armed conflict in Colombia

The former chief commander of the AUC, warlord Salvatore Mancuso, will cooperate with his country's war crimes tribunal to crimes committed during the armed conflict. Mancuso was extradited to the US in 2008 and is serving a 15-year sentence on drug trafficking charges in a prison in Atlanta, Georgia.

Two years ago, the peace accord signed by Colombia's government and the FARC ended half a century of civil war in which 220,000 people died and millions were displaced. At the time, Gaucho broke away from the FARC to form a new splinter group, known as Oliver Sinisterra Front. According to reports ...

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — U.S. prosecutors have apparently won the cooperation of a key witness in the case of a top rebel ideologue arrested last week on ... Under terms of the peace accord, rebels who lay down their weapons and confess their war crimes are to be spared jail time and extradition.

Born into an armed conflict, many children and youth in Colombia joined the armed forces or fled their hometowns, foreclosing the possibility of them going to school. ... I also performed surgeries on war injuries," Dayro recalls. ... The war took away many Colombians' access and right to education. Today ...

Colombia's war victims: the numbers. by Adriaan Alsema ... Colombia's armed conflict has left 8,650,169 victims to date, according to the National Victims Registry. This is more than 17% of ... Keeping you up to date about what is happening in Colombia is costly and not without risk. Please support us with a ...

Since a peace agreement was reached in Colombia in 2016 after an internal war of 52 years, the challenge has been the building of a lasting, sustainable peace. The Rotary clubs of Ladner and Tsawwassenand the 47 other clubs in Rotary District 5040 are taking action to help build that peace by investing ...

This callout box includes a weekly update on releases and work specifically related to implementing the Final Peace Accord between the Government (GOC) and the FARC in Colombia. The current government now has three months to get the remaining legislation for the implementation of the Peace ...

At the very heart of violence and armed conflict in Colombia is land. This has been the case since before Colombia was a ... Between 1823 and 1931, the state offloaded vast chunks of land in order to pay off debts accrued during the independence war. The result, nearly 30% of all farm land in Colombia ...

They referred to Cruz Rojas as "untiring fighter" when it came to improving the wellbeing of the local community. Mapiripan was previously an area of armed conflict in Colombia. Paramilitary group the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, (AUC) carried out a five-day mass killing in July 1997. Former General ...

The U.S. and Mexican governments are sparring over immigration and trade, but the two countries are joining forces on the high seas like never before to go after drug smugglers. The United States, Mexico and Colombia will target drug smugglers off South America's Pacific coast in an operation that is ...

After hitting a low in 2012, Colombia's cultivation of coca, the base ingredient in cocaine, jumped 134% between 2013 and 2016, US officials said late 2017. 2016 alone saw a 52% increase in the area under coca cultivation, rising to 360,774 acres from 237,221 acres in 2015, according to the UN Office on ...

The peace agreement committed the then-called Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia to “entrust all war assets to compensate victims” and for the ... and some believe the political successor of the insurgent group is hiding assets and is unwilling to repair the damage done during the armed conflict.

Pablo Catatumbo of the political party Farc deposits his vote during the legislative elections Monday in Bogota, Colombia. ... However, with the scars of half a century of civil war still raw, Colombians widely shunned the former guerrillas' candidates, instead favouring rightwingers who campaigned on an ...

A new report examines the relationship between private businesses and paramilitary groups during Colombia's decades-long armed conflict, arguing that a post-conflict truth commission should investigate these potentially criminal dealings. The report, published on Feb. 26 by Colombian think tank Dejusticia, details 439 ...

Colombians head to the polls for congressional elections on Sunday, when for the first time ever former FARC rebels - now a political party - are fielding candidates. But in a country still reeling from 50 years of armed conflict, it's a challenge for the newcomers to find a place in the political landscape.

The Colombian government has named Miguel Botache Santillana, alias “Gentil Duarte,” as its top target and offered a reward of nearly $2 million for information leading to his arrest, El Tiempo reported on Feb. 19. According to official documents and other sources accessed by El Tiempo, Gentil Duarte has ...

The Colombian government has named Miguel Botache Santillana, alias “Gentil Duarte,” as its top target and offered a reward of nearly $2 million for information leading to his arrest, El Tiempo reported on Feb. 19. According to official documents and other sources accessed by El Tiempo, Gentil Duarte has ...

Clashes between AGC paramilitaries, ELN guerrillas and the military have displaced 1,500 people from a coca and gold-rich area in northern Colombia, according to aid organizations. A third crime group, Los Caparrapos, has also reportedly been involved in the violence that has escalated in the Bajo ...

JUST one road connects Tumaco, the second-busiest port on Colombia's Pacific coast, to the rest of the country. Beyond its verges are fields of coca bushes, many of them cultivated by poor people. Yuley Alexandra Ruano's crop grows behind a beauty parlour she owns on a patch of land she does not.

Yet a deeper reading could also consider this incident as an indirect consequence of the prolonged fighting that has assailed Colombia after a half-century of civil conflict. War has eroded the nation's moral fiber, and disproportionate cases of violence like this, where a negligible dispute at school came to ...

They crossed the gates of the Hacienda Napoles to freedom in the Magdalena River, where the population is increasing uncontrollably. Unlike Africa, in Colombia they do not have natural predators. "They are in a quiet area where they are reproducing," says Echeverri. He explains: "It is an invasive species ...

It was hastily erected by the government as part of the November 2016 accord that ended a five-decade conflict — one of 28 "training and normalization camps" across the country where rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia would disarm, receive identity cards, sign up for job training and ...

BOGOTA, Feb 12 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Every time Maria Alejandra Mahecha sees the machete scar on her father's face, she is reminded of a brutal attack 15 years ago and the visible wounds of Colombia's war that he bears. Mahecha says rebels from the Marxist FARC - known until recently as ...

A scene from Cartagena, Colombia a day before the signing ceremony of the peace agreement between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army. Photo by: Rick Bajornas / United Nations. URIBIA, Colombia — Ortensia Ipuana wakes up every morning in her dusty ...

The source of the souring of U.S.-Colombia political relations: a coca plant. The Colombian government recently sought to combine eradication with alternative rural development to break the cycle of coca growing. The U.S. under Trump wants a return to the drug war, including aerial spraying, which ...

De facto civil war between the Colombian government and various guerrilla groups — most notably the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC — fueled by illegal drug production, had mired the country in underdevelopment for decades. Even in the wake of the government's peace agreement ...

The United States, Mexico and Colombia will target drug smugglers off South America's Pacific coast in an operation that is scheduled to begin Sunday and last for the foreseeable future, Coast Guard officials told The Associated Press. U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Paul F. Zukunft teased the idea during a recent ...