Atlantic Sentinel

Tag: Colombia

  • Support for Legalizing Cannabis, Cocaine Grows

    Karl Lauterbach
    German health minister Karl Lauterbach (Bundesministerium für Gesundheit)

    Germany plans to legalize the sale of recreational cannabis in 2024.

    Germany allows medical use of cannabis, but it is seldom prescribed. Karl Lauterbach, the health minister, wants to license the production, distribution and sale of recreational cannabis. Consumers would be allowed to buy up to 30 grams in specialized stores and they could grow three cannabis plants at home. All criminal cases would be closed.

    There would be quality requirements, but no price regulation. Lauterbach left open the possibility of a cannabis tax on top of sales tax (19 percent), but cautioned that legal cannabis must be competitive with the black market. (more…)

  • Stakes High for Colombia’s Presidential Novice

    Last month, 41 year-old Iván Duque was elected as Colombia’s youngest president ever with the largest vote in the country’s history.

    Turnout, at 53 percent, was the highest since 1998. The elections came on the heels of an historic peace deal with the far-left Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), ending half a century of conflict. (more…)

  • Colombia’s Santos Seeks Revised Peace Deal with FARC

    There was little hope left in October of bringing Colombia’s 52 year-old conflict with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to an end, when voters narrowly rejected a proposed peace plan in a referendum. Fears swelled that violence would break out again.

    President Juan Manuel Santos, however, was undeterred and set about piecing together a revised peace deal.

    Six weeks on, gloom and uncertainty have made way for cautious optimism. (more…)

  • When People Don’t Give Peace a Chance: Colombia Rejects Peace with FARC

    Who do you blame when bad things happen to good people? Who is your private scapegoat that helps you understand when barrel bombs kill children in Aleppo or when drones blow up weddings in Afghanistan? Who is to blame for war?

    On many a Facebook comment, the answer is simplistic: “terrorists”, “the West”, “greedy corporations” — so rarely blamed are everyday people, who are, after all, war’s primary victims.

    Such quick labels are good for our psychology: they make the problem seem surmountable, the worst parts of humanity something we can banish over the next hill.

    That these scapegoats can also be accurate makes the situation all the more difficult; terrorists, the West, corporations and just about every other favorite boogeyman all have a hand in starting and sustaining wars. The Americans can surely blame the Russians for the Ukraine war; the Russians can surely blame the Americans for the Islamic State. Cherrypicked experience can justify anyone.

    But no one geopolitical scapegoat can start and sustain a war. And Colombia’s voters just proved it. (more…)

  • Colombia’s Referendum: Has the Best Chance for Peace Gone?

    On Sunday, the people of Colombia unexpectedly rejected what had been dubbed an historic peace deal between their government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). 50.2 percent voted down the proposed accord in a referendum. The peace deal is off.

    The 297-page agreement, signed last week after four years of negotiation, was meant to end a conflict that spans back to 1964 and has claimed an estimated 260,000 lives.

    In speech after speech, President Juan Manuel Santos has extolled the peace accord’s historic nature. Confident of the referendum’s outcome, he staked his presidency on it. His future is now in doubt as well. (more…)

  • Colombia’s Peace Talks with FARC Running Out of Time

    A smattering of outbursts by the leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Rodrigo Londoño, also known as “Timochenko,” have suddenly cast doubt on the peace talks between the Colombian government and the still 8,000-strong rebel group.

    The current negotiations, initiated in Cuba three years ago, are the fourth such talks since the conflict began in 1964. An agreement reached in September, on the controversial issue of transitional justice, was seen as a significant breakthrough.

    The conflict has, at different stages, been characterized as a war on communism, a war on drugs and a war on terror. It has claimed an estimated 220,000 lives; a further five million people have been displaced.

    There is no manifest clarity to this struggle, with involved parties ranging from the smaller National Liberation Army — yet to enter any kind of peace negotiations — to the right-wing paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), supposedly disbanded in 2003 and adjudged to be responsible for up to 80 percent of civilian casualties. The waters have been further muddied by a thriving drugs trade infiltrating all parties. (more…)