Caption: “‘Nadie en Colombia duda que debemos apoyar los 170 municipios más afectados por la violencia y la pobreza, y que debemos cerrar la brecha de inequidad que tienen con respecto al resto del país. Eso lo hacemos con los PDET’: @EmilioJArchila”
The UN Security Council holds its quarterly review of Colombia’s peace process and the work of the UN Verification Mission. Member states’ representatives voice strong concerns about increased attacks on social leaders and human rights defenders. Cauca-based social leader Clemencia Carabalí, of the Proceso de Comunidades Negras, addresses the session.
The latest pandemic human rights update from the non-governmental platform looks at recent allegations of sexual abuse by military personnel around the country.
Caption: “Esta mina antipersonal fue hallada por soldados del Batallón de Ingenieros de Desminado Humanitario N.º6 en un camino veredal donde transitan nueve familias del corregimiento El Toche de Palmira”
Caption: “Este miércoles en la mañana, iniciará el traslado concertado de excombatientes de Ituango hacia Mutatá. Para esta jornada, el Gobierno Nacional ya tiene listo el transporte, alimentos y seguridad. 🚚”
Citing testimonies and evidence from contractor personnel, Semana magazine reports that forced manual coca eradication teams may have been inflating and exaggerating their results, measured in land area, by as much as 30 percent.
The newsmagazine finds that coca eradication teams have been systematically inflating reports of their results, throwing off recordkeeping for many years.
Gen. Jaime Lasprilla, a former commander of Colombia’s army, denies that a recent spate of cases of sexual violence represents a systematic problem within the armed forces.
The House of Representatives’ Appropriations Committee finished work on the 2021 State Department and Foreign Operations bill on July 9. In addition to offering some language very supportive of peace accord implementation, the narrative report accompanying the bill provides a table explaining how the House appropriators (or at least, their strong Democratic Party majority) would require that this money be spent.
The table above shows how the House would spend the 2021 aid money, and how it fits in with what the Trump White House requested, and what aid has looked like since 2016, the year before before the outgoing Obama administration’s “Peace Colombia” aid package went into effect.
If the House were to get its way, less than $200 million of the $458 million in 2021 U.S. aid to Colombia would go to the country’s police and military forces. However, the bill must still go through the Republican-majority Senate, whose bill may reflect somewhat more “drug war” priorities. A final bill is unlikely to pass both houses of Congress until after Election Day.
2020 transfer of aid from Central America: we’ve heard it from legislative staff, but the only document we can cite right now is coverage of an October 2019 announcement by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Colombia’s El Tiempo.
Not reflected here is assistance to Colombia to manage flows of Venezuelan refugees.