Jump to content

Talk:Colombian conflict/Archive 2

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Archive 1Archive 2

Neighboring countries

Hi. Shouldn't the influence on the conflict by neighboring countries (and viceversa) be addressed with more detail? Having followed Ecuadorian news for the last couple of years, I believe it's obvious the neighbor's issues are a big issue here, with ramifications in politics, crime and economy. Moreover, I think the infobox should include neighboring countries as co-belligerents; they claim to have a hands-out stance, but technically speaking, when they search and destroy guerrilla and paramilitary units and camps in their territory, as they do, they are a contributing party in the conflict.

Modified Peace Plan

New additions are in bold

Assumptions:

DRUGS

  • Colombia's violence is not because of drugs. Violence in Colombia existed long before drugs. Drugs only exacerbate the violence, but drugs are not the major root cause of the violence.

POVERTY

  • Colombia's violence is rooted two issues: poverty and political tolerence (But see question below.)
  • If Colombia's poverty is not reduced, Colombia will never be peaceful.
  • Violence only exubates the poverty. Poverty cannot be effectively reduced until the violence is stopped.

US

  • America's current role in Colombia is far more detrimental then beneficial to peace in Colombia and the prospects of long-term peace. American meddling in Colombia occured before the war on drugs. America is in Colombia to enforce political stability and the status quo.

FARC and AUC (paramilitaries)

  • Instead of attacking the FARC directly, the AUC (paramilitary) are attempting to destroy the support for the FARC and the ELN by massacring and killing the activist members of the peasant population.
  • The right-wing paramilitaries are as culpable (guilty) of drug dealing as much (or more) than the left wing FARC.
  • Both the FARC and the paramilitaries are responsible for the high murder rate. Both have committed war crimes.
  • The FARC and AUC are the major players in Colombia. The ELN and other smaller groups are minor bit players. The ELN may have a role in the peace process, but others can be dealt with separately.

PRESIDENT AND MILITARY

  • The current president's aggressive actions against the FARC, supported by the US, although hurting the FARC, will not lead to long-term peace.
  • The FARC will never be completely destroyed with the current military size.
  • Local power brokers, including politicians, businessmen, land owners, right wing drug barons and the military actively condones and even supports the right-wing paramilitaries actions in the massacre of activist members of the peasants and other undesirables in Colombia.

HYPOTHETICAL PEACE PLAN:

1st: Temporarily give the FARC a semi-autonomous region of the country. Set a future time table for local referendums overseen by the UN, in all regions. These referendums will allow for each region to determine if people of each region want to continue to be part of the FARC or continue to be part of the Colombia government. Strict monitoring by international observers is crucial, it is essential that these elections are considered free and fair by both parties. Give strong security assurances that the same fate of the UP will not befall the FARC. (See question below)

2nd: America's role in the region would change dramatically:

A. All American aid would be funneled through the UN.
B. The US would pull out all American troops, except Embassy personal.
C. America would recognize the FARCs status to exist, conditional on the renouncing of kidnapping, and the return of current captives (similar to the PLO in Palestine).
D. In return, the FARC would not attack American Multi-nationals in the country.
E. Drug erradication programs will cease immediatly.

3rd: A general amnesty would be given to both the FARC and paramilitaries. A truth commission would be set up, similar to what has been established in East Timor (although stronger) and Cambodia.

4th: UN (regional South Americans) troops would be sent into the region to act as peace keepers and to guard the borders of the new autonomous regions. (See question below)

5th: The money funneled through the UN would be used to:

A. The UN would disband the paramilitaries—the military would be trained only in police work, not in "counter-insurgency" any longer. After a gradual yet massive demobilization and/or disarming process. The military aid would be diverted to support the rule of law—police training, judicial training, etc. (See question below)
B. Drug eradication programs would end, the money used on this program would be replaced by financial aid to poor farmers and financial incentives to stop the drug trade on a micro level (similar to successful micro-bank programs in India—the money would be given to the woman, etc.)

5th: After the general amnesty, any massacre or incursion by either side will be dealt with harshly by the UN and ICJ. International observers would be sent to particulalry vulnerable areas. (Not NGO's, which have been targeted by the FARC, but un international observers). This is a massive new role for the UN, unparalleled in its 50+ year history. It will represent a new dawn for world peace keeping. (It would also never be accepted by the current Bush administration)

Signed: Travb 05:37, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Questions

Political intolerance

You wrote: Without the existence of political intolerance and the resulting political violence (initially a Conservative Party vs. Liberal Party affair, but later more openly revealed as an Establishment vs. Anti-establishment one, after the Conservative and Liberal elites formed the National Front in 1958), poverty alone would not have led to the current conflict. See the rest of the region for examples of that.

  • This begs the question, why is their political intolerence?
  • What is the underlying cause of the political intolerence? It isn't poverty, what is it?
  • You say see the rest of the region, you mean other countries in the region have poor people and their is not the political upheavel like Colombia?
  • Why hasn't Colombia had any longer term dictators like most other south american and central american countries? (I understand their was one military dictator in all of the history of Colombia, but he stepped down after less than a decade.) Why is Colombia different?
  • For those puzzling over the question of intolerance and its causes I would recommend that you study a social-psychological phenomenon known to researchers as "moral exclusion". This phenomenon has been found at the core of all genocides around the world. I have studied it extensively as well as the Colombian conflict itself. My conclusion is that moral exclusion is also at the core of the Colombian armed conflict. Once the parties identify themselves -and the "other"- in terms of political, ideological or class opposites and conclude that the other is not "human" then it becomes easy to act in genocidal ways (dismembering them alive for instance). It is not that the parties don't know or understand what human rights are. They do. Only, they don't apply these rights to the "others". Leave it alone and moral exclusion becomes self-perpetuating: direct victims of such mentality become some of the most violent and morally exclusive players of the war (typical tale of the guerrilla or paramilitary leader whose family was wiped out or kidnapped by the "other"- Tirofijo, Castano types).
Demilitarized zone

I was shocked by how small the Demilitarized zone was.

Is it viable to make the Demilitarized zone an atonomous region when it is in the middle of the country, is very small, and shares no borders with other countries? The FARC would be at the mercy of the Colombia government.


Signed Jealonso:

The DMZ was actually the size of Switzerland. I honestly believe this was big enough but it didn't serve its purpose, largely due to the actions of FARC, who used it as a base to further their narcotics operations and to attack nearby towns and cities and flee back into it, thus preventing any response from the Colombia military. There were also several reports from inhabitants of the area in the sense that FARC imposed martial law, abusing and taxing a population that had no much of a choice against a large military force.

Nationality of UN peacekeepers
  • In regards to UN peace keepers, what regional South Americans does Colombia not get along with Colombia historically? Panamanians? Venezualians? Would UN soldiers from other non-European, non-North American countries be better as UN peace keepers? Like Asians or Africans?
Role of the military
  • Is the possibility of a Costa Rica plan viable in the foreseeable furture? Costa Rica disbanded their military. Since then they have been the most peaceful country in the region, nicknamed the "Switzerland" of Central America. This idea is probably not ever possible.
"Soft" Spanish version of Plan Colombia

I keep reading that there was a "Soft" Spanish version of Plan Colombia and that America "hijacked" it.


nevermind, got my answer The original format of Plan Colombia (written by President Pastrana) was focused primarily on economic development, human rights and judicial reform. It was a prospect of change for Colombian civil society and an ambitious attempt to dig to the root of Colombian’s strife. http://www.cjpf.org/drug/prospectsforpeace.pdf


Signed Travb 05:22, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

It is pretty much for sure, I dug up a million sources [[Plan_Colombia#.22Soft.22_original_Plan_Colombia see plan colombia] I will comment on your ideas soon. thank you again.Travb 08:23, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I've seen your edits. Btw, Pastrana has authored a recent book "La Palabra Bajo Fuego" ("The Word Under Fire") in which he gives his version of the events that happened during his presidency, obviously including this subject among other things, so I'll try to get a few quotes from there as well (though they might not agree 100% with the other existing interpretations). Juancarlos2004 19:35, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
Thats okay, I am not looking for the "correct" answer--I know their are different opinions on such a complex issue.Travb 20:32, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

President Uribe after AUC too?

Is the president really going after the AUC as stated in this article?

Soon after that, in May 2002, the former liberal politician of conservative leanings Álvaro Uribe Vélez, whose father had been killed by left-wing guerrillas, was sworn in as Colombian president. He immediately began taking action to crush the FARC, ELN, and AUC, including the employment of citizen informants to help the police and armed forces track down suspected members in all three armed groups.

From what I understand, many of the AUC consider Uribe "their man"Travb 08:26, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, IMO, yes and no. The AUC definitely did consider Uribe "their man" in 2002. The fact that they tend to share a common social and ideological background, and the main objective of fighting the guerrillas, is fairly well known and is easy to prove.
But that's where some differences begin to emerge. As far as all public evidence shows, Uribe actually wants to fight the guerrillas by increasing the power of the state and reining in local powers, which is why he wants to demobilize the AUC and bring all counterinsurgency efforts under the control of the central government, in order to make them more effective and, obviously, to secure US aid. If that implies fighting the paramilitaries in the process, then so be it.
According to CERAC, between 2002 and 2004 the AUC drastically lowered its attacks (until the first half of 2005, which saw a rapid increase) and fundamentally isn't killing people through massacres as much (increasingly preferring individual murders). In other words, they reduced their violent activities, though they still continued committing crimes. The report also shows that under Uribe government forces would have actually fought the AUC more than under any previous presidents in recent memory (even if its not that much, compared to how much the guerrillas are being fought, it's significantly more than what was being done earlier on). See here: [1].
Uribe, also in part due to US pressure, has recently demanded that several of his political allies sever their ties to the paramilitaries, and some political candidates suspected of such ties have been driven from the "top tier" political parties that support him (fundamentally a political move, since we all know that the justice system in Colombia is so subpar that most of these guys aren't under investigation, only under public suspicion, whether guilty or innocent. In other words, nobody can prevent them from still running for office in lower profile outfits, but the fact that they were publicly exposed as "suspicious" gives the urban electorate more of a choice in the matter).
The recent capture and prosecution of other individuals thought to be close to the paramilitaries isn't exactly making them happy either, as well as the fact that Uribe hasn't been willing to compromise on the issue of extradition (beyond assuring the paramilitaries that they will not be extradited if they fulfill the requirements of the demobilization and reintegration process, they have no legal protection against it). For other details, see here: [2].
So the relationship between Uribe and the AUC isn't a simple one, as you can see. Juancarlos2004 18:47, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
Juancarlos2004 wrote: So the relationship between Uribe and the AUC isn't a simple one, as you can see. Nothing in Colombia is simple. That video I mentioned, was so simplistic it made me gag:
World History of Organized Crime - Disc 2 (DVD). History Channel. 2002. Volume two contains "China," "India," and "Colombia."
Horribly simplistic video, perfect for Americans: you have a bad guy (the FARC and drug dealers) and you have a good guy (America and the Colombian government). So simplistic.Travb 22:45, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

EU Terror List

The FARC were added to the EU's list in June 2002 and the ELN in April 2004, not in 2005. See European policies on Colombia by An Vranckx (2005) here: [3] or [4]. Apparently, the document that you linked to is showing the September 2005 inclusion of other organizations on the list, not the FARC's and ELN's. Juancarlos2004 19:22, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I guess you are talking to me? I didnt add anything to the article about the EU.Travb 22:40, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
I thought I was, but now I've noticed that I spoke too soon (I wasn't comparing the differences between the latest versions properly). I apologize for the misunderstanding. Juancarlos2004 00:45, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Peace Plan ideas from Camilo Azcarate

Before negotiations, there should be:

  • interactive problem-solving workshops,
  • negotions are set up outside of Colombia,
  • a strict set of previously agreed ground rules, and
  • all parties should be included. (p 4)
(1) Interactive problem-solving workshops

These workshops will bring together in a confidential, academic environment nonofficial but influential representatives of the parties (level one) or representatives having different perspectives about the conflict (level two).

This group will be overseen by a panel of social scientists.

The goal of these workshops is not to resolve the conflict but to jointly analyze its causes and the basic needs and reasons for the conflict.

Past use of conflict resolution: Conflict Resolution Workshops have been used in conflicts such as Ireland, Cyprus, Somalia, Sri-Lanka, Lebanon, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
(2) Negotions are set up outside of Colombia

Mediators will met the parties in a neutral place outside of Colombia.

Low-profile, nonofficial, non-Colombian mediators can be more fruitful than high profile mediators. The mediators must be respected by both parties and have some form of influence over both parties.

(3) A strict set of previously agreed ground rules

Example of ground rules: ‘freezing’ or threatening to walk away from the process to get a concession from the other is unacceptable and should mean the termination of the process.

Another series of ground rules needs to address the effect of violent events away from the table. All three peace processes in Colombia ended after a violent event by one of the parties (or one of its factions) away from the table. The reason for this provision is that allowing outside events to have a direct and immediate impact on the peace process means all the violent actors and factions within the parties have the power to stop the process by escalating the conflict.

Confidentiality should also be considered as an important ground rule for the proceedings, at least in the first stages.

(4) All parties should be included

Most peace processes have started as initiatives of institutions such as the church, civic movements, and the like that later have been largely excluded from the table.

The only two peace initiatives in Colombia that showed some actual results had an active participation by these groups.

This was the case in the 1989 agreement with the M-19, EPL, and other groups.

That was also true for the Viana agreements with the ELN in 1998.

(5) Shape public opinion

How to stop public opinion from negatively influence the peace process is to:

(1) Educate members of the community with influence on public opinion about the real nature of a peace process. The problem-solving workshops proposed above can achieve such an education goal.
(2) Public education campaigns to educate the larger public about the real long-term nature of any peace process.
(3) Lower the profile of the process, even considering a confidentiality ground rule.

Signed: Travb 03:05, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Seems interesting and appropiate enough, as an idea. Still, translating those concepts into practical possibilities and into ground rules that will be accepted by both parties is precisely where the problem is. Juancarlos2004 04:07, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

ELN peace talks, a model for FARC?

http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/National_Liberation_Army_%28Colombia%29#2002_to_2006_Government-ELN_Talks

Signed: Travb 03:12, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I'd think not, at least not right now. The FARC adamantly opposes even talking to Uribe about peace (unless he demilitarizes the entire departments of Caquetá and Putumayo, which remains their condition for peace talks and which all presidential candidates have rejected: [5] ), and appears to see the ELN as either "weak" or "media hungry" for doing so. They also don't seem to like to hold talks outside Colombia and/or with the participation of third parties in anything more than an occasional observer role, given their reluctance to do so during the last talks (it was only until the final months of the talks that the UN and the Europeans were allowed to have more active and decisive role). Perhaps in some years they might change their position and accept something similar, if the circumstances allow it, but that's pure speculation at the moment. Juancarlos2004 04:04, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
Wow, what a mess. I never realized this project would be so hard. thanks Juancarlos2004, hope you like the 2 new tables on this page.Travb 05:00, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Name

It's obviously commonly known as the Colombian Civil War (check all publications on the issue in journals and books), and we've got a large section detailing the name question, so the issue is treated in detail within the article. Therefore, I've move the article to the most common name per WP:COMMON. —Nightstallion 10:44, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh my God. What a terrible mistake. There is no Civil War in Colombia. The situation is an Armed Conflict not a Civil War. Please change the name as soon is possible.--Nueva era 04:15, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
Both Fernando and theFEARgod agree with me, see the section above; and it's obviously the most common name for the conflict. We should not cater to the spin of whatever politicans prefer to call it. —Nightstallion 08:41, 7 October 2007 (UTC
Not necessarily that obvious. Look at the Internal conflict in Peru article, just for the record, but maybe that one should be changed as well, as per your reasoning.
Now, one could still dispute (as per WP:Naming conflict) whether it is actually that more common than the others.
And, while this is mainly for clarification, we have to consider official usage not just by Colombia's and/or other governments, but also by notable international organizations.
The UN's OHCR uses the term "internal armed conflict" or simply "conflict" in several of its yearly human rights reports. Human Rights Watch uses "armed conflict" in its reports as well, such as in the list of 2007 Human Rights Watch Honorees, its report on child combatants, the 2003 Americas overview and several others. Amnesty International establishes a difference between the armed conflict and what a civil war would be, as seen here, where it talks about the risk of the armed conflict leading to an actual civil war. The International Red Cross speaks of armed conflict as well, as seen here (seems to be down now, but shows up in searches).
Considering the volume and quality of Colombia-related output that all these organizations produce, I do believe those sources are authoritative and relevant enough to justify the usage of other terms in an encyclopedia, outside of spin alone.
Journals and other books aren't monolithic as, in both English and Spanish (though admittedly this later language isn't necessarily relevant to this discussion) they also include terms like internal conflict, internal armed conflict, armed conflict, civil conflict, conflict or simply war. Civil war is not always used there either.
Sometimes several terms can be used in the same article, but note which one receives precedence when referring to the current conflict. Not civil war. Unlike the term civil war and in complete disagreement with Fernando above, "armed conflict" mostly refers to the current conflict and not to previous ones, even if (like in the article above) the author considers both terms to be synonymous (but other sources, like AI, do not equate them).
I think it also makes sense, in addition to everything said above, to give each war a specific name of its own (not an invented one, mind you, but one sufficiently backed up by sources already using it). Not just a generic "civil war" label separated by dates alone. And well, we can always argue there was also no formal declaration of war between the parties, plus this wouldn't be only the "third" civil war, so I can't agree with theFEARgod either (the use of numbers alone, in addition to being an original label, would have to be significantly increased to cover all of them). Juancarlos2004 16:55, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
Mh. I can see your points, but still, the term "Colombian Civil War" seems about equally common... Regardless of which of the two we choose, BTW, it should either be "Colombian Civil War" or "Colombian armed conflict" (but not "Colombian Armed Conflict", as it was before, as this is most clearly not a proper noun but rather a descriptive name). I'd like to hear some other people's opinion on this; I certainly won't insist on my name if others share your concerns. —Nightstallion 17:06, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
I suppose you're right about using "armed conflict" and not "Armed Conflict", and I'd like to see what others think as well. Btw, Google, depending, on how you use it, can provide conflicting results. Searching for the simple word "conflict", excluding the term "civil war" (and any/all Wikipedia entries), provides 2.070.000 results, while searching for "civil war" provides 1.430.000. Juancarlos2004 17:14, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, but searching just for "conflict" makes no sense at all. Every text longer than two paragraphs will refer to it as "conflict" at some point, if only to say "The conflict has been ongoing since ..." or something like that. I don't want to make this a Google Fight, but colombia "armed conflict" -"civil war" -wikipedia gets 363,000, while colombia -"armed conflict" "civil war" -wikipedia gets 1,410,000; in Google Books, colombia "armed conflict" -"civil war" gets 708, while colombia -"armed conflict" "civil war" gets 1,256. —Nightstallion 17:20, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
I don't want to fight too much and this shouldn't be the main point of discussion either, but let me explain: I was searching for "conflict" as a way of trying to include the other possible variations other than civil war, not just "armed conflict". I didn't explain that, admittedly, and in that context "armed conflict" alone does show up less times than "civil war". But searching for the word "conflict" alone does make sense, because in many articles it can described as a conflict, period, without mentioning the term civil war. The terms "Colombian civil war" and "Colombian armed conflict " are, incidentally, not used that often just by themselves. "Colombian conflict " is more common than the two, strictly speaking. Juancarlos2004
Fair enough, fair enough. —Nightstallion 18:49, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't seem as if too many other people are interested in this... What do we do now? —Nightstallion 17:58, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

It doesnt matter if people are interested or not. The proper name for the fighting in Colombia is "Armed Conflict" and not "Civil War". The name should be changed ASAP (If i just knew...) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.245.147.44 (talk) 13:04, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, I agree with the arguments of Juan Carlos. The names "Civil War" should not be a obvious solution. I did a little search myself, after reading the possible external references in WP:NCON.
In the Encarta article, the only mention to a War is on this phrase:
"By mid-2003 some observers believed that Colombia was on the verge of a full-scale civil war."
The term conflict is used most of the times.
In the Britannica, I didn't find any reference to any kind of War, or to an Armed conflict. The term I saw a couple of times was: "guerrilla violence".--Canislupusarctos (talk) 12:33, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
I would agree that the we should go with "Armed Conflict" insted of "Civil War". The term 'civil war' is rarely used, in the country or abroad, and even El Tiempo has a specific section pubished every day titled "Armed Conflict". [6]. The article for civil war, specifies that the term is commonly used only if "organized armies fight conventional battles", which is hardly the case in guerrilla warfare, and there "must be prolonged violence between... defined regions of a country", which is clearly not the case. I therefore propose the name be changed to armed conflict.
I agree with using the term Colombian armed conflict as it is the most common name used in Spanish and it is also the correct translation from its native name. The English use of Civil war is valid however doesn't take into account the controversy of the term. Is rather used in a simplistic way.. in some way similar to the name issue of the country Colombia for Columbia.. note: Contrary to what someone said above I never supported the name Colombian civil war.. I was referring to a disambiguation of Colombian armed conflict to Colombian armed conflict (1960s) denoting the date, which is not the only armed conflict or war the country has been.. that's when someone created the Wars involving Colombia. --Zer0~Gravity (Roger - Out) 22:48, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

COLOMBIAN ARMED CONFLICT name change!

The Colombian Armed Conflict term results too general.. since the Civil Wars of the 19th century in Colombia are also considered armed conflicts, in fact Colombian Civil War redirects to Colombian armed conflict.

Through out the 19th Century Colombia went thru many Civil Wars (armed conflicts), Thousand Days War being one of those. Maybe put a date by it, like (1950- present) because is conflicting with other colombian armed conflicts. suggestions?--F3rn4nd0 07:16, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I support Third Colombian Civil War - like Second Sudanese Civil War --TheFEARgod (Ч) 16:15, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, in that case, it would actually be like the Tenth or Eleventh Colombian Civil War. (1816, 1840-1842, 1851, 1854, 1860-1863, 1876-1877, 1885, 1895, 1899-1902,1948-1958?)

Hi I was wordering why the communists/marxists are repeatedly refered to as liberals? According to the liberal manifesto of oxford 1947, liberals declared there opposition to nationalization to my knowledge the cold war was defined as liberalism/capitalist/democracy against communism/marixist/authoritarianism FARC are marxists and PLC are a socialist party and so im changing the page to reflect this


Sadly, while you arbitrarily pretend to establish the beginning of such -by all international standards undeclared- civil war in 1960, despite utter lack of historical events in such year to corroborate it, the article from its inception becomes a travesty of history. 201.244.229.75 16:27, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

 Done - article moved to Colombian armed conflict. Neıl ☎ 15:34, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Number judges killed when Palace of Justice stormed

The article Palace of Justice siege says that 11 justices died. This article says 12. Would someone who is knowledgeable resolve this contradiction? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.21.67.189 (talk) 13:10, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Vicente Castaño

The info box on this article says that Vicente Castaño was killed in action. That may be true, but I haven't heard about it. Could someone provide a reliable source confirming that Vicente was killed in action, or is even dead? --Descendall (talk) 00:11, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

The image Image:Epl logo.png is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check

  • That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
  • That this article is linked to from the image description page.

The following images also have this problem:

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --13:08, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Cannibalism, Sorrounding of Bogotá and Operación Berlín, and others

There is a series of thisn that I think this article should include:

  • At fist I dont believe but several sources state it; it is known that some guerrilla groups and paramilitaries practices cannibalism on the corpses of their enemies.
  • This article does not name the Operación Berlín made by the Colombian Armed forces in May of 2000s.
  • In the section "late 1990s and eartly 2000s" it is not said that Bogata was being sorrounded in 1999 (or 2000) by the FARC that had established controll of some urban areas and blocked several acceses to the city, for example the road to Zipaquira.Dentren | Talk 16:13, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Do you have sources for the third point? My understanding is Bogotá was not surrounded at the time, although the influence of the FARC in the region was close to its peak. --Crozo7 (talk) 06:01, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Bacrim

I'm updating the article with all the information about Bacrim. These gangs are gaining national media and government atention since 2009. These organizations can't be refered as paramilitaries because of their big difference with AUC and older groups.

Please help me if you can to investigate each of these groups. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.71.11.187 (talk) 23:17, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Quotes

User:Jrtayloriv is right about the need to integrate any useful information into the article rather than having a section entirely dedicated to quotes, but I suppose it's still worth keeping them here in the Talk page for the sake of reference and further discussion until this has been accomplished. Any comments? Juancarlos2004 (talk) 02:50, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Weakness of Colombian government

  • "It would be difficult to conceive of a geographic pattern of internal arrangement that would appear to make the achievement of political unity and coherence more difficult than in Colombia."[7]
  • "Poverty and inequality play a part (in the violence), but cannot be the only explanation as Colombia is not the poorest country in Latin America nor the most unequal. Colombia's history of recurrent civil wars and resulting enmities are important factors; but it is only in recent years that the level of violence has climbed to such heights: in the 1970s Colombia had a similar murder rate to Brazil, by the 1990s, it was three times higher.
    Colombia is suffering a crisis of the State that encompasses the political crisis but is broader than it. For political and historical reasons...the elite no longer have confidence in the State security forces. Landowners, businesses and local politicians have resorted to hiring private gunmen to defend their interests. The general population has little faith in the justice system, correctly perceiving that there is little chance of any criminal being caught. Only 5% of crimes in the 1990s were investigated and just 1% resulted in convictions, according to government figures; this compares with a conviction rate of 5% in the 1970s and 20% in the 1960s. Drugs are not the cause of this crisis, but have exacerbated it. During the 1970s and 1980s, the establishment turned a blind eye to—or shared in the profits of—the drugs trade, enabling the cartels gradually to undermine the judiciary and penetrate the state apparatus. The cartels followed a policy of plata o plomo [silver or lead] to cow the legal profession. Forty judges and lawyers were killed each year between 1979 and 1991, and many more fled the country, left their jobs, kept quiet or accepted bribes. Similarly many police officers were corrupted or killed. This has fatally undermined the rule of law in Colombia. It has also led to a proliferation of armed criminal gangs and professional hit men known as sicarios."[8]

Guerrillas and paramilitaries

  • [Colombian insurgents] "represent a danger to the $4.3 billion in direct U.S. investment in Colombia. They regularly attack U.S. interests, including the railway used by the Drummond Coal Mining facility and Occidental Petroleum stake in the Caño Limón oil pipeline. Terrorist attacks on the Caño Limón pipeline also pose a threat to U.S. energy security. Colombia supplied three per cent of U.S. oil imports in 2001, and possesses substantial potential oil and natural gas reserves."[9]
  • "Do the guerrillas represent "the people"? In regions they control, FARC does support the survival of peasant farms against the encroachment of landlords. Beyond this, most knowledgeable observers say that FARC does not represent el pueblo. Rather, the guerrillas and the paramilitaries are engaged in a power struggle over control of territory as a way to control people and resources."[10]
  • [The paramilitaries] "are carrying out a kind of reverse agrarian reform, expelling peasants to take over land." [11]

Recent edits and additions by 69.235.201.125

The User in question originally added the following text:

a)...and whose family has ties to to the "terrorist" AUC,[1] was elected with the alleged aid of the paramilitaries[2]. He had been listed by the US Department of Defense in 1991 as a "close personal friend" and employee of Pablo Escobar, and "dedicated to collaboration with the Medellin cartel at high government levels."[3]

b)...while allowing and causing serious violations of human rights and terrorizing dissenters, and labor union and other organizers

I believe there are clear POV and neutrality issues with the above. While keeping the same references (or, in one case, lack thereof), I expanded the descriptions and replaced, moved or edited the above as follows:

a)Political dissenters and labor union members, among others, have suffered from threats and have been murdered.

b)In 2004, it was revealed by the National Security Archive that a 1991 document from the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency had described then-Senator Uribe as a "close personal friend" and collaborator of Pablo Escobar. The Uribe administration rejected several of the allegations in the 1991 report. [4]

c)Several scandals have affected Uribe's administration. The Colombian parapolitics scandal expanded during his second term, involving numerous members of the administration's ruling coalition. Many pro-government lawmakers, such as the President's cousin Mario Uribe, have been investigated for their possible ties to paramilitary organizations. [5]

d)In May of 2008, a dozen jailed paramilitary leaders were extradited to the United States on drug-related charges. In 2009, extradited paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso would claim that the AUC had supported Uribe's 2002 election, but said that this was a result of their similar "ideological discourse" and not the result of any direct prior arrangement. [6]

I do not claim that this is a perfect alternative, to say the least, but I do believe it is an improvement. I'm willing to hear other opinions. Any comments or thoughts? Juancarlos2004 (talk) 21:33, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

NPOV?

The Quotes and Statistics sections of this article seem to draw primarily from people critical of the Colombian Government, President Uribe, and the US involvement. Many of the statistics and quotes are drawn from the same source, which appears to be partisan, as well as inconsistent with each other and with other statistics and quotes.

The article above those sections does not have a POV problem. Is it preferred to trim back or delete those sections, or should I dig up statistics and quotes which balance those already presented? User:Argyriou 02:13, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi, the quotes and statistics were all added by me. Your criticism is probably accurate: people critical of the Colombian Government, President Uribe, and the US involvement. Given the disaster that Colombia is today, and its appalling history, I think this are accurate statments. Who else is there to blame for Colombia's current state of affairs? Geography? Communists? The USSR? A spontaneous violence? Human nature?
Is it preferred to trim back or delete those sections Any deletions of statistics or quotes will be reverted by myself.
should I dig up statistics and quotes which balance those already presented? Absolutly. If you feel the current state of affairs is because of the FARC or a communist conspiracy, or whatever you feel is the root cause of the violence, please add as many statistics or quotes as you deem fit. All I ask is that they are all referenced, with page number if available, as my quotes and statistics are.
User:Argyriou, Thank you for garnering opinions of others before major edits to the page. It shows real respect and maturity by you. I speak for every editor here, when I say welcome to this page, and we look forward to your future edits and improvements to this page. Travb 02:23, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
I will remove the quotes as the serve absolutely no purpose other than to bias the article. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 16:53, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
I have also tagged the section as all the information comes from Livingstone, and is hardly a neutral source. Torturous Devastating Cudgel 16:58, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

The following sentence seems very partial: “The paramilitary groups, such as the AUC, which are aligned with the Colombian government, fight [...] for multinational corporations who pay them to assassinate labor leaders and social workers who are interfering with their business operations” - I'm changing it to reflect their claims, like it's done for the other parties involved. 201.19.107.245 (talk) 12:30, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Page move

Move it to a name with war included. --188.23.72.201 (talk) 14:53, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Comments on Modified Plan

Assumptions:

  • DRUGS

Agreed.

  • POVERTY

Agreed.

  • US

Mostly agreed. Maybe I would specify that America enforces political stability and the status quo because, as obvious as it may be, it tends to be favorable to current US political and economic strategy/interests.

  • FARC and AUC (paramilitaries)

Agreed.

  • PRESIDENT AND MILITARY

Mostly agreed. I have problems with the term "right wing drug barons" as drug barons aren't necessarily "right wing", believe it or not. They are relatively apolitical as a group, in the sense that their personal political ideologies differ, and they are secondary to the needs of their business, if not irrelevant, which allows them to engage in relationships of joint partnership, bribery and/or intimidation with individuals of all political colors.

Take Pablo Escobar, for example. He came from a poor background and was far more of a populist than a right-winger, given his tendency to use sizable sums of money for what could be termed "good works" in and around Medellín, many of which did provide considerable benefits to the poor. He also resented the "ruling oligarchy" and was also politically linked to part of the Liberal Party (which isn't precisely "the left", but has usually been closer to it than the alternative). Even later drug lords have also occasionally spoken about their supposed personal desire to use their fortunes for "social justice", as long as they are left alone and are allowed to continue their work without suffering persecution/extradition.

In other words, I'd differentiate the right-wing element (which, of course, has been involved in paramilitarism in its own right) from that of the drug barons.

HYPOTHETICAL PEACE PLAN:

  • 1st:

Agreed.

  • 2nd:

Point D could be better worded as referring to "American nationals and enterprises in the country", don't you think?

Point E should focus on ending fumigations immediately (or as quickly as possible, in practice), since they are the bulk of the current drug erradication policy. However, I don't really see continuing with manual erradication or crop substitution as being equally flawed in this context, and could actually still play a limited role, even as a temporary alternative or a stopgap measure (unless the worlwide issue of the legality of the drug trade were to be resolved at the same time as this peace plan was put into practice...which would be a very good idea, but seems too ambitious).

  • 3rd:

Agreed.

  • 4th:

Agreed.

  • 5th:

A. Agreed.

B. Fundamentally agreed. Some limited programs (which should be vastly expanded) dealing with this already exist, see above.

  • 6th:

Changed 5th to 6th (due to typo). Agreed in that giving the UN such a role wouldn't be accepted by the current US administration (plus the UN itself still needs to be reformed in order for it to properly resolve its current problems and many limitations, let alone those of its member states)...but surprisingly enough, it apparently wouldn't be unwelcome by most Colombian administrations (including the present one which, believe it or not, even spoke of bringing / setting up UN peacekeepers early on, but the suggestion pretty much fell on deaf ears, for several reasons...).

Response to Questions

Political intolerance
  • This begs the question, why is their political intolerence?
  • What is the underlying cause of the political intolerence? It isn't poverty, what is it?
I'd say it's more than one thing, really...but mostly what I'd call a byproduct of the historically high degree of geographical fragmentation and isolation of the country's political and socio-economic structure, together with the weakness and limited reach of the central government, which allowed local disputes/vendettas at all levels to get out of control far too often (even when they weren't being voluntarily supported by national party leaders and politicians, local powers could well fight each other on their own terms with relative impunity, without counting on the state as a positive mediator, except rarely...which made the absence of the state something to be resented, and justified local alliances and "mini-crusades" of all sorts).
I would tend to believe that such a situation made a mentality of "every man for himself" quite widespread in practice, and helped increase the natural fear of change that is inherent to the status quo of most countries in the region (if not all). Over time, as perhaps too much violence has accumulated, it has also led to increased indifference among the urban population as to the fate of their rural peers (those who have been cursed with the shorter end of the stick), as many have gotten used to the current state of affairs and find it perfectly normal.
Those are the fundamental reasons I'd mention, as far as the "big picture" goes. Still, it also seems that even if just a few circumstantial events had developed differently (say, the fate of Gaitán in 1948), even those reasons could well have led to a better (even if only slightly different) outcome, as I don't believe in absolute historical determinism (for me, history isn't set in stone). That's basically my current hypothesis.
  • You say see the rest of the region, you mean other countries in the region have poor people and their is not the political upheavel like Colombia?
That was pretty much the point I was trying to make, yes.
  • Why hasn't Colombia had any longer term dictators like most other south american and central american countries? (I understand their was one military dictator in all of the history of Colombia, but he stepped down after less than a decade.) Why is Colombia different?
I think that Colombia is different for many reasons, but it would take too much time to attempt to list them here ;).
Suffice to say that the state's all too evident historical weaknesses and the availability of international examples (both in the 50's and 70's) made the top civilian power structure more "sensitive" to the dangers and risks of military rule, which meant that the military was kept on a short leash for most of the 20th century (through the severe limiting of its size and its share of the national budget, more than any other mechanism). The military did plan to make several coups here and there, but most attempts were easily contained.
General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, the one dictator you are talking about, could have changed all that and set a new precedent, but it seems he was a bit too naive. Among other things, he trusted the Church and his immediate subordinates too much and didn't seriously manage to carve a "third party" movement to support and defend him (kind of like Juan_Perón's in Argentina, I guess), trusting that his authority and relative personal popularity alone would carry him through if he attempted to continue making the most of his position.
Demilitarized zone

I was shocked by how small the Demilitarized zone was.

Small? Compared to what?

Is it viable to make the Demilitarized zone an atonomous region when it is in the middle of the country, is very small, and shares no borders with other countries? The FARC would be at the mercy of the Colombia government.Travb

I wouldn't think that the FARC has any special attachment to the exact "territorial demarcation" of the old demilitarized zone, beyond the fact that most of its internal and surrounding rural area is definitely under its influence. Basically, even inside the former DMZ one could well expect many rural voters to support becoming part of a FARC autonomy, while most urban voters would reject it, so the shape of the resulting autonomous region(s) would definitely be different.
Btw, the FARC's current demand, in order to restart peace talks with Uribe, is to demilitarize the entire departments of Putumayo and Caquetá, which seems mostly a way to taunt Uribe and would be subject to haggling with other potential presidents, since it is politically suicidal to do that at this point in time.
But even if that specific demand were to become more viable later on, I also doubt that anyobody would agree to demilitarize any land directly connected to the international border, simply due to PR. Therefore, I don't think that point will be too important. Remember that the FARC aren't seeking independence as a state or as a people, and that they basically survived Pastrana's Operation Thanatos mostly unscathed when the Army entered the former DMZ.
What does that tell us? That the FARC already knows (due to this and many other experiences) how to take care of itself in times of grave danger and how not to be "at the mercy of the Colombian government" when the heat's turned on.
It also tells me that the existence of a reasonably large segment of rural land within any proposed demilitarized zone or autonomous region(s), located throughout relatively friendly territory, seems to be the key factor that defines the FARC's perception of safety, in this context, more than any available connection to an international border or the definition of any specific DMZ shape/size.
Nationality of UN peacekeepers

* In regards to UN peace keepers, what regional South Americans does Colombia not get along with Colombia historically? Panamanians? Venezualians? Would UN soldiers from other non-European, non-North American countries be better as UN peace keepers? Like Asians or Africans? Travb

Until relatively recently, and even then any international tension has clearly been almost exclusively due to the ongoing conflict, Colombia has pretty much maintained good diplomatic relations with almost all of its neighbors (most of which keep repeating the mantra that they're willing to do "everything possible" in order to help Colombia reach a negotiated peace), so I don't see an specific need for non-regional peacekeepers (except for obvious cost/manpower reasons, which may likely require additional resources/participation).
Historically we've only had a bit of trouble with Venezuela due a touchy maritime border dispute that still remains open (due to the egoism and foolishness of both sides, IMHO). but even so, the current Venezuelan government has been, surprisingly, less hostile to Colombia (and the current administration) than previous Venezuelan presidents, and has expressed pretty much the same "good will" as most of the others.
Role of the military

Is the possibility of a Costa Rica plan viable in the foreseeable furture? Costa Rica disbanded their military. Since then they have been the most peaceful country in the region, nicknamed the "Switzerland" of Central America. This idea is probably not ever possible.Travb

Colombia is a big country (about 23 times the size of Costa Rica) located in the middle of well-armed countries (starting with Venezuela) so I don't think Colombia will dispand its army anytime soon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 148.87.19.198 (talk) 02:26, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Unlikely, though I'm clearly not an expert on the history of Costa Rica. Properly answering that question would require understanding exactly why did Costa Rica do so and in which context, before trying to apply such a model to Colombia. The idea itself, however, may be good, but will only be practically applicable after the war itself has begun to be seriously scaled-down, if not already ended. Juancarlos2004 02:20, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
Thank you Juan. I got the photo of the [[Talk:Palace_of_Justice_siege Palace of Justice siege] scanned and copied, I had to take too photos and make it one. I am going to post all of the graphs and photos that I copied off. I will let you know a link, and post it here.Travb 05:16, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Might need Update

Recently, a car bomb went off in Bogotá on Calle Septima, with suspicions that it was linked to the FARC. I do not have a reference now, but there are most likely ones on the web, as I'm sure that despite being in the city at the time, my word carries no weight in an encyclopedia. My guess is, since the article makes no mention of anything after January 1st of 2010 (this incident occurred August 10th, 2010), that it is a little out of date. Just wanted to let you all know. 76.119.158.81 (talk) 00:27, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Commanders and leaders

If the conflict has been going on since 1964, why is only the current president listed as leader? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 148.87.19.198 (talk) 21:43, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Bias

This article is seriously biased. mainly in wording and formulations as well as for example seletive mentioning of human rights violations. It also cites some very questionable sources. This article is not reliable and objective information. 84.74.74.126 (talk) 17:00, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Edit the combatants section. Drug cartels ARE NOT! a faction of the government. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.25.108.29 (talk) 03:18, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Militia, part-time fighters and similar forces

How should these be classified and according to what estimates? Should they be included in the infobox or not? Perhaps in a separate section of the same? McDermott (see here) is the only source with a 30.000 estimate for this, which means this is not the result of a multiple analyst consensus as implied by the text I removed, but previous publications tend to use lower figures (see here) and establish a distinction between combatants and militia. What about similar civilian support or auxiliary corps for the Colombian Armed Forces and/or paramilitary? I believe there needs to be some debate about the subject, if at all possible. Juancarlos2004 (talk) 01:50, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Requested move

Consensus has been determined that it should be moved to Colombian conflict (1964-present). Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 22:37, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Colombian armed conflict (1964–present) → Colombian civil war – Notice how my requested title does not have "civil war" capitalized. Many reliable sources call the conflict a civil war((Business Week),(Wall Street Journal),(Global Post),(The Guardian), (Huffington Post)), but not the "Colombian Civil War" (a proper noun). The Red Cross calls this conflict a "non-international armed conflict", the legal term for civil war, thus applying international humanitarian law under the Geneva Conventions to Colombia. [12] Relisted. BDD (talk) 18:05, 25 October 2012 (UTC) FutureTrillionaire (talk) 02:58, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

  • Support -For the reasons I stated above. -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 02:58, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Support. There is a book on this subject entitled The Colombian Civil War. Kauffner (talk) 16:37, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment. This was previously discussed in 2007. Before giving an opinion I'd like to see some of the arguments of user JuanCarlos2004 addressed more fully. The additional evidence supporting a name change on this occasion appears to be that a significant NGO, the Red Cross, is using a term synonymous with civil war to describe the conflict and the publication of a book with the title Colombian Civil War. Five news sources are also cited. 1. Bloomberg: significantly this article describes the conflict as an 'armed conflict' in its headline and only as a civil war in the body of the text. 2. [Wall Street Journal]: this source does not describe the present conflict as a civil war. It refers to the Colombian conflict of the 1940s and 1950s as a civil war. 3. Global Post]: describes it as a civil war. Uses no other term. 4. Guardian: describes it as a civil war. Uses no other term. 5. Huffington Post: not an article about Colombia. FiachraByrne (talk) 18:44, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

A significant difference in the previous move request was the capitalization of "Civil War". Capitalization is inappropriate because Colombian Civil War is not an official name. Many sources mentions a civil war going on in Colombia, but don't call it the "Colombian Civil War". See the articles Libyan civil war and Syrian civil war as examples of this. -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 19:03, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Also, a lot of JuanCarlos2004's arguments are based on Google search results, which is unreliable and dubious. He also didn't realize that the meaning of the Red Cross's term "non-international armed conflict" is the same as civil war. [13] He also says that the conflict in Colombia is often described as an "armed conflict" in many sources, but the same thing can be applied to just about any war. The Iraq war has been described a "armed conflict" [14]. I can list many more examples. According to his logic, we should rename every war article on WP "[sometingsomething] armed conflict". -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 19:16, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict):True, but the term "Colombian armed conflict" appears to be used about as frequently as "Colombian civil war" and many other terms are used besides. However, given the number of civil wars and armed conflicts in Colombia there's no convincing way of measuring the prevalence of either term in English to describe the current conflict. In any case it's not difficult to find reliable sources to support the term "Columbian armed conflict" (e.g. [15], [16], [17], [18], [19]) or other variants (e.g. Colombian internal armed conflict, Colombia's civil conflict, Colombian conflict, etc). There's also any number of articles that use the terms interchangeably. Given that there's no official title or term for the current conflict I'm not seeing any compelling argument for change. One point I would make as an aside is that Colombian Civil War currently redirects to this article. Given the number of civil wars in Colombia historically it might be better if it redirected to a disambiguation page.FiachraByrne (talk) 19:35, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

I suppose we can add the years in the name change request, such as "Colombian civil war (1964–present)". Would that help? -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 19:40, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I think that would be essential whatever the name. The best support for your suggestion is probably the use of the term 'non-international armed conflict' by the ICRC [20]. As you point out, there's also precedent with the naming of the Syrian and Libyan civil wars. One could also point to Sudan internal conflict (2011–present) and Internal conflict in Peru, however. The Colombian government wont call it an armed conflict in the belief, inaccurately as it happens, that this will prevent belligerent status being bestowed on the various factions (and hence the application of international law - specifically article 3 of the Geneva Convention) and there appears to be significant opposition to the use of the term 'civil war' within Colombia. However, if the present conflict qualifies as an armed conflict in international law - and this requires a certain threshold of intensity - then it is, necessarily, a 'non-international armed conflict'. Reliable and authoritative sources would indicate that the conflict does qualify as an "non-international armed conflict". The common term for such a conflict is "civil war". Therefore, as there's no real consensus in the secondary sources in favour of the usage of the titles of "Colombian armed conflict" or "Colombian civil war" to describe the conflict I'd favour the later as more accurate. Also, the article, as noted above, would require the addition of dates (Colombian civil war (1963-present) to distinguish it from other Colombian civil wars and their should be a disambiguation page created entitled "Colombian Civil War". FiachraByrne (talk) 22:00, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

 Done -I doubt any more people will join the discussion any time soon. It seems like we've analyzed the naming issue in dept here. Thanks for all your contributions. -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 01:17, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Excuse me for "joining the discussion" too late. In page 17 of [|this reference], the author concludes that to call the colombian conflict a "civil war" is "wrong, inadequate, and of little use to understand the nature of the conflict in Colombia". I am calling for a new discussion that considers this new reference and, if supported, the name should change to something other than "civil war". --Forich (talk) 06:29, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Hi Forich, I'm not sure what wiki protocol is in regard to the reopening of such issues but I think it's legitimate (even if a bit of a pain to have to move articles linked to many other articles overly frequently). I was called in on this as a random RFC and I don't read Spanish. Could you paraphrase the main arguments in the paper you have linked to? Also, why should this paper carry such additional weight in the English language description of this conflict? FiachraByrne (talk) 11:43, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
Hi FiachraByrne. I agree that it could be a bit of a pain to have to move everything again, so I volunteer to do it. I've never done it before but it seems a great opportunity to learn to do it. Regarding the wiki protocol on RFCs, I noticed that the request for move began in october 17 and ended in october 27, that is 10 days long. It is recommended that RFCs last for at least 30 days. FutureTrillionaire ended it too early, in my opinion. So what should we do next? I suggest that we discuss the name change (again) in the talk page, informally. That will allow me to: i) paraphrase Posada's main arguments about the civil war description of colombian conflict, and ii) examine the reasons why these arguments should be a realiable reference for the not naming this a civil war. --Forich (talk) 17:52, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
In regard to closing the RfC I would have liked Futuretrillionaire to wait another day or two ideally but I don't see it as problematic. 30 days is the default length but "they may be closed earlier" depending "on how much interest there is in the issue, and whether editors are continuing to comment". There was no major contention or controversy and apparently little interest in the topic. Anyhow, personally, I'm not so interested in process, I'd like to hear arguments and rationales. Trillionaire and Kauffner may, of course, have a different perspective so I'd probably like to hear from them before preceding. I'll post on their talk pages if no-one else has done so yet. FiachraByrne (talk) 18:22, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
OK - whatever I've said about process above it's probably best to follow it. Again, I'd like, if possible to hear from Trillionaire and Kauffner first but I guess this process should be followed if you wish to try and move the page again. If you go ahead with that it would be good to get more editors involved (without canvasing) - previously I posted on the Project Colombia page about the previous RfC but without any response. I guess we could try Wikipedia:WikiProject South America but I'm not sure that there's much activity there either. Perhaps some members of the military history project would be willing to comment? FiachraByrne (talk) 18:47, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
Oh - and it might be good to get a quick précis of your argument for the move and strength of sources to support it. FiachraByrne (talk) 18:52, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
Sure. Here goes the summary of my point: The nature and status of the colombian conflict has been a matter of academic discussion. The description of the conflict is not just a matter of semantics, it was a contended issue among war historians. Neutrality and no original research policies demand that we present the prevailing scientific consensus. Recent authoritative books published by an academic press are the best place to find out the consensus view in the profession. University of Oxford's [|Eduardo Posada Carbó] has documented in a printed, realiable, and prominent book that it is "wrong, inadequate, and of little use to understand the nature of the conflict" to label it "civil war". I have not found a translation of Posada's book, so I will take the time to paraphrase his main arguments. I will do this after I come back from a one-week holiday trip. --Forich (talk) 19:52, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

WP's title policy is WP:commonname. The use of the term civil war to describe the conflict is not uncommon. I've listed several sources already. Also, it's classified as a civil war according to the Red Cross, meaning the conflict is subject to international humanitarian law under the Geneva Conventions. As a side note, the war is part of Regan's policy of helping anti-communist groups in Latin America, and incuded conflicts such as Salvadoran Civil War and Guatemalan Civil War.-- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 19:01, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

OK, for the record RULAC (Rule of Law in Armed Conflicts Project), an independent, apolitical project funded by several European states which hosts a global database pertaining to the implementation of law in conflict situations characterises the Colombian conflict as a non-international armed conflict (i.e. a civil war [21]) stating that:

The extent and sustained nature of armed violence, and the level of organization of the non-state armed groups fighting mean that the situation in Colombia has reached the threshold of an armed conflict. As the state is fighting against non-state armed groups within its territory, the armed conflict is qualified as being of a non-international character.

— RULAC
FiachraByrne (talk) 20:21, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
  • If you combine "Colombian Civil War" and "Columbian civil war", this name is overwhelmingly more common than "Columbian armed conflict", according to this ngram. Although this conflict has outlasted the Cold War, it originated as part of a set of Latin American insurgencies. The Salvadorian and Guatemalan insurgencies are referred to as civil wars, as FutureTrillionaire mentioned already. Kauffner (talk) 02:16, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
Yes but Colombia has had multiple civil wars. It's actually extremely difficult to determine which term is most common. FiachraByrne (talk) 02:20, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
It's possible that some of the google results are from one of Colombia's other conflicts, but the current is still the most well known. Also, this is why for either "civil war" or "armed conflict", we need to have the years in the title so readers don't get this article confused with a different one. -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 02:41, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
Hi Future. That's plausible but I don't know if it's clear enough to apply WP:COMMONNAME unequivocally. Given that, I would tend to endorse Forich's point that the naming of this article should reflect the scholarly consensus - or, rather, the dominant or majority viewpoint by academics who have considered this issue - as to whether it's an appropriate term. That doesn't mean that I'm convinced that Eduardo Posada Carbó's position is definitive. FiachraByrne (talk) 03:05, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Civil war definition controversial among scholars

Let me paraphrase the main point in Posada (2001) essay: There are three main disciplines which hold a definition of civil war: International Law, Economics, and International Relations.
  • International Law: According to Dietrich Schindler (1979) there are 4 kinds of conflicts: (1) international armed conflicts, (2) wars of national liberation, (3) armed conflict not of an international character, as ruled by article 3 of the Geneva Convention, and (4) Non-international armed conflicts, as ruled by Protocol II of 1977. Posada states that the distinction between (1) and (3-4) is "frequently ambiguous", and that a category of Non-international armed conflicts would hold a big range of diverse conflicts.
  • Economics and International Relations: According to Collier (2000) civil wars are internal conflicts with at least 1000 combat-related deaths. Posada argues that this definition would apply to the conflicts in Sudan, Chechnya, Northern Irland, and Colombia. But they all have huge differences in their conflict's nature. Also, to include the United Kingdom and Ruanda under the same category (countries with an ongoing civil war) is not useful. Posada argues that under this approach, scholars "tend to identify civil war with any manifestation of violent conflict". To label almost every form of conflict as "civil war" would imply that local laws are superseded by international legislation. Paradoxically, national -civil- conflicts are treated as if they are international -not civil- wars, in which the State is no longer a valid reference point.
  • The International press: Posada acknowledges that many international sources have referred to the colombian conflict as a civil war. He says that, by labeling the colombian conflict a civil war, these sources (new york times, the economist, etc) are probably straightforward (no extra meaning attached). To them it is just a name. However, any reader will inmediately associate "civil war" with a fraticidal/domestical confrontation between opposed factions in a polarized society.
  • Colombian conflict: In this country there is no large-scale division of the whole nation into two sides, each one advocating for models of society that are poles apart. On the contrary, Colombian territory is being besieged by armed machineries, and the vast majority of its people show their contempt for them. Moreover, Posada (citing Pécaut 2001) states that, despite some serious flaws, the rule of law prevails; there are efforts towards institutional modernization, and signs of a culture of democracy. End of paraphrase.--Forich (talk) 21:48, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
By the way, Futuretrillionaire said "The use of the term civil war to describe the conflict is not uncommon". By this same line of reasoning, the use of "Columbia" in not uncommon, but no editor has changed the name of the "Colombia" entry in English Wikipedia because of it. --Forich (talk) 22:03, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
The writer's arguments are interesting, but Wikipedia is not a university. Even academic sources refer to Colombia's conflict as a civil war, and doesn't bother noting the "meaning" of the term. Here's an example:[22] "Put differently, states in the international system have been subject to a more-or-less constant risk of violent civil conflict over the period, but the conflicts they suff�er have been difficult to end. The average duration of the civil wars in progress has increased steadily from 2 years in 1947 to about 15 years in 1999. From a policy perspective this is an important observation. It suggests caution about seeing as a temporary "blip" the sorts of military and political problems Western foreign policy makers have faced recently in Kosovo, Macedonia, Bosnia, Somalia, Haiti, East Timor, Colombia, and elsewhere. What explains the susceptibility of states in this period to hard-to-end civil wars, and thus the secular trend?" Scholars don't seem have a universal standard for the usage of the term "civil war". This writer applied it to a multitude of conflicts. Many deadly internal conflicts are referred to as civil wars even though they have little in common with each other.-- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 22:55, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
I think we have established that "Colombian civil war" is commonly used in many reliable sources. My points are: (1) "Colombian armed conflict" is also commonly used in many reliable sources AND several scholars argue that it is a superior, better, richer denomination of what is going on in Colombia than ambiguous "civil war". (2) This entry was originally titled "armed conflict" thus making it the status quo. To deserve a name change we need to strictly follow WP:COMMONNAME: "Changing one controversial title to another is strongly discouraged. If an article title has been stable for a long time, and there is no good reason to change it, it should not be changed".--Forich (talk) 03:24, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

I am aware that my main source is a colombian scholar, and maybe he is not perceived as the most independent source for this matter. His essay was published in spanish in 2001, and later he published a [version of it|] in a colombian peer reviewed journal in 2003. According to google scholar, this work has not been cited yet, even though the author has received up to 80 citations in books on different matters.

In 2007 Sidney Tarrow published a paper in Perspectives on Politics saying that:

"by hiving off civil wars from other forms of contention, quantitative scholars of civil wars risked reifying the category of civil war and downplaying the relationship between insurgencies and 'lesser' forms of contention. Escalation to civil war from nonviolent contention or from less lethal forms of violence; transitions from civil wars to post-civil war conflict; co-occurrence between core conflicts in civil wars and the peripheral violence they trigger — none of these was exhaustively examined in these studies" (p. 589).--Forich (talk) 04:04, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

In 2003 Francisco Gutierrez-Sanin published [a paper] in the Journal 'Politics and Society' saying that the period 1964-1978 was a time of "guerrillas without war" in which FARC "only seldom faced the army, and their activity consisted mainly of long walks through the jungle". This picture is not very accurate to be labeled "civil war", since armed rebels happened to live without war.
Gutierrez-Sanin is critic of the Collier paradigm of civil wars when he says:
"The greed-grievance dichotomy is simply too restrictive to explain adequately contemporary armed contention; the difficulties start with the operationalization... I believe that in fact an important aspect of the very meaning of peasant rebellions is lost by Collier's operationalization."--Forich (talk) 05:23, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
The reason it didn't change for a while was because this article didn't get much attention. Also the WP:COMMONNAME policy refers to how commonly a name is used overall, not just among some scholars. Just because a few scholars don't like the term "civil war" does not change the fact that civil war is more often used the descriptor than armed conflict.

Here's some evidence. The conflict has been in the news recently due to peace talks between rebels and the govt. Here are the Google News results:

  • Colombia civil war 6,510 results [23]
  • Colombia armed conflict 2,600 results [24]

(no quotations used in search)-- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 04:18, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

I believe articles "not getting much attention" should still comply with Wikipedia guidelines. I have presented reliable, authoritative sources claiming that there is ambiguity in the civil war term. You have not showed me consensus pointing otherwise. In case of ambiguity, WP:COMMONNAME says: "Ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined in reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources". I have to admit to your benefit that this guideline is confusing: "The choice of article titles should put the interests of readers before those of editors, and those of a general audience before those of specialists." I am certain that spanish readers benefit more from an armed conflict title, but I am not 100% sure that is the case for english readers. If you can bring more editors to the discussion that address this, I am perfectly fine with leaving the title as it is now, and instead introducing a short section about the scholar debate. What do you think? --Forich (talk) 05:50, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
Please notice that you use google search results as an argument, but in a previous edit you said "a lot of JuanCarlos2004's arguments are based on Google search results, which is unreliable and dubious". I am glad that you changed your mind about google searches. --Forich (talk) 05:58, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia articles are for a general audience, not just for scholars like the ones you mentioned. I don't see how "armed conflict" is less "ambiguous" than "civil war". In fact "armed conflict" sounds more ambiguous because Colombia experiences many armed conflicts. The previous users used Google search results, which shows results for reliable and unrelaible sources. I did a Google News results, which shows results from reliable news sources about recent peace talks. -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 06:13, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
Hi, sorry I missed this until now.
Whatever term is eventually decided upon I think that Forich's suggestion that there should be a section on the scholarly debate of the definition of this conflict and the implications deriving from one definition or another is absolutely necessary.
Using Google Scholar, on the basis that, while imperfect, it may return more authoritative sources we get:
FiachraByrne (talk) 15:34, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
That's a good idea. We can add a terminology section into the article, explaining the debate about the name of the conflict. Perhaps this will be a good compromise. -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 15:42, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
Yep. But it doesn't resolve the proper name for this article. It would be useful to get more people to participate in this discussion but I haven't had much luck at that by posting at various WP project pages. By the way future, what's with the spree of renaming articles anyhow?
A Google books ngram viewer search for the period 1964-2012 favours "Colombian civil war" slightly over "Colombian armed conflict" but massively favours "the Colombian conflict" over both (this is a case sensitive search and should remove, I hope, officially named and hence capitalised Colombian civil wars ). FiachraByrne (talk) 16:00, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
If we do a simple Google search we get the following results
FiachraByrne (talk) 16:22, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
Using Scopus (no date limit) we get:
  • "Colombian conflict" - 71 results
  • "Colombian war" - 45 results
  • "Colombian civil war" - 16 results
  • "Colombian civil conflict" - 13 results
  • "Colombian armed conflict" - 12 results
  • "Colombian internal conflict" - 3 results
FiachraByrne (talk) 16:31, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Using Sciverse (much wider database which includes Scopus and books, theses, patents, and "curated" websites - i.e. government or university maintained websites) we get:

  • "Colombian conflict" - 2567 results
  • "Colombian armed conflict" - 511 results
  • "Colombian civil war" - 464 results
  • "Colombian war" - 377 results
  • "Colombian internal conflict" - 51 results

FiachraByrne (talk) 16:42, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Web of Science (searching under title and topic fields) we get:
  • Colombian conflict - 99 results
  • Colombian war - 77 results
  • Colombian armed conflict - 40 results
  • Colombian civil war - 21 results
  • Colombian internal conflict - 10 results
FiachraByrne (talk) 16:58, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
The database searches indicate that "Colombian armed conflict" is overwhelmingly the most favoured term across the broadest range of available online sources (about 4:1). However, this search result contains many sources of mixed or poor quality (youtube etc). Scholarly sources moderately favour the term "Colombian conflict". At this point I feel we should restrict the debate to the use of either of these two terms. This would also remove the need to debate whether reliable sources define the conflict as a civil war or not which is likely to be protracted and, perhaps, irresolvable. FiachraByrne (talk) 17:12, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

I became interested in this article after reading news about peace talks for a war that lasted decades. I wonder if any of these options are actually "names" or just descriptions. The common name policy I think refers to names only. "President Obama" [25] gets more Google News results than "Barack Obama" [26]. Yet WP uses the latter because it's the most common "name", while "president" is a description. I'm not sure if the Colombian conflict even has a "name".

By the way, I have another idea. How about FARC insurgency? I like this one because it require the years in the title. Here are some articles with a similar title: Naxalite–Maoist insurgency Sinai insurgency Shia insurgency in Yemen -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 19:05, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

The article is about more than the FARC.
There is no definitive name in English for this conflict. It is necessarily referred to using descriptive terms. There is no "name" for this conflict that does not use descriptive terms. However, limiting the search to terms such as "Colombian internal conflict" rather than "Colombia" AND "internal conflict" should return results of phrases used to name rather than merely describe the type of conflict. At the moment, given that a simple google searches returns all kinds of results and due to the fact that the term "armed conflict" has a specific legal meaning in the English language, I'd personally favour "Colombian conflict (1964–present)". It is ambiguous but then so is the nature of the conflict. FiachraByrne (talk) 19:26, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Interestingly "war" seems to be a more common descriptor than "conflict" according to Google News. [27] [28] -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 19:48, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Sure, but I'm not sure such searches really tell us a lot. Best to search terms such as "Colombian war", "Colombian armed conflict" etc that have some hope of returning phrases by which reliable source name this conflict.FiachraByrne (talk) 20:06, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

After reading some more news articles, I get the sense that people are reluctant to give the conflict a name. It is often just referred to as "the conflict" or "the war". For this reason, I agree that it's probably best to name this article Colombian conflict (1964–present) -- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 20:08, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Great, I favour that myself.FiachraByrne (talk) 20:11, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
It seems you guys did great with the google metrics and, overall, with your knowledge of Wikipedia's pillars. Thank you for giving this requested move a second chance! I am fine with Colombian conflict (1964-present), too. I have never moved an entry before, but if no one wants to do the job, I can give the move a try.--Forich (talk) 01:04, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
 Done I think there's a clear consensus here.-- FutureTrillionaire (talk) 01:13, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
My God Future you waited a whole 7 minutes after Forich's comments before you moved the page (and despite his indication that he'd like the job). Slow down. FiachraByrne (talk) 02:08, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
Its okay with me. Good work. --Forich (talk) 20:13, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Article title

The article title was recently changed to: Colombian Marxist insurgency [29]. I changed it back to its current title: Colombian conflict (1964–present). Any future changes should be based upon talk page discussion. FiachraByrne (talk) 15:54, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Writing tendentious

The writing is tendentious. The repeated part about "attacking peasant communities" is an oversimplification and in any case the aim was to root out communist militants hiding in the peasant communities. Why not state it like that, or in some other halfway objective way?AtomAnt (talk) 14:12, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree. I changed it to 'strong anti-communism repression'.--Forich (talk) 02:07, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
For the sake of accuracy, which of these best describe the attacks against communist militants hiding in peasant communities?:

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 27 external links on Colombian conflict. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add {{cbignore}} after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add {{nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}} to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 07:38, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 28 external links on Colombian conflict. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add {{cbignore}} after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add {{nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}} to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at {{Sourcecheck}}).

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 04:49, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Allies of Colombian state

Unter "Bellingrents" it is stated that the Colombian government was/is supported by the United States, Spain, Israel, France, Canada, Italy and the UK. But proof/sources are only given for an involvement of the United States, it's also the only state-ally mentioned on the Spanish or German article page. I think there should be a source for this piece of information or the other countries should be removed from the list. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cabana85 (talk • contribs) 23:09, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to one external link on Colombian conflict. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add {{cbignore}} after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add {{nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}} to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at {{Sourcecheck}}).

checkY An editor has reviewed this edit and fixed any errors that were found.

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 04:01, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 4 external links on Colombian conflict. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add {{cbignore}} after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add {{nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}} to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

checkY An editor has reviewed this edit and fixed any errors that were found.

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 06:20, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Colombian peace process

Shouldn't there be separated article for the Colombian peace process? Charles Essie (talk) 02:42, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

@Charles Essie: Feel free to write one. Vanjagenije (talk) 16:38, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
See Colombian peace process (2012–2016) --Petrovic-Njegos (talk) 05:15, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Did the paramilitaries fight the government?

If not, the infobox needs to be amended. -- Director (talk) 21:47, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

War is Not Over

The ELN did not sign the cease fire, and is still actively engaged in operations against the government. In anticipation of the peace agreement, it has been gaining territory in areas FARC has withdrawn from in anticipation of the peace agreement, [[30]].XavierGreen (talk) 01:11, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

Agreed. The ceasefire with FARC may well lead to an ultimate end of conflict, but it's premature of us to call this. --BDD (talk) 15:32, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
FARC signed a peace deal on 26 September 2016: [[31]] --108.18.97.220 (talk) 20:19, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
That doesn't mean that the war has ended. Maybe it can mean that the FARC's participation on the fight might have ended but not the war. Coltsfan (talk) 18:21, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Where is the M-19 ?

The M 19 Fits perfectly in this epoch. Where are they ? 

https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/19th_of_April_Movement


67.197.173.18 (talk) 01:03, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

Hm Never mind. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.197.173.18 (talk) 01:05, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

Questionable, extraordinary claim

The following text in the History section is a very substantial claim (in bold), which I have removed (especially because this article is currently linked from In The News on the main page) for lack of reliable sources per WP:EXCEPTIONAL (surprising or apparently important claims not covered by multiple mainstream sources):

On May 16, 1961 President John F. Kennedy announced the second project of the Peace Corps (an initiative of the Government of the United States to contain communism) would be held in Colombia. Sixty-four volunteers would be in charge of assisting rural communities in agricultural development, construction, education and health projects.
Instead of supporting diversified rural development, American volunteers in Colombia ended up supporting the production of narcotics, collaborating with the American Mafia and Colombian traffickers.

A Google Translate translation of the source, gives the following support for the claim:

On May 16, 1961 President John f. Kennedy announced that the second project of the Peace Corps (an initiative of the government of the United States to contain communism in underdeveloped countries) would take place in Colombia. 64 volunteers would be in charge of assisting rural communities in agricultural development projects, construction, education and health. "Today, I am pleased to announce the second project of the Peace Corps. This Time in Colombia (...) I am Particularly pleased to announce That the second project of the Corps will be in Latin America, Because of the many ties of mutual Which ideals and mutual respect bind us together as brother republics in traditionally free and democratic esta hemisphere. "

Paradoxically, part of the intension of rural development in the Peace Corps in Colombia marimbera boom ended in a short cycle agrarian economy that opened the doors to the market of cocaine and heroin in Colombia. American volunteers discovered the qualities of marijuana in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and became traffickers under a business that would later be handled by the US Mafia collaboration with Colombian coastal traffickers.

In Magdalena, Cesar and Guajira gringa mafia modernized crops and marijuana business. He began handing out dollars between the upper echelons of the Colombian authorities. Subsequently introduced fully equipped American personnel who interacted with the Colombian marimba players who were responsible for cultivating, caring and sell marijuana to the gringos, who later brought forth the country in planes and boats to the United States.

The article provides no citations for the origins of their claim and the website (in English "Open Truth") seems of questionable reliability. I searched 10 pages of Google results for mafia Peace Corps Colombia and mafia "Peace Corps" Colombia (quotation marks keep the phrase together, rather than searching for individual words).

The only sources that fully support the claims seem to be student reports and not reliable sources (in my opinion, they may have been taken from this Wikipedia article). This article, in what appears to be a university student news website, says:

What began as a containment method for Communism during the Cold War era would evolve into something else. Whenever President Kennedy sent the Peace Corps to Colombia for education in healthcare, agriculture or construction. It transitioned from a really good idea into something dreadful.
Overtime the volunteers turned into narcotics instructors for the American Mafia and the Colombian drug traffickers. The most prominent drug produced was cocaine, and the buyers varied from the U.S. and the E.U. So what began as a means of containing communism in America’s Backyard, evolved into the War on Drugs.

In another apparent student report, this presentation says:

1961 - Kennedy's peace corps project meant to help Colombia
Reality: Introduced drug and the drug trade to Colombia by the mafia under this false pretense

The only reliable source I could find discussing (not supporting) the claim is this Chicago Tribune article about Colombians' reactions to the 2004 movie El Rey which presumably (based on the article) connects the Peace Corps with starting the drug trade in Colombia:

Although it may seem preposterous to many in the U.S., it's a commonly held belief here that Peace Corps volunteers first taught Colombians how to process coca leaves into cocaine. U.S. officials and Peace Corps veterans have long denied the allegation, but some Colombian historians and journalists have kept it alive for years.

"El Rey's" director and screenwriter, Antonio Dorado, is careful to categorize his film--in which he also attacks corrupt police, unscrupulous politicians and half-hearted revolutionaries--as fiction. But he says he has ample anecdotal and documentary evidence that some Peace Corps volunteers participated in the beginnings of what has become a devastating social, military and economic problem for the U.S. and Colombia.
Ricardo Vargas, a Colombian who has written several books on drug trafficking, said he finds it hard to believe the Americans could teach Colombians anything about coca.

"I've heard that rumor about the Peace Corps, but I never paid much attention to it," he said.

Other seemingly reliable sources do not support the claim that "American volunteers in Colombia ended up supporting the production of narcotics, collaborating with the American Mafia and Colombian traffickers."

This book result (End of Millennium: The Information Age: Economy, Society, and Culture, Volume 3; page 205) says the following: "Social historians in Colombia report that the discovery of the potential of marijuana by young Amerians sent to Colombia in the 1960s by the US Peace Corp." The following sentence mentions the mafia's connection with exporting drugs to the US, but does not connect the Peace Corps with the mafia. Another book (Evil Hour in Colombia; page 64) that came up in the Google results says: "The marijuana business, initially organized by Peace Corps veterans and quickly taken over by Colombian smugglers, flowered in the Cauca, Cesar, and Magdalena departments, and La Guajira."

AHeneen (talk) 09:06, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 8 external links on Colombian conflict. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at {{Sourcecheck}}).

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 01:27, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 6 external links on Colombian conflict. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at {{Sourcecheck}}).

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 02:57, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

How about Operación Orión in 2002?

I think Operación Orión (http://www.eltiempo.com/colombia/medellin/13-anos-de-la-operacion-orion/16406579) and (https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operaci%C3%B3n_Ori%C3%B3n) should be included.93.156.99.148 (talk) 01:26, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 16 external links on Colombian conflict. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 20:30, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 5 external links on Colombian conflict. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 20:20, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Colombian conflict. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 14:27, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Colombian conflict. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 02:28, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

  1. ^ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7029389.stm
  2. ^ http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/4258-auc-supported-uribes-election-mancuso.html
  3. ^ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5570107/site/newsweek
  4. ^ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5570107/site/newsweek
  5. ^ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7029389.stm
  6. ^ http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/4258-auc-supported-uribes-election-mancuso.html
Retrieved from "https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Talk:Colombian_conflict/Archive_2&oldid=1143720646"