lo-de-alla.org

[Translation of an article from El Clarín of Santiago, Chile, for April 9, 2013. See original here.]

by Juan Diego García

In February, 1948, a leader of the people, Jorge Eliecer Gaitán, led a massive demonstration that moved in complete silence through the center of the capital city and ended with the reading of the “Prayer for Peace,” a call for the conservative government of the time to put an end to the civil war that was bleeding the country dry and was being orchestrated directly from government offices. A little less than two months later, on April 9, a gunman shot him to death, sparking a popular uprising throughout the country which by tradition has been known ever since as “El Bogotazo.” Lacking in guidance and leaders, the uprising was snuffed out without its ever being known for certain how many humble men and women were shot down by the armed forces. (more…)

The truth and the lies about a heroic guerrilla movement

[Translation of an article from Brasil de Fato of São Paulo for February 8. See original here and related articles here and here.]

By Miguel Urbano Rodrigues

There is no hiding the fact these days that the Juan Manuel Santos administration is not interested in having the Havana peace talks attain the objective of the agreement sketched out in Oslo with the sponsorship of Norway and Cuba. On the contrary, it makes an effort to prevent their leading to an end of the conflict and to the peace that the Colombian people want.

The head of the Bogotá delegation, Humberto de la Calle, repeatedly finds pretexts for threatening to end the talks, preventing the discussion of items on the agenda from moving forward.

The capture of two police officers in the Valle department, supposedly by the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) and the Ejército Popular (EP), is the latest of these pretexts. (more…)

[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City for August 14 based on Deutsche Presse-Agentur, Agence France Presse and Reuters dispatches. See also “Colombia: FARC proposes dialogue with Santos” posted here on August 1.]

Bogotá, August 13 – A day after the explosion of a car bomb for which no organization has claimed responsibility, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos rejected the possibiliity of peace talks with guerrilla forces because “the conditions are not right” and prohibited any gesture leading to such talks.

“We haven’t thrown the key to dialogues into the sea but the door is closed and will stay closed until those who want a dialogue on peace show their real motives in a clear and credible way,” Santos said in Popayán, capital of the department of Cauca, the scene of clashes between soldiers and combatants of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC).

“Until we have a very clear demonstration of the real intentions for a dialogue for peace, with concrete steps like those we have mentioned, that they free the hostages, that they give up terrorism, that they release the children they have recruited by force, that they give up extortion, that they stop acting like terrorists, until we see that, the key will be carefully hidden away,” he said. (more…)