The negotiations between the government and the guerrilla forces are seen by a large part of the Colombian public as a good opportunity to seal a peace deal. Many believe that the hour has come and that the main actors in the conflict will not let this opportunity escape. The reality, however, is much more complicated.
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) began peace negotiations with a surprise proposal in La Habana (Cuba) on November 19th. In Colombia some groups assert that peace depends upon the political will of the guerrillas, but what conditions exist for a successful process?
With a more than comfortable margin of 332 to 206 electoral votes, President Barack Obama held onto office last Tuesday. Now the big question for foreign policy is whether Legacy Obama will be a bolder advocate for peace than the disappointing Campaign Obama. The president will need to recast a foreign policy that has been weak or downright contradictory in standing up for the principles he himself has espoused. To do that, there are several key moves ahead.
Monsanto’s bitter seeds have given another blow to the Mexican honeycreepers that had previously succeeded in stopping short the transnational corporation’s plan to plant 253,000 acres of transgenic soybeans in the Yucatan Peninsula that would have jeopardized beekeeping in the region, the main livelihood more than 25,000 families.
Venezuela’s entry into Mercosur has had interpretations centered on the economic and commercial aspects, but the most important is a geopolitical and geo-energetic matter. The region becomes a food and hydrocarbon power pointing to the Caribbean. On July 31 when the entry of Venezuela into Mercosur was decided in Brasilia, presidents Dilma Rousseff and Cristina Fernández emphasized the importance of the new Mercosur in the framework of the world crisis that is summed up in the birth of a “new pole of power.”
In less than a week the foreign policy of the U.S. suffered two defeats on two closely related issues: the triumph of Hugo Chávez and the failure to impose the Pentagon’s objectives at the Tenth Conference of Ministers of Defense.
Fifteen brave Guatemalan women from the indigenous qeqchí people testified before the High Risk Court in Guatemala City on Sept. 24-28, as part of the first criminal trial for sexual slavery and rape during the armed conflict. This legal action is historically transcendent, not only for being the first time that sexual violence during the armed conflict in Guatemala has come to trial, but also because it is the first trial for sexual slavery that has been brought to a national court. Previous cases have been presented in international courts.
