Far-right President Ivan Duque may be repressing Colombia’s peace movement, but popular support for the peace process and the country’s war victims is as alive as ever.
When former President Juan Manuel Santos and the FARC, until then the country’s largest guerrilla group, signed peace in 2016, everybody knew there would be resistance.
The 2018 election of President Ivan Duque and his attempts to roll back the agreements made in the peace deal were disappointing, but anticipated.
Consequently, the far-right president has been able to delay progress and prolong violence, but that’s about it. Once Colombia’s mafia puppet is out of office, the peace process can continue as planned.
The mass killing of social leaders and the recent upsurge in massacres are obviously heartbreaking and terrifying, but also made it evident how valuable peace is and how much it hurts when you lose it.
I don’t believe many suddenly believe that you can fight fire with fire, quite the opposite.
We’re just staying quiet because we don’t want to get shot by the police or get infected by the coronavirus.
There’s going to be a reckoning, of course, but a democratic and peaceful one.
Duque’s political party can expect another devastating defeat in 2022 and the justice system will take care of whatever crimes there may have been committed.
In the US, I believe US Congress and possibly the US justice system will hold the idiots of the DEA and former US Attorney Geoffrey Bergman responsible for their act of war against an allied nation, but that’s the Americans’ business, not mine.
My business is promoting peace and democracy in Colombia. I’d like to grow old here and do so in peace. I don’t aspire ever to vote.
I want to my adopted niece and I to chuckle about how she became a biologist because when she was eight we made a deal that if she got these annoying evangelicals to end their noise I would pay her uni.