Saturday, 15 May 2021, 4:25 pm
While
the proposal for a global ceasefire during a disease
pandemic has done the opposite of catching on, there are a
few small signs of sanity and even of successful activism.
While most big military spenders (including the
super-mega-biggest one) have increased or kept their
spending steady, the SIPRI numbers
show a serious reduction from 2019 to 2020 in military
spending by Brazil, and reductions as well by China, Russia,
Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Turkey (the only NATO member
stepping out of line on this), Singapore, Pakistan, Algeria,
Indonesia, Colombia, Kuwait, and Chile.
Chile is reducing
its military spending by 4.9% in order to better address the
Fears of militarization as Colombian troops deployed
AFP, BOGOTA
In Colombia, a country still reeling from six decades of civil war and battling ongoing spurts of violence, fears have been raised of a creeping militarization as police and soldiers have forcefully clamped down on protests.
Colombia’s human rights ombudsman said that 19 people 18 of them civilians had been killed and more than 800 injured in clashes with uniformed officers deployed as tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets in anti-government rallies.
With the backing of the army commander, President Ivan Duque on Saturday said that he would use “military assistance” to combat “those who through violence, vandalism and terrorism seek to intimidate society.”