Colombia

Colombia鈥檚 Revolutionary Alternative Force for the Commons聽(FARC) said on March 8 it was cancelling its presidential election bid.

Colombia鈥檚 National Police have announced an internal investigation days after the country鈥檚 leftist presidential candidate was attacked on his way to a campaign rally on March 2.

Much has been made in the corporate media of a humanitarian crisis on Venezuela鈥檚 borders having been caused by a flood of refugees leaving the country.

Here, Joe Emersberger takes down a recent example of the kind of crude propaganda that the corporate media has been running in its campaign against Venezuela. 聽

In November 2016, as the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) met in Bogota鈥檚 Colon Theatre to sign an agreement 鈥 for the second time 鈥 to bring the country鈥檚 long-running armed conflict to an end, it was clear that peace-building in Colombia faced a myriad of challenges and obstacles.

Colombian indigenous leader Aulio Isamara Forastero was assassinated on October 24, close to the Catru Dubaza Ancoso shelter, shortly after armed assassins reportedly forced him out of his home.

Forastero, from the Pacific province of Choco, is聽among聽more than 150聽activists聽killed in Colombia聽since the beginning of the聽year.

Outraged by government failures to honour a peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), rural communities across Colombia have initiated a 鈥渘ational strike鈥 demanding widespread solutions to poverty, violence and drug trafficking.

The strike is the most far-reaching since 2013, when farmers took to the streets decrying abject poverty and negative economic effects of a free trade agreement with the United State

A leader of the community that lost seven members in an alleged police massacre has been assassinated in southwest Colombia, the regional government said on October 17.

Jose Jair Cortes was the spokesperson of the Alta Mira y Frontera community in Tumaco, Narino state, where anti-narcotics officials allegedly murdered seven people on October 5.

The Colombian National Police massacred between 8 and 16 people, and wounded more than 50, in the municipality of Tumaco, Narino on October 5. The attack was directed against protesting coca growing families demanding the government fulfil its commitments to voluntary eradication programs.

Then, on October 8, the National Police attacked an international team sent to investigate the massacre. The police used tear gas and stun grenades to disperse representatives from the United Nations, the Organization of American States, and a journalist from the Colombian weekly, Semana.

Members of the National Political Council of the Revolutionary Alternative Forces of the Commons (FARC) rejected the threats and violence that have claimed the lives of 25 people since signing peace accords with the government last November.

鈥淪ince the signing of the peace agreement, five聽former combatants, nine聽militiamen and 11 relatives of members of the FARC have been murdered,鈥 the group said in a statement on October 2.

The National Liberation Army (ELN) has announced a temporary and bilateral ceasefire with the Colombian government.

The group said the ceasefire, agreed to in September during peace talks in Quito, Ecuador, will be implemented from October 1 to January 9, 2018.

Huber Ballesteros.

Just days before he was set to speak at the 2013 Trade Union Congress (TUC) Conference in Britain, Colombian union leader Huber Ballesteros was arrested and imprisoned in his home country on trumped-up charges of rebellion and financing terrorism.

Colombia鈥檚 communist army, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), relaunched itself as a political party on September 1 at a concert for 鈥渞econciliation and peace鈥 in Bolivar Square, Bogota.

The guerrilla movement, which fought one of the longest civil wars in history until agreeing to a ceasefire with the government last year, confirmed its new name the day before at the end of its five-day congress.

It is now known as the Revolutionary Alternative Forces of the Commons, which will allow it to retain the FARC acronym.