From El Espectador, translated by FOR Peace Presence. Original: http://bit.ly/1gmXaz1 President Juan Manuel Santos apologized to the Peace Community of San Jose de Apartado, which opted for peaceful resistance in the midsts of armed conflict, and were in the past...
Year: 2013
Colombian Coal: Fueling the Cycle of Conflict
Barges and cargo ships dot the distant horizon off the white shores of Santa Marta. Seated on the Caribbean Sea between sandy beaches, small fishing villages, and the Sierra Nevada mountain range, Santa Marta was destined to be a centerpiece of Colombia’s growing...
Join the March 2014 IFOR Delegation!
There's no better way to improve your understanding of active non-violence in Colombia, to demonstrate international solidarity, or to get to the heart of the global issues that are effecting the organizations and communities we work with, than by coming over and...
Empires of Gold and Colombian Extractivism Today
By Luke Finn Before there was Colombia, there was the extractive industry. The legend of El Dorado stems from a Spaniard, Juan Rodriguez Freyle, watching a High Priest of the Muisca getting covered in gold dust and jumping in Lake Guatavita, near Bogotá, in a...
Aerial Fumigation and its Discontents
By John Lindsay-Poland Once the signature program of the U.S. drug war in Latin America, aerial fumigation of coca leaf crops is finally in deep trouble. Fumigation’s crisis comes in a moment when coca growers, like other farmers throughout Colombia, face an economic...
A Hunka Hunka Burning Blog
By Luke Finn As anyone who has eaten a hamburger in Colombia will know, simply adding good things, one on top of the other, often results in a whole that is somehow less than the sum of its parts. The standard combination of lettuce, and tomato, and onions, and...
This Is Peace: “Walking The Word” in Colombia
By Chris Courtheyn "Caminando la palabra," or “walking the word,” is how Siriaco and Diego*, participants from indigenous Cauca and Guajira communities, described what we had done on our recently completed Peace And Solidarity Pilgrimage to Rodoxalí, in this war-torn...
Welcome to FOR Peace Presence!
Hello, and welcome to the brand new Fellowship of Reconciliation Peace Presence blog and news. We are blessed here at FORPP – we have a shiny new organization, with all the dynamism and drive that implies, yet we also benefit from over 10 years’ experience working...