Human Rights Watch Head Appeals for More War in Colombia
Source: Telesur
Human Rights Watch Head Appeals for More War in Colombia
Published 4 October 2016
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The executive director of U.S.-based Human Rights Watch is under heat from the Twittersphere, after seemingly calling for the war in Colombia to continue on social media.
“Colombia had stronger army, growing economy. FARC non-drug support diminishing. So why give no-jail sweetheart deal? “ Kenneth Roth tweeted Monday.
While its stated purpose is "to defend and protect human rights," Human Rights Watch opposed the peace agreement to end the longest running-war on the continent. The peace treaty, negotiated in Havana between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels, was narrowly rejected by Colombians in a sparsely-attended plebiscite Sunday.
The 'No' campaign was headed by right- wing, former president Alvaro Uribe, who has been accused of having ties to the notoriously violent paramilitary groups. Uribe and 'No' campaigners opposed provisions that would grant amnesty for certain crimes committed during the war, as well as political participation of the rebels once they demobilized.
Read more: http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Human-Rights-Watch-Head-Appeals-for-More-War-in-Colombia-20161004-0013.html
[center]- click for photo -
http://www3.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/Kenneth+Roth+Annie+Sparrow+Guests+Arrive+State+W87rAg0mgTol.jpg
Walk this way. (If I could walk that way I wouldn't need talcum powder.)
Kenneth Roth at the White House.
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My understanding is that many voted against the deal because they'd like to see some FARC members prosecuted for their crimes and the deal would have let them off the hook. That's not exactly calling for "more war"; more like renegotiation with tougher terms. Roth seems to be saying that FARC's leverage is in decline so there's no good reason to grant them leniency.
Perhaps something got lost in the translation.
All I know is what I've picked up from discussions and analysis surrounding the deal and the vote.
It wouldn't surprise me if Kissinger, Reagan, etc., were behind that kind of thing. 
Did Human Rights Watch Sabotage Colombia’s Peace Agreement?
Like the country’s far right, HRW wanted to send human-rights violators to prison more than it wanted to end the war.
By Greg Grandin
October 3, 2016
Supporters of the peace accord between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, ( FARC) watch pensively as the results of the referendum on whether to support the deal appear on a giant screen, Bogotá, Colombia, October 2, 2016. (AP Photo / Ariana Cubillos)
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It’s a heartbreaking disaster for the long, intricate peace process, which sought to put an end to Colombia’s more than five-decade-long civil war. That war has claimed hundreds and hundreds of thousands of lives and has displaced millions upon millions of people. The peace deal, which was worked out during years of negotiations, mostly in Havana, was more aspirational than binding, offering hope that one of the world’s longest-running conflicts would come to an end. Now, that deal is in “tatters.” But keep in mind that “no” won with a sliver of a voting majority (less than 1 percent) of a minority (of eligible voters), with turnout low due to, in many precincts, extreme tropical rain, mostly in coastal departments where “yes” won handily.
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According to The New York Times, the government and FARC have already announced that they would send diplomats to Havana to begin discussing how to salvage the peace. The FARC responded to the vote by announcing that they remained committed to peace; indeed, the UN has already started disarming the guerrillas. Santos stated that the cease-fire will hold, and the historian Robert Karl, who just wrote a terrific “centuries long history behind Colombia’s peace agreement with the FARC” in The Washington Post, tells me that Santos, as president, has “a good deal of discretionary power” over the military, so let’s hope Santos can keep the security forces on a leash. What Washington, who has spent billions on this war (for the lethal effects of Plan Colombia, see these very useful charts by the Latin American Working Group), will do is unclear. As of early morning Monday, the State Department hasn’t commented.
“No” won because the right wing, led by former President Álvaro Uribe, was able to turn a vote that was supposed to be on peace into a vote on the FARC. The geographic breakdown of the referendum indicates that “no” won in areas where Uribe and his political party have their support. Take a look especially at the department of Antioquia, where Uribe got his political start as a champion of paramilitary death squads. Sixty-two percent of Antioquia’s voters cast “no.” In the department’s capital, Medellín, a city that has been sold in the United States as a neoliberal success story—Modern! Urbane! Fun! Come visit!—63 percent of voters said “no” (for Medellín’s neoliberal “makeover,” see this essay by Forrest Hylton).
Uribe served as president from 2002 to 2010. He is best thought of as a Colombian Andrew Jackson, riding to the top office of his country on the wings of mass murder, rural ressentiment, and financial speculation. As an ex-president, he has been toxic, doing everything he could to keep the war going.
More:
https://www.thenation.com/article/did-human-rights-watch-sabotage-colombias-peace-agreement/