increasingly so in recent years. We have made the government sign agreements to remove illegal mining and admit that granting mining rights to multinationals violates its own laws. We have also made the government acknowledge that these agreement violate the right to prior and informed consultation and consent, as recognized by the International Labour Organization’s Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention. Yet those admissions and agreements have not translated into respect for our rights or any change in government’s actions or approach. In fact, despite the agreements, and the laws and the constitutional mandate to consult, to respect, promote and protect the rights of Black people, the Colombian government has granted mining concessions that cover seventy percent of the Cauca lands to multinationals such as Anglo Gold Ashanti.

The Afrodescendant Women’s Mobilization has received numerous death threats due to our actions to protect our community’s rights and territories. However, the government seems incapable of finding those responsible for the illegal mining or the death threats.

That is why we must continue to resist. The Community Councils will continue blocking the road until the national authorities commit to a renewed dialogue that will lead to substantive changes in how the interests of our communities are protected. It is clear for us that our Black lives matter only through our own efforts.

Charo Mina Rojas is an activist with the Black Communities’ Process in Colombia.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of IPS.

Excerpt:

Participants in the biannual International Civil Society Week 2016, held in Bogotá, waiting for the start of one of the activities in the event that drew some 900 activists from more than 100 countries. Credit: CIVICUS

By Constanza Vieira
BOGOTA, Apr 29 2016 (IPS)

When Tamara Adrián, a Venezuelan transgender opposition legislator, spoke at a panel on inclusion during the last session of the International Civil Society Week held in Bogotá, 12 Latin American women stood up and stormed out of the room.

Adrián was talking about corruption in Venezuela, governed by “Chavista” (for the late Hugo Chávez) President Nicolás Maduro, and the blockade against reforms sought by the opposition, which now holds a majority of seats in the legislature.

The speaker who preceded her, from the global watchdog Transparency International, referred to corruption among left-wing governments in South America.

Outside the auditorium in the Plaza de Artesanos, a square surrounded by parks on the west side of Bogotá, the women, who represented social movements, argued that, by stressing corruption on the left, the right forgot about cases like that of Fernando Collor (1990-1992), a right-wing Brazilian president impeached for corruption.“Together, civil society has power…If we work together and connect with what others are doing in other countries, what we do will also make more sense.” -- Raaida Manaa

“Why don’t they mention those who have staged coups in Latin America and who have been corrupt?” asked veteran Salvadoran activist Marta Benavides.

Benavides told IPS she was not against everyone expressing their opinions, “but they should at least show respect. We don’t all agree with what they’re saying: that Latin America is corrupt. It’s a global phenomenon, and here we have to tell the truth.”

That truth, according to her, is that “Latin America is going through a very difficult situation, with different kinds of coups d’etat.”

She clarified that her statement wasn’t meant to defend President Dilma Rousseff, who is facing impeachment for allegedly manipulating the budget, or the governing left-wing Workers’ Party.

“I want people to talk about the real corruption,” she said. “In Brazil those who staged the 1964 coup (which ushered in a dictatorship until 1985) want to return to power to continue destroying everything; but this will affect everyone, and not just Brazil, its people and its resources.”

In Benavides’ view, all of the panelists “were telling lies” and no divergent views were expressed.

But when the women indignantly left the room, they missed the talk given on the same panel by Emilio Álvarez-Icaza, executive secretary of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), who complained that all of the governments in the Americas – right-wing, left-wing, north and south – financially strangled the IACHR and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

Emilio Álvarez-Icaza, executive secretary of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), the last one on the right, speaking at an International Civil Society Week panel on the situation of activism in Latin America. Credit: Constanza Vieira/IPS

He warned that “An economic crisis is about to break out in the Inter-American human rights system,” which consists of the IACHR and the Court, two autonomous Organisation of American States (OAS) bodies.

“In the regular financing of the OAS, the IACHR is a six percent priority, and the Inter-American Court, three percent,” said Álvarez-Icaza.

“They say budgets are a clear reflection of priorities. We are a nine percent priority,” he said, referring to these two legal bodies that hold states to account and protect human rights activists and community organisers by means of precautionary measures.

He described as “unacceptable and shameful” that the system “has been maintained with donations from Europe or other actors.”

There were multiple voices in this disparate assembly gathered in the Colombian capital since Sunday Apr. 24. The meeting organised by the global civil society alliance CIVICUS, which carried the hashtag ICSW2016 on the social networks, drew some 900 delegates from more than 100 countries.

The ICSW2016 ended Friday Apr. 29 with the election of a new CIVICUS board of directors.

Tutu Alicante, a human rights lawyer from Equatorial Guinea, is considered an “enemy of the state” and lives in exile in the United States. He told IPS that “we are very isolated from the rest of Africa. We need Latin America’s help to present our cases at a global level.”

Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang has been in power for 37 years. On Sunday Apr. 24 he was reelected for another seven years with over 93 percent of the vote, in elections boycotted by the opposition. His son is vice president and has been groomed to replace him.

“Because of the U.S. and British interests in our oil and gas, we believe that will happen,” Alicante stated.

He said the most interesting aspect of the ICSW2016 was the people he met, representatives of “global civil society working to build a world that is more equitable and fair.”

He added, however, that “indigenous and afro communities were missing.”

“We’re in Colombia, where there is an important afro community that is not here at the assembly,” Alicante said. “But there is a sense that we are growing and a spirit of including more people.”

He was saying this just when one of the most important women in Colombia’s indigenous movement, Leonor Zalabata, came up. A leader of the Arhuaco people of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains, she has led protests demanding culturally appropriate education and healthcare, and indigenous autonomy, while organising women in her community.

She was a keynote speaker at the closing ceremony Thursday evening.

A woman with an Arab name and appearance, Raaida Manaa, approached by IPS, turned out to be a Colombian journalist of Lebanese descent who lives in Barranquilla, the main city in this country’s Caribbean region.

She works with the Washington-based International Association for Volunteer Effort.

“The most important” aspect of the ICSW2016 is that it is being held just at this moment in Colombia, whose government is involved in peace talks with the FARC guerrillas. This, she said, underlines the need to set out on the path to peace “in a responsible manner, with a strategy and plan to do things right.”

The title she would use for an article on the ICSW2016 is: “Together, civil society has power.” And the lead would be: “If we work together and connect with what others are doing in other countries, what we do will also make more sense.”

In Colombia there is a large Arab community. Around 1994, the biggest Palestinian population outside the Middle East was living in Colombia, although many fled when the civil war here intensified.

“The peaceful struggle should be the only one,” 2015 Nobel Peace Prize-winner Ali Zeddini of the Tunisian Human Rights League, who took part in the ICSW2016, said Friday morning.

But, he added, “you can’t have a lasting peace if the Palestinian problem is not solved.” Since global pressure managed to put an end to South Africa’s apartheid, the next big task is Palestine, he said.

Zeddini expressed strong support for the Nobel peace prize nomination of Marwan Barghouti, a Palestinian leader serving five consecutive life sentences in an Israeli prison. He was arrested in 2002, during the second Intifada.

 Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

A youth smokes diamba (marijuana) at a gang base in Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown. Credit: Tommy Trenchard/IPS

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 20 2016 (IPS)

International drug conventions ultimately aim to ensure the health and welfare of humankind, UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson said here Tuesday at the opening of a special three-day session on drugs known as UNGASS.

Convened by the 193-member UN General Assembly, the meeting brought together government officials, UN agencies and civil society organisations to review the current international drug control regime.

In his address, Eliasson noted the sensitivity of the subject but urged for collaboration and action.

“It is…important that we listen to each other and learn from each others’ experiences, not least of how the well-being of people is affected,” he stated.

“We must base our decisions on research, data and scientific evidence. And we must not shy away from new ideas and approaches – even if these sometimes may challenge traditional assumptions,” Eliasson added.

However, the ongoing discussions reflect a deep discord regarding drug policy within the international community. UNGASS, which was due to be held in 2019, was advanced to 2016 at the request of the leaders of Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico, countries that have been at the frontline of drug-related violence.

Ahead of UNGASS, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos remarked on the failure of war on drugs in an opinion editorial for the Guardian.

“Vested with the moral authority of leading the nation that has carried the heaviest burden in the global war on drugs, I can tell you without hesitation that the time has come for the world to transit into a different approach in its drug policy,” he wrote.

“This is not a call for legalisation of drugs. It is a call for recognition that between total war and legalisation there exists a broad range of options worth exploring,” President Santos added.

Since the 1961 UN Convention on Narcotic Drugs, states have focused on the criminalisation and eradication of drugs. However, evidence has shown that this approach has not only failed to reduce the production and consumption of drugs, but it has also negatively impacted human rights, health and development around the world.

In Colombia, production of the world’s supply of coca leaves stood at less than 10 percent up to the 1980s. However, following the United States-led war on drugs in Peru and Bolivia, which funded crop eradication programs and anti-narcotics policing, cocaine production was pushed northward into Colombia. By 2000, the country cultivated an estimated 90 percent of the world’s coca leaves.

Despite US-funded anti-narcotics operations in Colombia in the 1990s, drug-fuelled violence spiked and contributed to the Western hemisphere’s longest war. Approximately 220,000 civilians were killed and more than five million were displaced during the Colombian armed conflict.

Meanwhile, Colombia continues to be a major coca and cocaine producing country.

Public health concerns also arose from the use of glyphosate in aerial spraying campaigns which were conducted for over two decades to eradicate coca crops. In 2015, the World Health Organisation warned that the herbicide could cause cancer.

In the U.S. itself, the criminalisation of drugs has led to unprecedented levels of incarceration. The north American nation currently has 25 percent of the world’s prisoners, many of whom have been imprisoned for drug offences.

Mass incarceration and drug-policing disproportionately impacts African American communities.

Though Whites use drugs five times more than African Americans, African Americans are sent to prison for drug offences at 10 times the rate of White drug users, according to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

This has produced social costs that do not stop until long after prison sentences end, if at all.

A nation-wide study found that the majority of formerly incarcerated individuals were unable to access employment, education and housing. Approximately 67 percent of formerly incarcerated individuals in the study were still unemployed or underemployed five years after their release.

Many families also lose income and struggle to meet basic needs when a family member is incarcerated and unable to earn wages. In the same study, nearly 2 in 3 families with an incarcerated member were unable to meet their family’s basic needs, and 70 percent of those families include children. This perpetuates a vicious cycle of poverty and further incarceration with little if any change in drug consumption and production nationally.

The U.S. has begun to address the issue, implementing changes in its criminal justice system. During the National Drug Abuse and Heroin Summit in Atlanta in March 2016, President Barrack Obama highlighted the need to change drug approaches.

“For too long we’ve viewed drug addiction through the lens of criminal justice,” Obama said at the conference.

“The most important thing to do is reduce demand. And the only way to do that is to provide treatment – to see it as a public health problem and not a criminal problem,” he continued.

In the last two years, Obama has commuted 248 sentences of non-violent drug offenders who were harshly sentenced as a result of the war on drugs. The U.S. Justice Department also plans to release 6000 drug offenders following a drug law reform which reduced punishment for federal drug offences.

The UNGASS has incorporated some of these perspectives, experiences and evidence in its newly and unanimously adopted outcome document which aims to more effectively address the world drug problem.

In the document, the General Assembly has called for alternative measures to conviction and proportionate sentencing for drug-related offences. It also highlights the need to increase access to health services and treatment and address root causes including poverty.

However, many have already criticised the session and outcome document as being insufficient to effectively address the global drug issue.

Global Drug Policy Observatory’s (GDPO) Senior Research Officer Julia Buxton told IPS of her disappointment stating: “The outcome document is shameful – a hapless fudge…it goes against science, reason, evidence, best practice and lessons learned in decades of failed efforts,” she concluded.

She added that the outcome of meeting would move towards not only evidence-based approaches, but also harm reduction based approaches.

Harm reduction includes a set of strategies utilising a social justice lens to reduce negative health consequences associated with drug use.

“It demonstrates how fundamentally out of touch many national bureaucracies and governments are with the urgency of change and tragically, will condemn another generation to violence, disease, overdose, stigmatisation and rights abuses,” she concluded.

According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), approximately 27 million people are problem drug users. As of 2015, there has been little change in the production, use, and health consequences of illicit drugs.

A meeting to discuss the restoration of land in Colombia to rural victims of the half-century armed conflict – a situation that the voluntary guidelines on land tenure can help solve. Credit: Helda Martínez/IPS

By Marianela Jarroud
SANTIAGO, Apr 6 2016 (IPS)

Voluntary guidelines on land tenure adopted by the international community to combat the growing concentration of land ownership and improve secure access to land have begun to make headway in Latin America, a region that is a leader in the fight against hunger and that is taking firm steps towards achieving food security.

“The guidelines are an absolutely political document, which helps even out the playing field,” promoting dialogue and negotiation, said Sergio Gómez, a consultant with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) regional office, in the Chilean capital.

“The dynamics of the land market and the concentration of land ownership and land-grabbing by foreign interests had gotten out of control, and the FAO addressed this because if these things are not kept within reasonable limits, food security is jeopardised,” he told IPS.

The Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security can only be understood in relation to the existing levels of land concentration and land-grabbing, he said.“The land tenure situation today is unprecedented, because it is happening at a very particular moment, when the food crisis that applies heavy pressure to natural resources is compounded by an energy crisis and a financial crisis.” -- Sergio Gómez

According to a FAO studied carried out in 17 countries in this region, land-grabbing has increased significantly since the turn of the century.

In this region, the concentration of land ownership and land-grabbing are at their strongest in Argentina and Brazil, followed by the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Nicaragua and Uruguay.

These problems are at a mid- to high level of intensity in Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay and Peru, while they are less present in the countries of Central America and the English-speaking Caribbean.

“The land tenure situation today is unprecedented, because it is happening at a very particular moment, when the food crisis that applies heavy pressure to natural resources is compounded by an energy crisis and a financial crisis,” Gómez said.

“All of this leads to unprecedented pressure with regard to the land question,” he said.

The Guidelines, approved in 2012 by the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) – described as the foremost inclusive international and intergovernmental platform for all stakeholders to work together to ensure food security and nutrition for all – are aimed at serving as a reference point for and providing orientation to improve the governance of land tenure, fisheries and forests.

“The Guidelines are a negotiating tool in an area where there are no clear formulas, but where, in a wide range of situations, the affected groups have to sit down and dialogue, to seek agreements,” Gómez said.

The document establishes 10 rules that the different actors must accept before engaging in dialogue. They are called implementation principles, and are obligatory and designed to provide orientation for this kind of discussion.

They range from respect for human dignity and existing laws to gender equality and transparency.

All of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean have signed the accord, and although it is not binding, “it is understood that there is a willingness to comply,” Gómez said.

Three approaches

But the guidelines are just now starting to be applied in the region.

Concrete experiences in three countries – Guatemala, Colombia and Chile – represent three different approaches.

In Guatemala, the initiative emerged from a request from the government, which in 2013 asked the FAO to provide support and technical assistance to strengthen the country’s agricultural institutions.

“What we did in Guatemala is the most significant thing we have done in the region,” said Gómez.

The land issue, fraught with conflict and inequality, is a major problem in that Central American country of 15.8 million people, where nearly 54 percent of the population lives below the poverty line and 42 percent are indigenous.

In rural areas in Guatemala, the poverty rate climbs to 75 percent, and six out of 10 people living in poverty are considered extremely poor.

This Mapuche couple, Luis Aillapán and his wife Catalina Marileo, were tried and convicted under an anti-terrorism law for protesting the construction of a road across their land, which violated their land rights. Credit: Marianela Jarroud/IPS

In terms of land ownership, two percent of farmers own 57 percent of the land, while 92 percent own just 22 percent.

As a result of the progress made, 80 percent of the aspects tackled in discussions in the country were incorporated in the 2014 national agrarian policy plan.

But the 2015 political crisis brought the process to a halt, although the FAO hopes to get things moving again.

In Colombia, meanwhile, land questions are at the heart of the armed conflict that has shaken the country for over half a century, and resolving this problem is essential to achieving peace, and to ensuring compliance with a preliminary agreement on justice and reparations reached Dec. 15 in the peace talks between the government and the FARC insurgents in Havana.

An estimated 6.6 million hectares – roughly 15 percent of Colombia’s farmland – were stolen or abandoned when the families were forcibly displaced since the early 1990s. Today, 77 percent of the land in the conflict-torn country of 48 million people is in the hands of 13 percent of owners, while just 3.6 percent own a full 30 percent of the land.

“In Colombia, land is a hot issue, and it is key to the peace agreement” expected to arise from the peace talks in the Cuban capital, Gómez said.

He added that the authorities “have passed a few laws to restore land to people who were forced off it, who number in the tens of thousands. But now we’re entering another phase, based on a project for cooperation with the European Union, as part of the peace process.”

On the road to implementation of the Guidelines, the FAO has discussed holding regional workshops and has stressed the need for local involvement.

Nury Martínez, a leader of FENSUAGRO, the largest agricultural workers union in Colombia, which has contributed to the process aimed at implementing the Guidelines, said some of the points included in the Guidelines “are very important to us as peasant farmers…and are tools of struggle.”

But to use a tool it is necessary to be familiar with it. With that aim, the Food Sovereignty Alliance drew up a popular manual on the Guidelines, “aimed at helping people understand them better and enabling peasant farmers and indigenous people to make them their own,” Martínez, who is also a regional leader of the international peasant movement Vía Campesina, told IPS from Bogotá.

In Chile, meanwhile, the FAO has worked in the southern region of La Araucanía, where the Mapuche indigenous people have long been fighting for their right to land.

In the South American country of 17.6 million people, forestry companies own 2.8 million hectares of land, with just two corporations owning 1.8 million hectares.

José Aylwin, co-director of the Citizen Observatory, a Chilean NGO, told IPS that in Chile, “there is no other case, except private conservation projects, of such heavy concentration of land in so few hands.”

He added that the context surrounding the conflict in southern Chile “is that of a people who lived and owned that land and the natural resources, and a state and private interests that came in later and stripped the Mapuche people of a large part of their territory.”

Despite the polarisation of groups in the area, the FAO managed to bring together 67 people, including Mapuche and business community leaders, in May 2015.

Aylwin said these talks demonstrated “the timeliness of the Guidelines” with respect to conflicts generated by the concentration of land in the hands of the forest industry.

“The conflicts in La Araucanía do no one any good; solutions are needed, and the Guidelines provide essential orientation,” he said.

Despite the difficulties, Gómez predicted that the Guidelines would increasingly be applied in the region. “So although we feel distressed that faster progress isn’t being made, we’ll have Guidelines for several decades.”

With additional reporting by Constanza Viera in Bogotá.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

The foreign ministers of the United Arab Emirates, Abdullah bin Zayed al Nahyanolombia, and Colombia, María Ángela Holguín, signed eight cooperation accords late Tuesday Feb. 9 during the Emirati minister’s visit to the South American nation, during a ceremony in the San Carlos Palace, the foreign ministry in Bogotá. Credit: Gloria Ortega/IPS

By Constanza Vieira
BOGOTÁ, Feb 10 2016 (IPS)

“I am honoured to be in Colombia at a time when important steps towards peace are being taken,” the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, said after meeting with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos.

In Havana, the Santos administration is holding peace talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas, which have been fighting since 1964. Agreement has been reached on four of the six points on the agenda, including bringing in the United Nations Security Council to oversee any eventual ceasefire agreement.

“You have been caught up in a brutal civil war for a very long time,” said Al Nahyan. “Our region is also in the middle of a very difficult fight against terrorism.

“We would like to learn from your experience in dealing with terrorism and terrorists,” he added.

Late on Tuesday, Feb. 9, the first day of his two-day visit to Colombia, Al Nahyan and Colombia’s foreign minister María Ángela Holguín signed agreements in the areas of cooperation in infrastructure, tourism, trade and investment, renewable energies and culture.

“I’m convinced that through the United Arab Emirates we will be able to reach the Gulf countries, and get to know that region of the world better,” Holguin said during the ceremony held to announce the accords.

“We have all the tools needed to strengthen a very important relationship and continue along the road to generating more development for Colombia and greater opportunities for the UAE,” added Holguín, who described Al Nahyan’s visit as “very beneficial” for bilateral relations.

In the San Carlos Palace, Colombia’s foreign ministry, the two ministers signed four agreements, including a Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPA), which offers investors legal security “and will give Emirati companies peace of mind,” said Holguín.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos greets the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates, Abdullah bin Zayed al Nahyan, in the Casa de Nariño, the seat of the presidency, at the start of their Feb. 9 meeting in Bogotá during the Emirati minister’s visit to this South American country. Credit: Presidency of Colombia

They also signed a Tax Information Exchange Agreement (TIEA), which was negotiated in February 2014 during a visit to Colombia by a UAE Finance Ministry delegation, and was pending the ministers’ signatures. The first round of negotiations on the FIPA was also held at that time.

In addition, the foreign ministers signed a Framework Agreement in Cultural, Educational and Sports Cooperation and a Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in Environmental Protection, Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, an area in which the two countries have acted in a coordinated manner in global diplomatic forums.

Finally, they signed an agreement from a meeting held Monday Feb. 8 in Bogotá by the Colombia-UAE Joint Cooperation Committee, which is pushing for a strengthening of the growing trade relations between the two countries.

After a meeting in which 60 members of the business communities from both countries took part, the UAE Federation of Chambers of Commerce signed memorandums of understanding with Colombia’s National Industrial Association and Confederation of Chambers of Commerce.

Documents on bilateral cooperation in tourism and innovation in small and medium companies were also signed.

Holguín said the agreements would expedite progress on “more documents” in the near future.

Colombia and the UAE established diplomatic ties 40 years ago. But it was the opening of embassies, in Abu Dhabi in 2011 and in Bogotá in 2013, that basically launched bilateral relations.

Colombia, according to the Emirati minister, was among the first countries to support the UAE’s candidacy to host the World Expo 2020 in Dubai, the first that will be held in the Middle East.

Colombia was the second stop in Al Nahyan’s official Latin America tour, which took him first to Argentina. After visiting the colonial city of Cartagena on Wednesday Feb. 10, to see the port infrastructure, he will continue on to Panama and Costa Rica, before heading home.

An enthusiastic Holguín said her Emirati guest “wants to see the ports, and we hope he will get excited and bring hotel owners to Cartagena, which would also be very important for development in our country.”

“The news is that, first, closer bilateral ties were forged with this tour, which will of course translate into numbers,” Cecilia Porras, the president of the Colombian-Arab Chamber of Commerce (CCCA), told IPS.

“The Arab press is giving a great deal of coverage to this tour because relations with each one of the countries of Latin America are giving a major boost to two-way investment, technology transfer and trade,” she added.

According to the CCCA , Colombia’s exports to the UAE reached 97.6 million dollars in 2014 – the last year for which solid figures are available – nearly double the 50.6 million of the year before, and a far cry from the 11.6 million in exports in 2012.

The difference between 2012 and the following two years is explained by Colombia’s oil exports to the UAE. Although it might sound strange for one of the world’s leaders in oil production to be importing oil from Colombia, the viscosity of this country’s petroleum is useful for the UAE’s blends and for use in the petrochemical industry.

Besides oil, Colombia has exported a variety of goods to the UAE, amounting to between 12 and 14 million dollars, said Porras.

These exports include cut flowers, plants, coffee – although through intermediaries in other countries, such as the United States – gold, emeralds, leather goods such as saddles, designer clothing, knitted fabrics, furniture, sugar and confectionary products, while the UAE exports to Colombia construction materials, doors, windows, ceramics and tubing, as well as petroleum by-products.

Visits to the UAE by Colombian tourists grew 23 percent between December 2014 and December 2015, based on the number of visas arranged by the CCCA, which organises business trips.

In 2014, during a visit by Holguín to the UAE, the two countries signed a memorandum of understanding for political consultation, aimed at facilitating dialogue on bilateral, regional or global issues.

The UAE and Colombia cooperated closely in the negotiations on the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agenda. Colombia has also played an active role in the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), based in Abu Dhabi.

In January, the Gabriel Plazas public school in the Colombian town of Villavieja, in the Tatacoa desert in the central department or province of Huila, was one of the eight 2016 winners of the Zayed Future Energy Prize, created in 2008 by the UAE government to celebrate innovation and leadership in renewable energy and sustainability.

The 100,000 dollar prize will enable the school to build a “bioclimatic” lunchroom using sustainable construction techniques from the past that keep the school cool in a natural manner, in a desert climate where temperatures remain between 22 and 38 degrees Celsius year-round.

The school will be equipped with solar energy and water extracted from deep wells by means of wind power.

According to data provided by local journalist Luisa Fernanda Dávila, from the Huila newspaper Opanoticias, the cafeteria will be used to serve a healthy lunch to the 539 students, who are the sons and daughters of poor farmers and families displaced by the armed conflict.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

The United Arab Emirates foreign minister, Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, shakes hands with his opposite number in Cuba, Bruno Rodríguez, after raising the UAE flag at the opening of the Emirati embassy in Havana on Oct. 5, 2015. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Patricia Grogg
HAVANA, Oct 6 2015 (IPS)

Cuba and the United Arab Emirates agreed to strengthen diplomatic ties and bilateral cooperation during an official visit to this Caribbean island nation by the UAE minister of foreign affairs, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

During his 24-hour stay, Al Nahyan met on Monday Oct. 5 with Cuban authorities, signed two agreements, and inaugurated his country’s embassy in Havana, which he said was a clear sign of the consolidation of the ties established by the two countries in March 2002.

“I am sure that the next few years will witness the prosperity of our ties,” he added during his official meeting with his Cuban counterpart, Bruno Rodríguez, with whom he signed an agreement on air services “between and beyond our territories” which will facilitate the expansion of opportunities for international air transport.

In the meeting, Rodríguez reaffirmed his government’s support for Arab peoples in their struggle to maintain their independence and territorial integrity.

According to official sources, the two foreign ministers concurred that the opening of the UAE embassy is an important step forward in bilateral ties and will permit closer follow-up of questions of mutual interest.

Al Nahyan also met with the first vice president of the councils of state and ministers, Miguel Díaz Canel. The two officials confirmed the good state of bilateral ties and the possibilities for cooperation on the economic, trade and financial fronts, Cuba’s prime-time TV newscast reported.

The foreign ministers of Cuba and the United Arab Emirates, Bruno Rodríguez (left) and Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, during the Oct. 5, 2015 agreement-signing ceremony in Cuba’s ministry of foreign affairs in Havana. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

Cuba’s minister of foreign trade and investment, Rodrigo Malmierca, signed a credit agreement with the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development, to finance a solar energy farm that will generate 10 MW of electricity.

Al Nahyan first visited Havana on Oct. 1-2, 2009 in response to an official invitation from minister Rodríguez. On that occasion they signed two agreements, one on economic, trade and technical cooperation, and another between the two foreign ministries.

“We have great confidence in Cuba’s leaders and in our capacity to carry out these kinds of projects,” Al Nahyan told the local media on that occasion.

United Arab Emirates, a federation made up of seven emirates – Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah and Umm al-Quwain – established diplomatic relations with Cuba in March 2002, in an accord signed in Cairo.

The decision to open an embassy in the Cuban capital was reached in a June 2014 cabinet meeting presided over by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the UAE vice president and prime minister, and the ruler of Dubai.

In late February 2015, Al Maktoum received the letters of credentials for the new ambassador of Cuba in the UAE, Enrique Enríquez, during a ceremony in the Al Mushrif Palace in the Emirati capital.

The United Arab Emirates foreign minister, Abdullah bin Zayed al Nayhan, unveils a plaque commemorating the official opening in Havana of the new UAE embassy, together with his opposite number in Cuba, Bruno Rodríguez. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

Later, UAE Assistant Foreign Minister for Political Affairs Ahmed al Jarman and Enríquez discussed the state of bilateral relations and agreed to take immediate concrete steps to expand and strengthen ties in different areas.

Enríquez also met with Cubans living in Abu Dhabi with a view to bolstering relations between them and their home country. They agreed on periodic future gatherings.

In May 2014, the UAE and Cuba signed an open skies agreement to allow the airlines of both countries to operate in each other’s territories, as well as opening the door to new plans for flights between the two countries, the UAE General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) reported.

The accord formed part of a strategy to boost trade with other countries, said Saif Mohammed al Suwaidi, director general of the GCAA, who headed a delegation of officials and representatives of national airlines during a two-day visit to Cuba.

The UAE signed similar agreements with other Latin American countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico, as part of its effort at closer relations with this region, which is of growing interest to the Gulf country.

Talks have also been announced between the UAE and Russia to build a giant airport in Cuba, which would serve as an international airport hub for Latin America, the Abu Dhabi-based National newspaper reported in February.

The proposal is being discussed by the Russian government and the Abu Dhabi state investment fund Mubadala, mandated to diversify the emirate’s economy.

In 2013 and 2014, UAE was named the world’s largest official development aid donor in a report released by the Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). In 2013, the Gulf nation provided five billion dollars in ODA to other countries.

Last year, according to OECD data, the only Gulf country to have a Ministry of International Cooperation and Development spent 1.34 percent of their gross domestic product in development cooperation.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), once a domain of the rich countries, is keen to extend its global membership and has set out a clear path for Costa Rica’s membership, within months of launching accession discussions with Colombia and Latvia.

As part of this strategy, the 34-nation OECD has in fact been strengthening cooperation with Brazil, India, Indonesia, the People’s Republic of China and South Africa through ‘Enhanced Engagement’ programmes.

According to OECD official sources, over time the organisation’s focus “has broadened to include extensive contacts with non-members and it now maintains cooperative relations with a large number of them.”

Li Keqiang, Premier of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, paid a historic visit to the OECD on Jul 1, 2015, to sign cooperation agreements in a move that will bolster ongoing collaboration.

The visit to the OECD, the first by a Chinese state leader, coincided with the 20th anniversary of OECD-China relations, as well as China’s upcoming Presidency of the G20 in 2016.

Premier Li Keqiang delivered a keynote address in the context of the OECD Leaders Programme. He was accompanied by a number of ministers and high-ranking officials from the Chinese government.

OECD’s Global Relations Secretariat (GRS) develops and oversees the strategic orientations of OECD’s global relations with non-members. More than 15 Global Fora have been established to address trans-boundary issues where the relevance of OECD work is dependent on policy dialogue with non-members.

Regional initiatives cover Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia; Asia; Latin America; and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The Sahel and West Africa Club creates, promotes and facilitates links between OECD members and West Africa.

Helping improve public governance and management in European Union candidate countries, potential candidates and European Neighbourhood Policy partners is the mission of a joint OECD-EU initiative, the Support for Improvement in Governance and Management (SIGMA) programme.

The OECD’s current members are Austria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States.

On Jul. 8, 2015, OECD members adopted the Roadmap for the Accession of Costa Rica to the OECD Convention setting out the terms, conditions and process for its accession.

OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría said: “Launching the accession process of Costa Rica underlines the organisation’s commitment to broaden its global outreach. Our joint objective is to work together to bring Costa Rica’s policies and practices closer to OECD best policies and practices.”

Gurría, who hails from Mexico, added: “This process, through which standards and best practices are adopted, is as important as membership itself and will help improve the lives of all Costa Ricans. It will be mutually enriching, as it will also allow the OECD to learn from Costa Rica’s experience in various policy areas.”

The first step in the process will see Costa Rica submit an initial memorandum setting out its position on approximately 260 OECD legal instruments. This will in turn lead to a series of technical reviews by OECD experts, who will collect further information from Costa Rica through questionnaires and fact-finding missions.

As part of the accession process, the OECD will evaluate Costa Rica’s implementation of the organisation’s policies, practices and legal instruments. Its committees may make recommendations for adjustments to legislation, policy or practice to bring Costa Rica closer to OECD instruments or best practices, serving as a catalyst for reform.

There is no deadline for completion of the accession processes, said an OECD official. Final accession will depend on the candidate country’s capacity to adapt and adjust to meet the organisation’s standards. Once all the committees have given their opinion, a final decision will be taken by all OECD member countries in the Governing Council.

Created in 1961 as the successor to the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation, which administered the Marshall Plan at the end of the Second World War, OECD serves as an economic, environmental and social policy forum for its 34 member countries, as well as partners worldwide, on the world’s most important global challenges.

Edited by Phil Harris   

Journalist Juan Gossaín (left) and the Colombian government’s chief negotiator Humberto de la Calle in the latter’s apartment in Cartagena de Indias, during an interview about the peace talks with the FARC. Credit: Omar Nieto/Prensa de Presidencia de Colombia

By Constanza Vieira
BOGOTÁ, Jul 7 2015 (IPS)

There is a growing sensation in Colombia that the peace talks with the FARC guerrillas are “about to come to an end” – in success or failure, according to the government’s chief negotiator, Humberto de la Calle.

In his apartment overlooking the sea in the Caribbean coastal city of Cartagena de Indias, former vice president De la Calle (1994-1996) was interviewed by veteran Colombian journalist Juan Gossaín. The two used to work together on the morning news and talk programme of the RCN Radio station, which Gossaín headed for 26 years, until 2010.

The interview was more like a friendly conversation, without a question and answer format. It was distributed by the Office of the High Commissioner for Peace to be published Sunday Jul. 5.

The chief negotiator, generally reluctant to talk to the media, warned that the government might walk away from the talks: “I want to tell the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) in all seriousness, this could end. It is likely that one day they won’t find us at the negotiating table in Havana’.”

“The patience of Colombians is running out. The risk is real,” said De la Calle, although he also stated that the process could end “because we reach an agreement, since in this final stretch we are dealing with important underlying issues.”

As De la Calle said, “although it seems like a paradox, the peace process has received more support from outside than here at home.”

President Juan Manuel Santos worked painstakingly and in secret to launch peace talks after taking office in August 2010.

And while in the talks themselves the government has never threatened to pull out, it has made such statements to the media in the past.

In October 2012 the talks were officially launched in Oslo, two years after Santos was sworn in, with Cuba and Norway as guarantors and Chile and Venezuela as facilitators. Since then the meetings have been held in Havana, where the 38th round of talks is now taking place.

Under the principle that “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed,” preliminary accords have been reached on three of the six main points on the agenda, in 32 months of talks.

These three points involve a wide range of aspects related to land reform; political participation; and the substitution of drug crops.

The pending items involve the right of victims on both sides to truth, justice and reparations; disarmament; and mechanisms for the implementation of an eventual peace deal.

The negotiations are taking place as the decades-long conflict drags on, and it looks like a clause stipulating that nothing that happens on the battlefield can affect the talks has fallen by the wayside.

The intensification of hostilities is costing lives and causing environmental disasters, and support for a continued military offensive, rather than a negotiated peace, is growing again.

But the same thing happened 15 years ago, as indicated by Gallup poll results.

To the question “what do you believe is the best way to solve the problem of the guerrillas in Colombia?” the response in June 2015 was a tie between those who selected the option “continue the talks until reaching a peace agreement” and those who chose “no talks; try to defeat them militarily.”

A similar tie was seen in July 2003, March 2004, October 2010 and June 2011, while in the rest of the polls carried out, a majority chose a negotiated solution.

Since 2001, a majority of respondents have consistently supported peace talks over a military solution, with the exception of the December 2001- July 2003 period.

But since December 2001, respondents have said they do not believe the insurgents could ever seize power by force.

Looking at Gallup polls over the past 15 years, it is clear that De la Calle’s assertion that “people are more skeptical than ever” regarding the peace talks is not true. The results indicate that, no matter what happens, the sense of “desperation” that the chief negotiator mentioned, and that his interviewer emphasised, fluctuates.

“We have to be honest enough to tell Colombians that the peace process is at its lowest ebb since the talks began,” De la Calle said.

But why is that happening? It’s the question of justice, he said. “It is the touchiest part of the negotiations. The FARC have to assume responsibility for their actions. The state does too, of course.”

De la Calle said the Colombian government would only agree to a ceasefire if the top FARC leaders spent some time in prison for crimes against humanity – although the negotiator said they would be held “in decent conditions, without bars or striped uniforms.”

He also acknowledged that the FARC “have said they are willing to accept a system of justice that would include these components.”

If that is true, it’s not clear where exactly the problem lies.

In February, the attorney general’s office revealed that it planned to investigate over 14,000 businessmen, ranchers, politicians and members of the security forces with alleged ties to the partially dismantled far-right paramilitaries.

Almost simultaneously, former president César Gaviria (1990-1994) proposed for these non-combatants “a pardon in exchange for their recognition of the crimes committed, an apology, and a willingness to provide reparations for the victims.”

Segments of the business community and some political factions welcomed or expressed an openness to discussing the proposal, others rejected it, and others were concerned or upset.

In any case, the ever vulnerable climate surrounding the peace talks became even more tense.

Not long afterwards, the negotiators in Havana announced a preliminary agreement regarding an issue that is especially thorny for those who not only enjoy impunity but have also been active behind the scenes, anonymously: a non-prosecutorial truth commission.

Above and beyond the discussion on justice and punishment, De la Calle says the main obstacle now faced in the peace talks is the question of a bilateral ceasefire – “the FARC’s top priority,” in his view. The insurgents would also have to stop raising funds through practices like extortion and involvement in the drug trade, he added.

A bilateral ceasefire when “there are other sources of violence, besides the FARC,” as De la Calle rightly points out?

The much smaller National Liberation Army (ELN) would appear to be awaiting the results of the peace talks with the FARC before launching its own negotiations, while remaining active.

Then there are the ultra-right-wing paramilitary groups that either did not take part in the 2003-2006 partial demobilisation or regrouped as what the government calls “Bacrim” – for “bandas criminales” or “criminal bands”.

“We can’t tell the security forces to stay quiet,” De la Calle said. “If they want a ceasefire, the government is willing to do that, but ‘concentration zones’ would be essential.”

In these “rural concentration zones” first demanded by Álvaro Uribe during his presidency (2002-2010), “convicted guerrillas would be held for a time, without requiring that they turn in their weapons,” De la Calle explained.

IPS postponed publication of this article in an unsuccessful attempt to obtain a response by email from FARC chief negotiator Iván Márquez to several of De la Calle’s statements.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

The future of the Amazon rainforest is “dangling by a thread”. Photo credit: By lubasi (Catedral Verde - Floresta Amazonica)/CC BY-SA 2.0

By Kwame Buist
ROME, Apr 2 2015 (IPS)

A global civil society petition to save the Amazon is circulating on the internet and its promoters say that once one million signatures have been collected indigenous leaders will deliver it directly to the governments of Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela.

Launched by ”Avaaz” (“voice” in Persian), a global civic organisation set up in January 2007 to promote activism on issues such as climate change and human rights, citizens around the world the petition invites citizens around the world to voice support for an ambitious project to create the largest environmental reserve in the world, protecting 135 million hectares of Amazon forest, an area more than twice of France.“The fate of the Amazon rainforest is dangling by a thread” – Avaaz

Avaaz says that the project will not happen “unless Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela’s leaders know the public wants it.” The organisation, which operates in 15 languages and claims over thirty million members in 194 countries, says that it works to “close the gap between the world we have and the world most people everywhere want.”

Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos announced Feb. 13 that Colombia proposes collaboration with Brazil and Venezuela to create the world’s largest ecological corridor to mitigate the effects of climate change and preserve biodiversity.

“This would become the world’s largest ecological (corridor) and would be a great contribution to (the) fight of all humanity to preserve our environment, and in Colombia’s case, to preserve our biodiversity,” Santos said.

The Colombian president added that his foreign minister, Maria Angela Holguin, had been asked to “establish all the mechanisms of communication with Brazil and Venezuela” in order to be able to present a joint “concrete, realistic proposal that conveys to the world the enormous contribution the corridor would make towards preserving humanity and mitigating climate change.”

According to Avaaz, “if we create a huge global push to save the Amazon and combine it with national polls in all three countries, we can give the Colombian president the support he needs to convince Brazil and Venezuela.”

“All three leaders are looking for opportunities to shine at the next U.N. climate summit [in Paris in December],” said Avaaz. “Let’s give it to them.”

The Amazon is widely recognised as being vital to life on earth – 10 percent of all known species live there, and its trees help slow down climate change by storing billions of tonnes of carbon that would otherwise be released into in the atmosphere.

Avaaz says that “the fate of the Amazon rainforest is dangling by a thread.” After declining for a few years, deforestation rates started rising again last year, and shot up in Brazil by 190 percent in August and September.

Current laws and enforcement strategies are failing to stop loggers, miners and ranchers, and according to Avaaz, “the best way to regenerate the forest is by creating large reserves, and this ecological corridor would go a long way to help save the fragile wilderness of the Amazon.”

Countering possible criticism of those who argue that reserves hold back economic development and others who say that they are often implemented without consulting the indigenous communities, Avaaz says that “those behind this proposal have committed to full engagement and collaboration with the indigenous tribes. Eighty percent of the territory in this plan is already protected – all that this ground-breaking proposal really requires is regional coordination and enforcement.”

According to the petition’s promoters, “this is an opportunity to win a tangible and vital project that could help guarantee all of our futures. If it works, this could be replicated in all the world’s most important forests. Together, this could plant a seed that helps look after the whole world.”

Edited by Phil Harris

The first delegation of victims of Colombia’s armed conflict offer a press conference after their talks with the government and FARC negotiators on Aug. 16 in Havana, Cuba. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Constanza Vieira
BOGOTA, Aug 25 2014 (IPS)

Three major advances were made over the last week in the peace talks that have been moving forward in Cuba for nearly two years between the Colombian government and the FARC guerrillas, while the decades-old civil war rages on.

On Saturday Aug. 16, a group of relatives of victims of both sides met face-to-face in the Cuban capital. It was the first time in the world that victims have sat down at the same table with representatives of their victimisers in negotiations to put an end to a civil war.

And on Thursday Aug. 21 an academic commission was set up to study the roots of the conflict and the factors that have stood in the way of bringing it to an end.

That day, the unthinkable happened.

High-level army, air force, navy and police officers flew to Cuba, under the command of General Javier Alberto Flórez, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

In the 24-hour technical mission they met with their archenemies, the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which emerged in 1964) to discuss “how to implement a definitive bilateral ceasefire, and how the FARC would disband and lay down their arms,” said President Juan Manuel Santos.

Santos described the participation of active officers in the talks, as part of a subcommission installed on Friday Aug. 22, as “a historic step forward.”

Twelve victims, of the 60 who will travel to Havana in five groups, met for nearly seven hours on Aug. 16 with the FARC and government negotiators, who included two retired generals, one of whom was Jorge Enrique Mora Rangel, an army officer accused of human rights abuses.At one extreme, former rightwing President Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010) proposes the creation of a higher court to review the sentences handed down against members of the security forces from 1980 to 2026, and to release them while the sentences are revised. At the other extreme, the FARC do not recognise Colombia’s legal system as having the authority to try the guerrillas, once a peace agreement is reached.

The group of 12 was made up of six relatives of victims of crimes of state and of the far-right paramilitaries (which partially demobilised in the last decade), four victims of the FARC, and two victims of two or three different armed actors.

It was “a unique experiment that has not been seen anywhere else,” according to Fabrizio Hochschild, representative of the United Nations in Colombia.

In previous forums in Colombia, thousands of family members of victims have expressed their main demands: the truth about what happened to their loved ones, improvements in the mechanisms for reparations, guarantees that what happened will not be repeated, and justice.

The negotiators gave the task of selecting the groups of victims’ relatives to the U.N., Colombia’s National University, and the Catholic bishops’ conference. They were chosen from an official universe of 6.7 million victims and survivors, including 5.7 million victims of forced displacement, most of whom are small-scale farmers.

In the Colombian conflict, the last civil war in Latin America, the dead number at least 420,000 since 1946, including more than 220,000 since 1958, according to commissions for the historic memory set up in 1962 and 2012.

The creation of a Historical Commission on the Conflict and Victims (CHCV), at the behest of the negotiating table, was announced Thursday Aug. 21.

The commission consists of six academics and one rapporteur named by each side, for a total of 14 historians, sociologists, anthropologists, economist and political scientists.

The CHCV will analyse the origins of the armed conflict, the aspects that have stood in the way of a solution, and the question of who is responsible for its impacts on the population.

The rapporteurs will produce a joint report, by late December, although they will not “attribute individual responsibilities” and the report “must not be written with the aim of achieving specific legal effects,” the negotiating table stipulated.

This is not a truth commission, which should emerge once a peace agreement is signed. But it is a firm step in that direction.

Meanwhile, the aspect that appears to be foremost in the mind of public opinion in Colombia is neither the question of truth nor how to guarantee that the atrocities won’t happen again; it is the question of justice.

At one extreme, former rightwing President Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010) proposes the creation of a higher court to review the sentences handed down against members of the security forces from 1980 to 2026, and to release them while the sentences are revised.

At the other extreme, the FARC do not recognise Colombia’s legal system as having the authority to try the guerrillas, once a peace agreement is reached.

That position is based on a certain logic: if the guerrilla group is part of the negotiations, along with the state, and both have committed crimes, the state “cannot be both judge and jury,” the FARC negotiator, a commander whose nom de guerre is Pablo Catatumbo, told IPS in Havana.

At the same time, the families of victims of forced disappearance do not accept impunity.

The victims’ families asked the negotiators on both sides not to get up from the table until an agreement is reached.

But the fragility of the peace talks, held under the principle of “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed,” is evident.

There are still 28 pending aspects in the three points that have been agreed, of the six points on the agenda for the talks. It will be difficult to reach a consensus on these unresolved aspects, which are marked in red: 14 sub-points in the area of agriculture, 10 in political participation and four in the area of illegal drugs.

The CHVC is to make recommendations for reaching agreement on these sub-points.
Besides its interest in the question of justice, the public wants the FARC to demobilise and lay down their arms.

General Mora Rangel said in June “they must demobilise and hand over their weapons…they have to do so to join society and Colombia’s democratic system.”

But according to peace analyst Carlos Velandia, there will be no demobilisation, no laying down of arms, and no reinsertion.

There will be no photo ops of a “mass demobilisation”, like the ceremonies held in the mid-2000s showing the paramilitaries handing in their weapons, he said. Instead armed structures will be transformed into political structures, although the mechanism has not been worked out yet, he added.

And unlike in the case of the paramilitaries, “there won’t be thousands of insurgents stretching out their hands for ‘Papá State’ to help them,” he said.

Despite the obstacles, “the problem doesn’t lie over there, where both sides are taking a proactive stance,” a Catholic priest who is well-informed on what is going on in the talks in Havana told IPS.

The problem lies in Colombia, he said, where Uribe – now an extreme-right senator and a leader of the opposition in the legislature – had an enormous influence on public opinion during his two terms as president.

Uribe is “working on” businesspersons, bankers, large-scale merchants, and some journalists, to win them over in his fierce campaign against the peace talks, the priest said.

“Santos isn’t a leader, he’s a follower. If the country turns against him, he’ll abandon the peace process,” he maintained.

If there is strong public support for an eventual peace deal, the powerful oligarchy’s pressure on Santos could convince him to block a referendum on the peace agreement.
But if Uribe and victimisers who do not want to be more openly identified by the victims manage to foment rejection of the peace talks among voters, they would not object to a referendum on an eventual peace accord.

A precedent for this was set in Guatemala, where turnout for a referendum on a peace deal that put an end to 36 years of civil war – 1960-1996 – was extremely low, and among the few voters who did show up, a majority rejected the peace agreement.

In Colombia’s peace talks in Havana, the mechanism of a popular referendum is the sixth point on the agenda, which is still pending, and Santos has not referred to it in public.

To block these maneuvers, “there have to be more and more decisions aimed at recognising the legitimacy of the talks, including acts of truth and forgiveness. That will make it more likely, although not more sure, that the peace process will move forward successfully,” because “the more people who can forgive, the closer we are to seeing peace win out,” the priest said.

Different sectors of society agree on the need for “a new social pact” to approve the accords and work out the pending aspects marked in red. For the FARC and many others, on the left or the far right, these pacts should be reached through a constituent assembly that would rewrite the constitution. But Santos would appear to be leaning towards a referendum instead.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

"Hands Up, Don't Shoot": A rally in support of Michael Brown. Credit: Shawn Semmler/cc by 2.0

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, Aug 18 2014 (IPS)

The shooting of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer in the southern United States earlier this month has led to widespread public outrage around issues of race, class and police brutality.

In particular, a flurry of policy discussions is focusing on the startling level of force and military-style weaponry used by local police in responding to public demonstrations following the death Aug. 9 of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.“We have a lot of military equipment and hardware looking for a place to end up, and that tends to be local law enforcement.” -- WOLA's Maureen Meyer

The situation has galvanised support from both liberal and conservative members of Congress for potential changes to a law that, since the 1990s, has provided local U.S. police forces with surplus military equipment. The initiative, overseen by the Department of Defence and known as the “1033 programme”, originally came about in order to support law-enforcement personnel in the fight against drug gangs.

“We need to de-militarise this situation,” Claire McCaskill, one of Missouri’s two senators, said last week. “[T]his kind of response by the police has become the problem instead of the solution.”

In a widely read article titled “We Must Demilitarize the Police”, conservative Senator Rand Paul likewise noted that “there should be a difference between a police response and a military response” in law enforcement.

During attempts to contain public protests in the aftermath of the shooting, police in Ferguson used high-powered weapons, teargas, body armour and even armoured vehicles of types commonly used by the U.S. military during wartime situations. Now, it appears the 1033 programme will likely come under heavy scrutiny in coming months.

“Congress established this programme out of real concern that local law enforcement agencies were literally outgunned by drug criminals. We intended this equipment to keep police officers and their communities safe from heavily armed drug gangs and terrorist incidents,” Carl Levin, chair of the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee, said Friday.

“[W]e will review this programme to determine if equipment provided by the Defense Department is being used as intended.”

Drugs and terrorism

Despite this unusual bipartisan agreement over the dangers of a militarised police force, there appears to be no extension of this concern to rising U.S. support for militarised law enforcement in other countries.

While a 2011 law requires annual reporting on U.S. assistance to foreign police, that data is not yet available. However, during 2009, the most recent data available, Washington provided more than 3.5 billion dollars in foreign assistance for police activities, particularly in Afghanistan, Colombia, Iraq, Mexico, Pakistan and the Palestinian Territories.

According to an official report from 2011, “the United States has increased its emphasis on training and equipping foreign police as a means of supporting a wide range of U.S. foreign-policy goals,” particularly in the context of the wars on drugs and terrorism.

In the anti-terror fight, African countries are perhaps the most significant recipients of new U.S. security aid. Yet a new report from Human Rights Watch (HRW) highlights the dangers of this approach, focusing on the U.S.-supported Anti-Terrorism Police Unit (ATPU) in Kenya.

The report, released Monday, builds on previous allegations against the ATPU of arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings. Yet neither the Kenyan authorities nor the ATPU’s main donors – the United States and United Kingdom – have seriously investigated these longstanding allegations, HRW says.

Washington’s support for the ATPU has been significant, amounting to 19 million dollars in 2012 alone. Yet while U.S. law mandates a halting of aid pending investigation of credible reports of rights abuse, HRW says Washington “has not scaled down its assistance to the unit”.

“The goals of supporting the police in general are laudable and in line with concerns over rule of law,” Jehanne Henry, a senior researcher with HRW’s Africa division, told IPS.

“The problem here is it’s clear that, notwithstanding the goals of the assistance, it’s serving to undermine rule of law because the ATPU is taking matters into its own hands. So, our call is for donors to be smarter about providing this kind of assistance.”

Unseen since the 1980s

Meanwhile, Mexico and Latin American countries have been seeing an uptick in U.S. assistance for security forces as part of efforts to crack down on the drug trade.

“Currently the Central American governments are relying more and on their militaries to address the recent surge in violence,” Adriana Beltran, a senior associate for citizen security at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), a watchdog group here.

“While the U.S. is saying it’s not providing any assistance to these forces, there is significant assistance being provided through the Department of Defence for counter-narcotics, which is channelled through the militaries of these countries.”

According to a new paper from Alexander Main, a senior associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), a think tank here, U.S. security assistance to the region began strengthening again during the latter years of President George W. Bush’s time in office.

“Funding allocated to the region’s police and military forces climbed steadily upward to levels unseen since the U.S.-backed ‘dirty wars’ of the 1980s,” Main writes, noting that a “key model” for bilateral assistance has been Colombia. Since 1999, an eight-billion-dollar programme in that country has seen “the mass deployment of military troops and militarized police forces to both interdict illegal drugs and counter left-wing guerrilla groups”.

Yet last year, nearly 150 NGOs warned that U.S. policies of this type, which “promote militarization to address organized crime”, had been ineffective. Further, the groups said, such an approach had resulted in “a dramatic surge in violent crime, often reportedly perpetrated by security forces themselves.”

Mexico has been a particularly prominent recipient of U.S. security aid around the war on drugs.

“From the 1990s onward, the trend has been to encourage the Mexican government to involve the military in drug operations – and, over the past two years, also in public security,” Maureen Meyer, a senior associate on Mexico for WOLA, told IPS.

In the process, she says, civilian forces, too, have increasingly received military training, leading to concerns over human rights violations and excessive use of force, as well as a lack of knowledge over how to deal with local protests – concerns startlingly similar to those now coming out of Ferguson, Missouri.

“You can see how disturbing this trend is in the United States, and we are concerned about a similar trend towards militarised police forces in Latin American countries,” Meyer notes. “We have a lot of military equipment and hardware looking for a place to end up, and that tends to be local law enforcement.”

Edited by: Kitty Stapp

The writer can be reached at cbiron@ips.org

Shaman Víctor Jacanamijoy, spiritual leader of the Inga indigenous people from the Colombian province of Putumayo, leads a ceremony in Bogotá during a Jun. 11 “spiritual harmonisation for peace” event organised nationwide by native authorities to send out a clear message for the elections. Credit: Courtesy of Tatiana Ramírez/ONIC

By Constanza Vieira
BOGOTA, Jun 11 2014 (IPS)

Colombians will basically decide Sunday whether to continue the five decade counterinsurgency war or persevere in the attempt to negotiate a political solution to the conflict, in order to allow the children being born this year to experience what their parents have never known: a country at peace.

Depending on the outcome of the Jun. 15 runoff election, an emerging violent sector could take over control of the state, perhaps for the next few decades.

In the second round of the elections to choose the president who will govern this war-torn South American country for the next four years there does not seem to be much choice, between the centre right and the extreme right.

The former is represented by sitting President Juan Manuel Santos, who is seeking reelection, and the latter by Óscar Iván Zuluaga, a follower of senator-elect and former president Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010).

The two candidates are now neck and neck in the polls, after Zuluaga took 29.3 percent of the vote and Santos followed with 25.7 percent in the first round on May 25, when turnout stood at 41 percent.

Both candidates would apply neoliberal, free-market policies, according to which a prospering business community is the lever for the country’s development. They would both keep taxes low for the wealthy, while providing cash subsidies for the poor financed with the revenue expected over the next 20 years or so from the massive production of oil, coal and gold by multinational corporations.

Neither of the two promise to industrialise the country with the capital generated by these non-renewable resources. And both support free trade agreements and associations, which threaten the production of many national industries as well as agriculture, and more specifically small farmers.

Both candidates were ministers under Uribe: Zuluaga headed the Finance Ministry and Santos the Defence Ministry.

Under the Uribe administration some 2.5 million people were displaced by the war and at least 3,000 civilians were murdered by the military and passed off as guerrillas killed in combat – so-called “false positives” – under a body count system in which members of the armed forces were offered incentives like weekend passes, cash bonuses, promotions and trips abroad for killing insurgents.

Zuluaga is seen by his opponents as Uribe’s puppet.

But while Santos was elected in 2010 with the votes of the right, including Uribe supporters, he angered his former boss as soon as he took office by countering several of the ex-president’s main policies and criticising some of his government’s actions – prompting fierce opposition from Uribe.

Santos also patched things up with his awkward neighbour, Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez – detested by Uribe – who governed from 1999 until his premature death in 2013.

With Chávez’s aid, Santos undertook negotiations to put an end to the war with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which was founded as a communist-inspired peasant army and turned 50 years old on May 27.

After two years of exploratory talks, formal negotiations began in November 2012 in Havana. The talks are closely followed by the international community, and are moving ahead even as the conflict rages on, because Santos has not agreed to declare a ceasefire.

Now, five days ahead of the runoff vote, Santos and a smaller but more radical guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), which also emerged in 1964, announced that since January they have been holding exploratory talks that could lead to formal negotiations.

The exploratory phase with the FARC was kept secret and only revealed once it gave rise to full-blown talks. So because he reported the contacts made with the ELN, Santos was accused this week of using the peace talks for electioneering purposes.

In Colombia, the armed conflict has always been decided at the ballot box. Without fail, candidates promise to bring it to an end, with the only difference being in how they propose to do so: by a negotiated solution or promising once more to defeat the rebels by military means?

While Uribe opted for the latter, Santos has combined the two approaches.

Zuluaga, like Uribe, denies that there is an armed conflict in Colombia, referring instead to “the terrorist threat.” He has accused Santos of “negotiating with terrorists.”

Santos responds that the money that is swallowed up by the war could catapult Colombia into the big leagues of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) – the so-called rich countries’ club.

Zuluaga initially announced that he would suspend the peace talks as his first measure as president – although he later toned down the threat.

But he said that he was not bound by what had been agreed so far by the two sides in the negotiations.

There is a real possibility that he might withdraw from the FARC talks at the first chance, and that he may never launch negotiations with the ELN, if he becomes president.

The risk that Zuluaga could sink the peace process, seen by international observers as a serious attempt at peace, has led to the unthinkable: two-thirds of the left, according to surveys, say they would vote for Santos – who represents the traditional oligarchy – even though they only see eye to eye with him with regard to his peace policy.

The other one-third of the left see no difference between Santos and Zuluaga/Uribe and say they have serious doubts that Santos will live up to any agreement signed with the guerrillas.

There is a real possibility of that. Which is why the unprecedented backing of Santos’s reelection by anti-establishment sectors takes on even greater significance.

This has been fuelled, in the last 15 days, by a new movement in support of the peace talks. Every day, dozens of initiatives emerge, by artistes, intellectuals, victims’ organisations, central trade unions, indigenous and women’s groups, journalists and political leaders, to protect what has been achieved so far and press for the talks to continue.

This diverse, and partly spontaneous, pressure group could make the peace talks truly irreversible if Santos wins. But in any case the movement would be more organised to confront Zuluaga if he was to walk away from the negotiating table as president.

In contrast with those who do not see any differences between Santos and Zuluaga and his mentor, the reality is that Colombia’s economic elite is divided. And this is precisely why Santos has managed to push his peace policy forward so far.

Álvaro Uribe forms part of an emerging economic elite that has accumulated wealth thanks to the war, and is completely immersed in the logic of confrontation and counterinsurgency.

Uribe is a member of a clan that has been wrapped up in scandals, lawsuits and accusations for its ties with the far-right death squads that grouped together in the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC) to fight the guerrillas, but then drove millions of peasants off their land to seize their property.

Perhaps that was why Uribe was the only one who managed to convince the AUC paramilitaries to demobilise; 80 percent of them did so, although many regrouped.

The division seen in Colombia’s leadership may originate in competition over business. Santos represents a more modern segment of the economic elite. For example, they do not need drugs to be illegal – a necessary condition in order for drug trafficking to generate the enormous revenues that financed the AUC.

The sector represented by Santos has done its math and concluded that the armed conflict is an obstacle to economic growth. For at least 15 years, they have believed that better business could be done if Colombia were not caught up in war.

The Jun. 15 elections will demonstrate whether that sector is still a minority.

Unmarked graves of victims of Colombia’s half-century civil war, like this one in La Macarena in central Colombia, are scattered across the country. Credit: Constanza Vieira/IPS

By Adam Schaffer and Gimena Sanchez
WASHINGTON , Jun 3 2014 (IPS)

After half a century, Colombia may put an end to its conflict—if the U.S. will allow it.

Colombia has been the host of some of the most extreme and brutal violence in Latin America’s history. The country’s half-century long conflict has taken the lives of almost a quarter million women, men, and children, and displaced nearly six million more.

The United States has financed much of the conflict in recent years, investing nine billion dollars since 2000 – much of it to bolster Colombia’s security forces.

Yet peace may be near. On May 16, the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country’s largest guerrilla group, signed a preliminary accord on the third of five negotiating points in their ongoing peace talks in Havana, Cuba: illicit drugs.

The agreement offers a viable plan for the FARC to end its involvement in the Colombian drug trade, alternatives for small-scale cultivators of crops destined for illicit drug markets, and meaningful policy reforms at the national level for addressing issues of drug consumption and public health.

Hope too lies with an announcement that came earlier the same day. Following national and international pressure – including an inter-parliamentary letter signed by 245 representatives from the United States, United Kingdom, and Ireland – the FARC announced a unilateral ceasefire.

While the government maintains that it will not end military operations until an agreement is signed, and though the FARC’s temporary ceasefire ended on May 28, this act is encouraging because it significantly decreased violence and will likely increase confidence at the negotiating table.

According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, hundreds of thousands of Colombians continue to be affected by the conflict every year. Ensuring that all parties respect international humanitarian law is essential and will likely help to advance the peace talks.

Domestic political shake-ups, though, threaten to disrupt this progress. In the first round of Colombia’s presidential elections on May 25, sitting President Juan Manuel Santos, who began the talks to the dismay of many former political allies, came in second to conservative hardliner Oscar Ivan Zuluaga.

Zuluaga, who is allied with former president (and current senator-elect) Alvaro Uribe, has made clear his scepticism towards the talks.

While he has now softened his stance in advance of the runoff election, his long-time opposition to the process remains concerning. Santos and Zuluaga will face off in a second-round vote on Jun. 15.

A step closer toward meaningful drug policy reform

The accord on the drug issue – declared a “partial agreement,” as no individual agreements are final until all points on the agenda have been agreed upon – is little short of historic.

The language, which was agreed upon by both parties, reflects a significant shift away from the prohibitionist approach to drug policy.

Adopting some of the proposals of the growing community calling for drug policy reform, the accord acknowledges that “evidence-based alternatives” to current policies are needed to address problems that may be associated with drug consumption, and distinguishes between the cultivation of crops for the illicit market and drug trafficking.

Furthermore, it calls for the expansion of crop substitution programmes, recognising that many rural communities rely on coca and opium poppy cultivation for their economic livelihoods.

However, it stipulates that “supportive measures…will be conditioned to…agreements on substitution and no-replanting,” implying that cultivators would be required to cede their earnings from crop cultivation before they see the benefits of alternative crops.

Experience in Latin America has shown that conditioning assistance on total eradication harms the chance of developing lasting alternatives, as cultivators lack a successful bridge between when the cultivation of crops for the illicit market ends and alternative livelihoods become sustainable.

Not surprisingly in these circumstances, many growers return to the cultivation of coca and poppy crops. A more effective model would be to offer a phasing out period and/or subsidies to cultivators until meaningful alternative livelihoods are actually in place.

Yet while proper sequencing on reducing crops for the illicit market will need to be reviewed, the parties get it right on local involvement. Opting for what one Colombian analyst described as “building the state from below,” the development programme would rely heavily on, and actively engage with, local communities to ensure their participation – and hence the programme’s sustainability.

The most monumental point came with the government’s concession to de-prioritise -though not entirely retire – the destructive and ineffective aerial herbicide spraying of coca crops, opting first for alternative development and manual eradication before spraying crops.

In more than a decade of its use in Colombia, aerial spraying has served only to disperse coca crops, destroy poor farmers’ livelihoods, and engender local distrust for government authorities, as the only contact many communities have had with the state has been the occasional visit of a plane spraying crops.

The agreement also addresses drug consumption, an issue generally thought to be outside the purview of the peace talks. While details here are scant, linking this issue to the peace talks will help continue regional debates on drug policy reform. Recognising that drug policy should be based on respect for human rights and public health is a valuable contribution.

But a full agreement, if eventually signed, will not be a panacea. Taking the FARC out of the cultivation and trafficking business will not independently solve the drug issue or the associated violence.

As long as there is worldwide – and particularly U.S. – demand for drugs, criminal organisations will find a way to supply them. Furthermore, an accord will likely leave a power vacuum in rural regions of the country as the FARC demobilises and cedes those territories.

There is a good chance that right-wing paramilitary successor groups and criminal gangs will try to fill it. Establishing a positive state presence and providing basic services will be a major challenge, especially in regions where the armed forces have been the primary face of the state.

Supporting peace from Washington

Because of these continued challenges, the United States has an important role to play in the implementation phase, both in supporting Colombia financially and in granting the Colombian government political space to implement the accords – even when they contradict U.S. policy priorities.

A State Department communiqué on the drug policy agreement, which highlights the continuation of forced eradication, raises questions about whether the United States will help or hinder the advancement of the peace process.
Nearly two of every three aid dollars destined for Colombia goes to the public security forces. Will the U.S. government be willing to shift aid to build peace rather than continue war?

Achieving durable reductions in poppy and coca crop cultivation for illicit drug production will require implementing alternative livelihoods and connecting long-forgotten rural areas with the national infrastructure.

After decades of waging a largely ineffective “war on drugs” in Colombia, will the United States allow its long-time ally to break with the prohibition-focused model and explore alternatives to the current militarised approach? Some of the most revolutionary agreements in the accord, such as all but ending aerial spraying, would challenge the existing U.S. approach.

These questions, and the many more that will be raised as the talks progress, will likely dismay hardliners in the U.S. government who are not ready to shift drug control tactics.

But with little progress to show after decades of violence and billions of dollars spent, the Colombian and FARC negotiators have made an important step toward ending decades of violence. The United States should stand ready to support Colombia, both financially and politically, in the coming months and years – and it should know when to stand down.

Adam Schaffer is an analyst with the Drug Policy and Colombia programme at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), which promotes human rights, democracy, and social justice by working with partners in Latin America and the Caribbean to shape policies in the United States and abroad.  Gimena Sanchez is a Senior Associate for the Andes at WOLA. This article was originally published by Foreign Policy in Focus.

García Márquez in 1984. Credit: F3rn4nd0, edited by Mangostar C BY-SA 3.0

By Diana Cariboni
MONTEVIDEO, Apr 18 2014 (IPS)

The first time I read Gabriel García Márquez (1927-2014) was when I was proofreading the galleys of “The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor”, which the Editorial Sudamericana was getting ready to reprint in Argentina.

I was working in the offices of the Sudamericana publishing house, in the Buenos Aires neighbourhood of San Telmo, where I could find myself editing a gothic novel or a literary classic or a work by the Argentine poet Alejandra Pizarnik, due to the varied menu.

I was 17 years old and I was mesmerised by that short tale, a journalistic report by García Márquez published in a number of instalments in the El Espectador newspaper in Bogotá, in 1955, which came out as a book in 1970.

The complete title was “The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor: Who Drifted on a Liferaft for Ten Days Without Food or Water, Was Proclaimed a National Hero, Kissed by Beauty Queens, Made Rich Through Publicity, and Then Spurned by the Government and Forgotten for All Time”.

Through the first-person account of the exploits of the survivor, García Márquez denounced that the shipwreck of the sailor and his seven companions, who drowned, was due to overweight contraband on the Colombian Navy’s destroyer Caldas.

Colombia at the time was under a military dictatorship, so the report led to the closure of the newspaper and the first of García Márquez’s various periods of exile. The last one began in 1997. He never returned to live in Colombia.

From there, of course, I jumped to “One Hundred Years of Solitude”, the masterpiece that the same publishing house, the Editorial Sudamericana, published in 1967, which was going to revolutionise Spanish language literature and influence the rest of the world’s image and cultural impression of Latin America.

We Latin Americans fell in love, and were shocked, by the Colombia that García Márquez described in this novel and in his other great works of fiction.

The cruelty of Colombia’s wars, the solitude of its heroes, the pathetic flip-flops of its politicians and military leaders, the eternal rule of its dictators, the ominous foreign presence, the state of abandon of its rural villages – all of it contained the realistic feel of first-hand experience. And, while unique, it was also similar to what was happening in so many other corners of the region.

But in the voice of García Márquez it took on another dimension, dreamlike, exuberant and humorous, which transported us as readers and allowed us to reflect on our own woes even with a kind of joy.

Like other great writers, García Márquez built a universe of his own, made up of real and invented places, unlikely characters, and lineages and genealogies.

Their names, like Macondo or Aureliano Buendía, now form part of the collective memory of Latin America, just like what happened centuries earlier with El Quijote.

I devoured all of his short stories and novels, from “La Hojarasca” (Leaf Storm – 1955) to “Memoria de mis putas tristes” (Memories of My Melancholy Whores – 2004), through the formidable and very dissimilar “El otoño del patriarca” (The Autumn of the Patriarch – 1975) and “El amor en los tiempos del cólera” (Love in the Time of Cholera – 1985).

When I was proofreading the galleys of “The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor”, I didn’t yet know that I was going to become a journalist.

Many years later I travelled to Colombia as a reporter, and had the chance to see the land that I had caught a glimpse of through the books of García Márquez, who in 1982 was awarded the Nobel Literature prize.

I saw for myself how the war continued, undaunted, with shifting protagonists and nerve centres, but with the same trail of blood and the same grinding dispossession and neglect.

Since 2012, the Colombian authorities and the main leftist guerrilla group have been discussing in Havana how to put an end to the last half century of war.

García Márquez, who died of cancer on Thursday Apr. 17 in Mexico, did not live to see his country at peace. Hopefully his fellow Colombians won’t have to wait another 50 years.

Diana Cariboni is Co-Editor in Chief of IPS.

Military checkpoint on the Atrato River. Credit: Jesús Abad Colorado/IPS

By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Apr 9 2014 (IPS)

Three years after Colombia agreed to U.S. demands to better protect labour rights and activists, a “Labour Plan of Action” (LPA) drawn up by the two nations is showing mixed results at best, according to U.S. officials and union and rights activists from both countries.

Pointing to continuing assassinations of union organisers, among other abuses, U.S. lawmakers and union leaders here are calling on President Barack Obama and Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos to do much more to ensure that the LPA achieves its aims.“In spite of numerous new labour laws and decrees... companies still are violating worker rights in Colombia with impunity." -- Richard Trumka

“(V)iolence against trade unionists continues; in the three years since the Labour Action Plan was signed, 73 more trade unionists were murdered in Colombia. That alone is reason enough to say the Labour Action Plan has failed,” said Richard Trumka, the president of the biggest U.S. union confederation, the AFL-CIO, Monday in response to a new report by the Colombia’s National Labour School (ENS).

“In spite of numerous new labour laws and decrees, and hundreds of new labour inspectors not a single company fined by the Ministry of Labour for violating the law and workers’ rights has paid up, and companies still are violating worker rights in Colombia with impunity,” he added.

For years Colombia has been considered one of the most dangerous countries in the world for trade unionists, more than 3,000 of whom have been killed since the mid-1980s.

While Colombia has long been given preferential trade treatment by Washington as part of its broader “war against drugs” in the Andean region, the administration of President George W. Bush negotiated a free-trade agreement (FTA) with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe in 2006.

But the deal was strongly opposed by the AFL-CIO, labour and human rights-groups, and their allies in Congress who refused to ratify the FTA without provisions designed to substantially improve the country’s labour rights performance.

The pact was essentially put on ice until Obama and Santos signed what is formally known as the United States–Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement in April 2011 to which the Labor Action Plan (LAP) was attached.

The LAP — which, among other provisions, required the Colombian government to protect union leaders; enact legislation to ensure that workers could become direct employees instead of subcontractors; establish a new ministry of labour; and prosecute companies that prevent workers from organising — aimed to bring Colombia’s labour practices up to international standards.

While the original intention was to delay the FTA’s implementation until after the LAP’s conditions had been met, Congress approved the FTA in October 2011.

The activists insisted this week that the approval was premature in that it relieved the pressure on the Santos government to fully carry out the LAP.

“The approval of the FTA by the United States Congress, without verifying full compliance with the LAP, significantly reduced the political will behind the plan and contributed to decisively in turning the LAP into a new frustration for Colombian workers,” according to a joint statement issued Monday by Trumka and the leaders of two of Colombia’s trade union movements, the Confederation of Workers of Colombia (CTC) and the Union of Colombian Workers (CUT).

The statement, which also called for a “serious review” of the FTA’s impact on Colombia’s agricultural and industrial sectors and on its exports to the U.S., was also signed by more than a dozen other trade-union and human rights groups in the U.S. and Colombia.

For its part, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), which oversees the implementation of both the LAP and the FTA, gave the record of the past three years a more positive spin in its own report released Monday.

“Three years ago, the Colombian Labor Action Plan gave the United States and Colombia an important new framework, tools and processes to improve safety for union members and protections for labor rights. We have made meaningful progress to date, but this is a long-term effort and there is still work to be done,” USTR Michael Froman said.

The department’s report noted that 671 union members have been placed in a protection programme, which in 2013 had a nearly 200 million dollar budget; that more than 250 vehicles had been assigned assigned to union leaders and labour activists for full-time protection; and that the prosecutor general has assigned over 20 prosecutors to devote full-time to crimes against union members and activists, among other achievements.

It also noted that the number of union members who have been murdered for their organising activities has been reduced to an average of 26 per year since the LAP took effect from an annual average of nearly 100 in the decade before it.

“The action plan has been a good effort, and I know the government [in Bogota] has been taking it seriously,” said Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue (IAD), a hemispheric think tank.

“Of course, the activist groups are right to press harder for compliance and to hold both the U.S. and the Colombian governments to account on this, but the fact is that there has been progress and there should be more,” Shifter, a specialist on the Andean countries, told IPS.

In its report, the ENS concluded that the LAP had overall failed to produce meaningful results in protecting worker rights, including the right to be free from threats and violence or in prosecuting recent and past murders of trade union leaders.

“We would like to emphasize that thousands of workers and their trade union organizations have tried to make use of the new legal provisions that protect them against labor abuses, but mmost have found themselves more vulnerable since judges, prosecutors, and labor inspectors almost always refuse to provide the protection available under the new legal framework,” the ENS report concluded.

In many cases, it said, efforts to gain protection had “only backfired on workers,” particularly those working in ports and palm plantations.

ENS’s conclusions echoed those of a report released last October by U.S. Reps. George Miller and James McGovern, both of whom serve on the Congressional Monitoring Group on Labor Rights in Colombia.

“The ENS report reminds us that we have a very long way to go in successfully implementing the LAP and ensuring that workers can safely and freely exercise their fundamental rights,” the Group said, adding that the new U.S. ambassador to Colombia, Kevin Whitaker, make LAP’s implementation a priority and highlight illegal forms of hiring, the use of collective pacts by companies to thwart union organising, and the problem of impunity for anti-union activity.

Jim Lobe’s blog on U.S. foreign policy can be read at Lobelog.com.