In November 2016, then-Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos signed peace agreements with the FARC (the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia,) Colombia’s largest guerrilla group at the time. It was a moment that promised more than 50 million Colombians the tantalizing prospect of a new life without the daily fear that 50-plus years of violence had imposed on the country. That same year, Juan Manuel Santos was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, “for his resolute efforts to bring the country’s more than 50-year-long civil war to an end, a war that has cost the lives of at least 220,000 Colombians and displaced close to six million people.”

 One of the most controversial provisions of the peace accords was the establishment of a parallel system of justice, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, commonly called the JEP. The JEP functions alongside but completely independent from the the Colombian Attorney General’s Office. The peace treaties specify that:

The Special Jurisdiction for Peace will exercise judicial functions, and will fulfill the duty of the Colombian state to investigate, prosecute and sanction crimes committed in the context of and due to the armed conflict, and in particular, the most serious and representative.

If a crime was committed by the FARC, by their paramilitary counterparts or by their legal Colombian military contemporaries prior to the signing of the peace agreements, the JEP’s jurisdiction is clear. The JEP’s objectives are outlined in the accords as these:

Contribute toward the historical clarification of what happened. Promote and contribute to the recognition of the victims; of responsibility for those that were involved directly or indirectly in the armed conflict; and of the society as a whole for what happened. Promote coexistence across the country.

Guilt? Retribution? Punishment?

Not a lot of emphasis is placed on guilt, retribution or punishment. And many Colombians felt, and still feel today, that the JEP’s mission was, and is, way too compassionate on guerrillas who bombed, maimed, kidnapped, terrorized and killed their families and fellow citizens for over half a century. According to the Colombian National Center for Historical Memory, 220,000 people died in the conflict between 1958 and 2013, most of them civilians, and more than 5 million civilians were forced from their homes between 1985 – 2012.  And the conflict didn’t end in 2012.

What many Colombians focused on in the peace agreements saw was this:

…that those who decisively participated in the most serious and representative crimes and recognize their responsibility, will receive a sanction containing an effective restriction of their liberty for 5 to 8 years, in addition to the obligation to carry out public works and reparation efforts in the affected communities.”

The 5 to 8 years stipulation addled many. Public works? A sanction equal to a restriction of liberty? These questions gave many in Colombia pause. In fact, a majority of Colombians voted against the Peace Accords when given the opportunity to do so in a referendum on October 2, 2016. The accords later found a way to ratification through Santos’s congressional initiatives, some might say manipulation. Santos’s Nobel Peace Prize had already been announced.

The Santrich Affair

Under the peace agreements, ten former-guerrilla leaders were given guaranteed seats in the Colombian House of Representatives, no election required. The FARC got to choose the nominees for these ten. And the FARC chose Seuxis Paucias Hernández Solarte, generally known by his wartime alias — Jesús Santrich — and one of the key negotiators in the peace process, for one of those seats. The FARC was now a legitimate political party.

Already on April 10, 2018, the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York had announced that Jesús Santrich and 3 others had been arrested in Colombia and accused of “conspiring and attempting to import cocaine into the United States.” Colombia and the United States have a drug trafficking extradition treaty in place that goes back decades.

 The Southern District of New York’s evidence indicated that Santrich’s involvement in drug dealing occurred after the signing of the Peace Agreements and that he was therefore excluded from protection under the JEP’s judicial oversight.

“As alleged, the defendants conspired to ship cocaine from Colombia to the streets of the US. Thanks to the investigative work of the DEA, they are now under arrest and face significant criminal charges,” US Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said in a statement. The 4 arrested were charged with plotting to import ten tons of cocaine to the US, a shipment with an estimated street value of $320 million.

Marlon Marín, a nephew of another former FARC leader, Iván Márquez, was one of those arrested with Santrich. His uncle, Iván Márquez was again a FARC nominee for a no-vote-needed seat in Congress. After Santrich’s arrest, Márquez went into hiding. In late May of this year, Rodrigo Londoño, alias Timochenko, former head of the aforementioned guerrilla group FARC, chief negotiator for the FARC in the peace meetings in Havana and more recently a candidate for President of Colombia, distanced himself from Iván Márquez. He said that Márquez’s pronouncement, that it was a mistake for the FARC to have given up their arms, was wrong.

Upon his arrest, Marlon Marín offered to cooperate in the Santrich investigation, and following meetings with the DEA in Bogotá, his extradition order was rescinded and he was flown to the US as a protected witness.

Santrich remained in jail, pending extradition.

Colombia held presidential elections in 2018. Santos left office on August 6 of that year, and on August 7, his successor, Iván Duque Márquez, became President of Colombia. Duque had run on a platform emphasizing a reexamination of the terms of the mandate of the JEP.

As president, Duque insisted on his reforms to the decrees underlining the legitimacy of the JEP. His appeal went to the Senate and Congress. The results were indecisive. And Duque refused to sign off on the regulation of the basic legal structure of the peace agreements.

In the meantime, Santrich appealed his case to the JEP.

The JEP heard Santrich’s objections to his extradition. And on May 15 of this year, the JEP decided that Santrich should be freed and be immune from extradition to the United States. The decision was unprecedented in Colombian-American cooperation. One quick result of this decision was that videos of Santrich negotiating with Mexican drug cartel members began to appear on line, associating him through popular social media in drug dealing. Colombians were stunned.

And immediately upon his release, Santrich was rearrested by the Colombian Attorney General’s Office, based on new evidence that implicated him once again in illegal drug trafficking after the signing of the peace agreements.

What’s going on here? Who’s in control?

Apparently, the Supreme Court of Colombia. The Supreme Court of Colombia stepped in and announced on May 29 that Santrich should indeed be freed. The Supreme Court has jurisdiction over cases of wrongdoing by any Congressman or Senator. Even though Santrich had never taken an oath of office, the Supreme Court accepted that this was not of his volition; as he was under arrest at the time, he was unable to participate in a signing-in ceremony.

President Duque’s response was immediate and decisive. Duque called Santrich a mafioso, a term that in Colombia encompasses all those who are not guerrillas but who are underworld actors.

Santrich was freed on May 30.

But the Supreme Court wasn’t finished. On the same day, May 29, that they ordered the release of Santrich, the Supreme Court had a second pronouncement. The Court ruled that in the Senate and Congress a majority had indeed voted to deny President Duque’s objections to the underlying legal structure of the JEP and ordered the President to sign the statutory laws governing the JEP. On June 6^, Duque signed off on the structural laws guaranteeing the legitimacy of the JEP.  It would not be a stretch to say to say that he did this willingly.

The Supreme Court has assumed control of the Santrich affair and affirmed its jurisdiction over his case. A huge power shift has taken place in the country. Does evidence implicate Santrich in drug dealing before or after the signing of the peace agreement, or indicate any involvement at all? The US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York is convinced. They want Santrich extradited.

In Colombia, the Supreme Court will decide.

On June 6, the Supreme Court of Colombia announced that it had initiated an investigation of Santrich’s involvement in drug trafficking. They invited Marlon Marín, now a protected witness and a person under US custody to give evidence. The nitty-gritty of his evidence is proving bureaucratic to even get started. Permissions from the US Justice Department are now needed for Marlon Marín’s appearance, even video-appearance in Colombia. A date for his appearance has yet to be set.

On June 11, Santrich was officially signed in as a Representative in the Colombian Congress, and on June 12, he took possession of his congressional seat.

Right now, the Santrich affair is what Colombians wake up to the morning and go to sleep with at night. The process of peace in Colombia, the promotion of coexistence across the country as iterated in the mandate of the JEP, is proving hard to even get off the ground.

 The JEP has a ten-year mandate. Will the historical clarification of what happened in Colombia ever see the light of day? Colombians are at this moment in time, in all honesty, unsure.

The post The complicated, ever-evolving, nitty-gritty of peace in Colombia appeared first on Occasional Planet.

What’s better: a military-based economy or a peace-based economy?  Jason Sibert of the Peace Economy Project, says that cutting military spending and funding human needs would create a peace economy, which would work better and become more effective and prosperous.

Sibert, a Navy veteran and the recently hired executive director of the St. Louis Peace Economy Project, has an extensive background in journalism and reporting, from sports to news. Whether writing for the Java Journal or the Progressive Populist, he reported on topics and issues he is passionate about. He is the only paid employee of the Peace Economy Project.

Since its founding in 1977 by Sister Mary Ann McGivern, the Peace Economy Project has raised questions about how much money our country spends on the military and whether those funds could be better used to support middle- and lower-class people. Basically, what it comes down to is more spending on human needs and less on guns, nuclear weapons, and F-35s. A simple question this project asks is: What should we spend money on – guns or butter?

From the Cold War to the present, the Peace Economy Project has addressed many issues: It has criticized the military-industrial complex and advocated for for healthcare, education and infrastructure reform. Not affiliated with a political party, the organization will criticize any president of any party, says Sibert.

An unchecked military-industrial complex brings many hazards, says Sibert. Overspending on the military causes the rest of the economy to suffer. Other countries allocate more money to development, and that attracts high-tech companies. Overspending on the military has also resulted in cuts to education. In addition, noting that 40 percent of US workers earn less than $15 per hour, the Peace Economy Project has become involved in the Show-Me $15 initiative aimed at raising the minimum wage in St. Louis.

“We rot internally when we spend everything on the military,” says Sibert.

Legislative and policy changes are important in the quest for a peace economy, says Sibert. So, in addition to advocating for ideas, his organization is often out on the streets collecting signatures, and then visiting legislators to show them what their constituents want.

Critics of the Peace Economy Project contend that the military is the only decent thing about America. But Sibert argues that the United States can spend less money on military, while still having an effective and beneficial foreign policy. Sibert notes that Switzerland has a smaller military, which is cheaper, but is in need of natural resources, and that other countries depend on trade. Sibert’s idea of a better world economy would be to see more cooperation between power nations, such as Russia, China, the European Union, and the United States, as well as more cooperation in the United Nations.

“We all live in the same world,” says Sibert, “which explains why we need an economy that focuses on  human needs and peace for everyone.”

The Peace Economy Project collaborates with several other organizations, including the St. Louis Chapter of the United Nations Association, Veterans for Peace, and Jobs With Justice. Support for the Peace Economy Project comes from membership dues and individual donors.

Sibert hopes that more citizens will become aware of the need to change from a military-based economy to a more stable, peace-based economy. To do that, we need to become more educated, by reading and watching the news, paying attention to the world, and knowing the political pushes and pulls of it.

“The State Department and its diplomats are as important as the generals,” he says. “Problems need to be solved diplomatically instead of lethally.”

The post Guns or butter? Butter, says Peace Economy Project appeared first on Occasional Planet.

We need to work to end wars. One way to do that is to get rid of all nuclear weapons. Eleanor Holmes Norton has introduced H.R. 1650 in the U.S. House of Representatives to abolish all nuclear weapons by 2020. Also supporting this legislation is the US Conference of Mayors in a 2012 Resolution. We need to get each of our representatives to co-sponsor this legislation.

This may seem like a pipe dream and not possible, but we must be persistent and have our representatives work for things we believe are important. We know that for the world’s security and justice we must end violence and war. War can and must be eliminated as an instrument of national policy. We need to declare our opposition to all weapons of mass destruction, which includes the testing, production and deployment of nuclear weapons. and we can begin by dismantling all nuclear arsenals and passing treaties banning all future weapons by any nation. We need to be the instruments of peace.

General Douglas MacArthur in July 1951 said it better than I can. He said, “

The abolition of war is no longer an ethical question to be pondered solely by learned philosophers and ecclesiastics, but a hard core one for the decision of the masses whose survival is the issue. Many will tell you with mockery and ridicule that the abolition of war can only be a dream – that it is the vague imagining of a visionary. But we must go on or we will go under….We must have new thoughts, new ideas, new concepts. We must break out of the straight jacket of the past. We must have sufficient imagination and courage to translate the universal wish for peace – which is rapidly becoming a necessity – into actuality.”

The post In Congress: A bill to abolish nuclear weapons by 2020 appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Switch off MSNBC. Toss the New York Times in the recycling bin and suppress the temptation to sample the blogs. If you crave more meaningful insights than tidy sound bites provide, search out the voices of people whose lives are bound by the conflicts they live with every day.

A great place to start is Peace X Peace,  an online organization with subscribers and participants from more than one hundred and twenty countries that strives to connect a global community of women. The organization was founded after the 9/11 attacks when its founder, playwright, poet, and film maker Patricia Smith Melton, acted on her belief that women raising their voices and understanding the lives of other women across the religious, political, and economic divide would prove to be an effective strategy for working toward peaceful co-existence.

If you dismiss such thinking as naive, take a closer look at the recent history of one of the twentieth-centuries most intractable conflicts. Northern Ireland is a place where women talking to women and organizing around shared hopes for the safety and future of their children proved to be a powerful catalyst. Without the courage and commitment of Protestant activist Betty Williams and Catholic Mairead Corrigan working to shape a dialogue and helping women find common ground across the religious divide, a peaceful Northern Ireland would not be where it is today.

Like Betty and Mairead, there are thousands of individual women and organized women’s groups in countries around the world that share similar goals.  The importance of women in any peace process is finally gaining the recognition it deserves. Last month the U.N. Security Council convened discussions on the prominent role women’s civil-society organizations play in advancing security, conflict resolution, and peace making. Haiti, South Sudan, Nepal, and Mali are only some of the countries where women’s organizations are spearheading an array of important, post-conflict development projects.

Arab, Muslim, and Western women and debunking their stereotypes of one another is the primary focus of Peace x Peace. One of the organization’s online projects, called “Catalyst: Voices of Israeli and Palestinian Women,” showcases seven videos of ordinary women inviting you to hear their observations on the affects of the conflict on their daily lives. Each woman movingly reflects on her unique experience. You’ll hear the story of an Israeli/Palestinian friendship separated by the wall.  You’ll learn about the long-term commitment to nonviolent activism of Israeli women and men protesting the injustice of the absentee-properties law. You’ll understand more fully the obstacles and frustrations of daily life for Palestinians living in Ramallah in the West Bank through the words of Bushra Mukbil, an American-educated Palestinian woman.  And you’ll learn about the guarded hopes of two Jewish settlers in the occupied territories.

The video collection succeeds in doing just what Peace x Peace and its contributors hope it will.  It illuminates through personal testimony the ethical and political complexities of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and the optimism of the women living it. If you’re like me, you’ll be moved by these testimonies. And, like me, I hope you will imagine sitting down with each of these remarkable women for a cup of tea and a few minutes of talk.  Accept their invitation, and take the time to listen to their stories.

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