Perhaps the greatest obstacle to peace wasn’t the obstinacy of the “No” camp. It was cynicism and apathy. We cannot say half of Colombia was for peace and half was against because over half of Colombia did not vote at all.
On March 9, 1990, fighters from Colombia’s M-19 guerrilla group assembled beneath the towering statue of Simon Bolivar in the center of Medellin to mark their own personal farewell to arms. Exactly 25 years later, many of the same faces returned to the same site to mark the anniversary.
In the oppressive heat of Catatumbo in east Colombia, the rhythms of everyday life are underpinned by tension; the threat of violence, the struggle with extreme poverty and just the faintest glimmer of a peaceful future.
In Colombia’s congressional elections in early March, the name the Patriotic Union appeared on ballot sheets for the first time in over a decade.
In one of Colombia’s key strategic and resource rich areas, Eastern Antioquia, a nascent social movement is unifying disparate social issues under one banner – the defense of water.
Former Colombian guerrilla fighter Alirio Arroyave believes his country can turn the high-minded rhetoric of current government-paramilitary peace talks into a reality through the unrealized promise of direct democracy, a dream that persuaded him to lay down his arms twenty years ago.
Copyright Toward Freedom 2019