Colombia s Office of the Attorney General has confirmed it would lift all arrest warrants on National Liberation Army (ELN) rebels, following President Gustavo Petro s instructions.
Colombia’s 2016 peace deal was a landmark achievement, convincing the FARC guerrillas to disarm and enter civilian life. Yet much remains to be done to show insurgents that they can redress their grievances through ordinary politics. The country’s leaders should recommit to finishing the job.
Colombia’s vast forest is fast receding, partly because guerrillas and criminals are clearing land for farming, ranching and other pursuits. These unregulated activities are causing both dire environmental harm and deadly conflict. Bogotá should take urgent steps to halt the damage.
April 13, 2021
Colombia’s prosecution misinformed the court in an apparent attempt to counter claims that former President Alvaro Uribe founded a paramilitary group in the 1990’s.
In a report on the “Bloque Metro,” the prosecution’s Strategic Center for the Validation of Evidence claimed that the paramilitary group “made its first appearance in July 1998, handing out flyers.”
This would be “two years after the family of [former] President Uribe had abandoned the (northeast Antioquia) region completely after the sale of Guacharacas,” the former president’s former family estate.
“At that time,” the former president, “his wife Lina and their two sons, Tomas and Jeronimo, were living in Oxford” in the United Kingdom, according to the prosecution.