newpeacecolombia.ning.com

What motivated you (or your organization) to become involved in peace and conflict resolution?

I want to promote a peaceful solution/agreement to the conflict of guerrillas, armed groups and intolerance that has prevailed in Colombia for so many years. I promote peace in Colombia but want to do it at a greater scale.

Please feel free to provide a short bio about yourself or the work of your organization (no more than 3 paragraphs)

I was raised at the SOS Children's Village located in Ibague as well as all over the globe.

At the SOS Village I learned social skills as well as how to create or provoke a positive social change for the most needed people. I was awarded a scholarship to culminate my high school in Costa Rica. In Costa Rica I studied for two and a half years and from there I was awarded a scholarship to study the IB with the organization United World Colleges in Norway (RCNUWC). I am now studying Political Sciences and Sociology at Luther College, although I may switch from Sociology to Economics.

I am a coo-founder of Colombia Soy Yo: www.colombiasoyyo.org

I am now involved with www.kiva.org on Luther College campus

Please list the countries and/or regions in which you (or your organization) have direct and significant expertise

Costa Rica, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Colombia, Ecuador and Guatemala (Althoguh I have never been to Guatemala I like reading about its history because I have been working with some people victims of a rade in Postville, Iowa in May 12, 2008)

What is your current country of residence (or location of your organization)?

United States of America

What is your current job (and organization) and/or where and what field are you studying?

I study at Luther College and study Political Sciences and Sociology

What is your personal or organizational website?

http://newpeacecolombia.ning.com

What is one of your favorite websites in the field? (please provide one answer per box)

http://www.un.org

What is one of your favorite websites in the field? (please provide one answer per box)

http://www.democracynow.org

Which are your primary sectoral areas of expertise (or the primary sectoral areas of your organization) ?

Civil Society, Conflict Resolution, Democratization, Diplomacy, Social Entreprenuership

Which are your primary skills areas(or the primary skill areas of your organization)?

Advocacy, Communication, Fundraising, Qualitative Skills, Quantitative Skills

If appropriate feel free to list several of your (or your organization's) publications

Present comes from a past, the future will come from what and how we do things now.
By William A. Montoya
Class: Sophomore
Date: Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Colombia is located in northwestern South America. The country is divided into five regions, 32 departments and is inhabited by approximately forty five million people. The president of the republic is Alvaro Uribe Velez, “democratically elected in 2002 and reelected in 2006”. As consequence of socio-political misery and irresponsibility, outlawed groups emerged during 1940s and 1950s, which developed and expanded a war between political figures, peasants and even neighbor countries. This conflict has brought into the fields of battle left and right wing insurgent groups such as FARC-EP, ELN, AUC, Aguilas Negras and some others, which can be summarized as human tragedies and social disappointments. Many people have disappeared, been kidnapped and torture, many girls and boys, women and men are forced to participate in a war they do not want to fight. Thousands of innocent people have and continue to suffer the irresponsible behavior of a conflict that began as a hunger for power of the elites, and expanded throughout the entire society.
The stage, at which the internal armed conflict in Colombia is at the moment, is a result of socio-economic and political inequality that has reigned for more than fifty years. This inequality is caused due to the irresponsibility of many generations in learning how to live together without harming each other.

Colombia has always been polarized into two main political people; Liberals and Conservatives. In 1946, before the presidential elections, there was no conservative candidate, however, the last minute chosen candidate, Mariano Ospina Pérez, led to a Conservative victory. However, Ospina’s victory did not receive a majority of the popular votes (Kline 49). Moreover, Ospina won the elections but ended allying with the Liberal elite. In 1949, Lauriano Gomez brought back to power the conservative elite by wining the elections. There was a change in the law enforcement that provoked conservative peasants to, legally, do whatever they wanted to Liberals, such as taking over their lands. Conservative peasants ended owning many kilometers of land that liberals had taken from them between 1930 and 1931. As described, that generation’s irresponsible actions in learning how to live together without harming each other kept themselves (elites) and the entire country divided and in a civil war that still today has not ended. What really brought Colombia to this conflict was the “extension of patterns learned during nearly a century of partisan conflict” (Kline 51) Hence emerges the question of how can we solve the conflict guaranteeing peace for our future generations without making the same or worst mistakes as other generations did?

As said before, the inequality in Colombia is caused by the irresponsibility of some generations in learning how to live together without harming each other, however, that statement may even be true for the current young generation too in some aspects. Nonetheless, there is a something that differs this generation from any other in the entire Colombian history. We do want to change history for the good of others to come and are taking peaceful actions upon it. Perhaps Colombians were condemned to kill themselves, for then they would realize that war is not the way of perpetuating peace among humans. Perhaps a generation is not enough for the human race to mature and understand how humans should behave with each other, but a step towards that ideal.
There have been different attempts to solve the conflict in Colombia. Many resolutions have been passed in the UN and policies applied in Colombia, however, none of the above have and will not work until there is an equal sense of fear between all the parties and social institutions in Colombia, which in other words, creates an equal level of trust. In that way Colombians will move forwards from irresponsible to more conscious generations.
In 1998 Andrés Pastrana was elected president of Colombia under his promise of change. He did not believe the state could fight eternally the FARC-EP and other guerillas, and agreed to cede huge quantity of land in return for peace. This negotiation began in 1998 and ended in 2002. With the goals of eradicating narcotics and ending the armed conflict, Pastrana began to implement the Plan Colombia initiative. Among one of the conditions was that both FARC-EP and the government would demilitarize certain zones, in which no soldiers of either party could reside. Unfortunately, the drug cartels persisted in attacking the population and destroying public property in those zones, as result, the government called the negotiations as impossible with people as such. (Velez)
In 2002, Alvaro Uribe became FARC-EP’s worst enemy by announcing his candidacy under the slogan of “Hard hand, strong heart”, which meant his administration would confront FARC-EP by straightening the army and improve “Plan Colombia.”Colombians did not have to vote in a second round, Mr. Uribe was elected president with 53% of the popular vote of the electorate. Along with other key policies for the last seven years in Colombia, Uribe has implemented the “Policy of Defense and Democratic Security”, which seeks to protect the rights of the citizens and to straighten, with solidarity of citizens, the state and security of all Colombians. This policy is developed through the implementation of different tactics such as policy of “reinsertion”, which allows members of AUC (right wing guerrilla) and any other insurgent group, to demobilize and cease hostilities and any kind of terrorist acts or war that may alter the public order. This strategy was worked to according to Mr. Uribe because “AUC has demobilized all its members” As well many different members of FARC-EP mostly, have been voluntarily quitted the guerrilla and accepted the process of Peace and Justice proposed by the government.
On the other hand, during his administration, Mr. Uribe has also awarded millions of pesos to those who voluntarily demobilize and accept a “Policy and Law of Peace and Justice” which includes “reparation of the victims”. Moreover, he army has been straighten and better trained. FARC-EP was been weakened, ELN does not almost exist, AUC does not operate as such anymore, which means that the policies and their implementation has worked, however, there have been new emergences of illegal groups such as the “Aguilas Negras” or “Black Eagles” in English. FARC-EP has become the main drug dealer, exporter and producer. There are different groups that emerge as an affirmation that Mr. Uribe has done good with his policies, but there is a limit to war, the main propose of straightening the army was to recuperate the areas where FARC-EP operated and bring it back to the people it belonged before, and to allow displaced people to return to their homes. Moreover, this is the right time for a new era in how politicians do politics and enforce the law in Colombia. If there is really an intension of bringing peace and not to prolong war in Colombia and the region of South America, a new era of how the government deals with these insurgent groups must begin.
Clearly, the conflict has been addressed from two perspectives. On one hand we had Andres Pastrana (1998-2002) trying to have a negotiation process with the heads of FARC-EP, among them Jorge Briceño alias “Monojojoy”, who died for health problems. On the other hand, we find a military way of addressing the problem, which has succeeded to certain extents by implementing strategies favoring demobilization, reinsertion and tactics of war. These attempts have been implemented with the main purpose of solving the conflict either through war or peaceful talks, but never have both parties sat to converse and build trust so that the level of fear/trust or mistrust is equalized for both parties. To do that, I propose to begin a process of equalization of fear in which different social institutions direct or indirectly affected by the conflict establish/reduce that level of fear for a viable negotiation opportunity in the future.
Thus I propose to educate all the Colombian people at different levels accordingly to what institution they are most related to:
1. Pardon and Reconciliation
1.1 A set of “Committees for Peace” will be created all over the country to educate different institutions in peaceful conflict resolution and peaceful values.
1.2 Split the country in five regions. A set of “Committees for Peace” will be designated to each region.
1.3 A simultaneous reconciliation process with both the people and the main figures involved in conflict. I depart from the assumption that if the heads of the parties in conflict do not give example of how to deal peacefully with conflicts, no body will respond positively to the call of the creation of “Committees for Peace” all around the country. If the power holders do not give a good example, the citizens will not have a good example to look up to.
1.4 Forum “La Nueva Era de Paz: Colombia” must happen all over the nation and must include all Colombians in different levels.

2. INCLUDING ALL COLOMBIANS AT DIFFERENT LEVELS IN THE RECONCILIATION PROCESS
2.1 KIDS (Ages of 8-10)
2.2 Youth: There will be different groups according to ages
2.2.1 Age 11-14 (Elementary School)
2.2.2 Age 15-18 (High School by grades)
2.2.3 Age 19-22 (Universities by years)
2.2.4 Age 23-26 (Members of NGOs or young people interested in attending Reconciliation workshops for free dictated by University professors. These generation will be the first one in receive the education, then they will provide their new knowledge to their communities and work with either professors at Universities, teachers in schools or/and communities)
2.3 GOVERNORS/MAYORS/CONGRESS AND POWERHOLDERS, NGOs AND POLITICAL PARTIES
3. The last point but no least to build he bases for a peaceful era in Colombia begins with the forum “New Era of Peace: Colombia”. The main objective of the first forum is to bring together key figures of all different social institutions such as politicians from different political parties, senators, representatives of NGOs, members of the cleric, civilians, intellectuals and presidential candidates to share their ideas of how the conflict can be solved.
The forum will be held in August 10, 2009 in the city of Ibagué. The nature of the round-table will be solely to share different perspectives of how the armed conflict has affected different features and how the different representatives of each of them propose a peaceful way out.
4. The forum will take place in a different city in Colombia every year. The main goals of the forum “New Era of Peace: Colombia 2010” will be to bring together more members of other arties involved in the conflict, which could be members of FARC-EP, ELN, AUC, AGUILAS NEGRAS and others, in order to continue the sharing of peaceful ideas for a non-violent way of the conflict and ask each of the panelists to express what other points or ideas they had not seen or learned before they had listened to other parties an vice-versa.
5. The forum will take place in a different city in Colombia every year. The main goals of the forum “New Era of Peace: Colombia 2011” will be to convince through group activities, religious vigils or prayers, conferences etc. to come together and work in groups to create combine each of their ideas. It will be a requisite that none of the parties dominates the process and let that role to the mediators.
6. The forum will take place in a different city in Colombia every year. For forum “New Era of Peace: Colombia 2011” and the rest to come, the goal will be the one described in point number five in the present document.

UNDATES:

At the time, I have been in touch with the presidential campaign manager of Sergio Fajardo, presidential candidate 2010, and possibly he will agreed to come and share his ideas for a peaceful country to the first forum of “New Era of Peace: Colombia 2009”. On the other hand, different national and local tv channels have agreed to provide free advertisement for the forum “New Era of Peace: Colombia 2009”
Moreover, conversations about the topic have been held with Senator Piedad Cordoba/ Senator Cordoba is a known figure in Colombia because of the work she has done for peace in the nation. She has taken action in dialoguing with members of FARC-EP in order to free hostages under FARC-EP’s power. Marta Lucia Ramirez has been member of the current administration, in which she served as Minister of Defense, she has also been senator of the Republic and identifies herself with Uribe’s policies.
Colombia Soy Yo-Colombia has been helping in getting some of the parties to participate in the forum through Rosa Cristina Parra, legal representative of CSY.

One day, Colombia and the entire world will realize that we are given the chance to do the best we can while we are on earth. Our best effort in living together should be using our minds, spirits and bodies to build a better world in which our main tool to share our differences is our tongues through a language and mind of peace.
The inequality in which many Colombians live has been caused due to the irresponsibility of many generations in learning how to live together without harming each other. However, a new era of peace has begun and will continue to spread its message as long as human beings are around. Shalom.

WORKS CITED

Kline.COLOMBIA: Potrait of Unity and Diversity. Westview Press, Inc. 1983.
VIVA COLOMBIA FOUNDATION. http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=62815670338&re...
http://www.presidencia.gov.co/seguridad_democratica.pdf
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/colombia/demobilizatio...