Unforeseen “No” unsettles “Historic” peace deal in Colombia.
The past refuse to die?
(What the dailies & websites say)
Writing in The Hindu, Vijay Prashad is of the view that if
the (referendum to ratify the peace deal between the government and the FARC or The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army) “had
gone the other way, Colombia might have shown the world that even intractable
civil wars can come to an end. It would have been a message to Syria and to the
Congo, a message of the power of negotiation towards a new civic compact.”
Scepticism
Elvia Solarte doesn’t trust
any of them. Not the media, which “never show things the way they actually
are.” Not the NGOs, which parachute in with their fancy experts and “keep the
money for themselves.” Not the activists from the center of the country, who
lecture her about peace but “don’t know what the violence has been.” Not the
politicians, “shameless bastards” the lot, who steal from the poor and sell the
country to the multinationals. Not the military, “the real human rights
violators” in the Colombian armed conflict. And especially not the government,
“barefaced corruption” incarnate.
“First Brexit, now this,” she said. “This means Trump is
going to win in the United States. What will you do?”
Not the End says TodayColombia.
“Uncertainty is sweeping Colombia following the narrow
rejection of the government’s pace deal with the FARC guerilla in Sunday’s referendum,
against all odds,” says an article by Rico in Today Colombia. “The possibility
of the “No” side winning in the referendum was never contemplated by Colombian
authorities; President Juan Manuel Santos confidently boasted in June that he
had “no plan B.”
Room for optimism?
An article in The Bogota Post is optimistic stating that
“while the ‘No’ vote presented a major setback on the road towards peace and
raised a lot of post-plebiscite questions, there is also the small hope that it
could represent an opportunity to lay a stronger foundation for an agreement,
with more buy-in from this divided society.”
The Colombian government and left-wing FARC rebels signed an agreement on September 27.
The horrible night persist.
FARC was responsible for massacre of 119 civilians (48 of them children) in 2002 (The Hindu). It has consistently carried out attacks on civilians, unleashed violence against indigenous people. It was accused of sexual abuse and forced abortion, extra-judicial executions and human right violations...
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