Cynthia Arnson discusses the status of peace talks between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC), the largest guerrilla organization in the country.
[...]
“Many officials in the Obama administration … including Obama himself, have had very positive and supporting things to say about the peace process, and I think that at a political level there has been unequivocal support,” Cynthia J. Arnson, the director of the Latin American Programme at the Wilson Center, a think tank here, told IPS.
“But this round is going to focus on counter-narcotics and drugs, and the Santos government has been one of the governments at the forefront in the region calling for a rethinking of the way counter-narcotics policy is conceived of and implemented,” she said.
Arnson was referring to Santos’ openness to discussing alternatives with the FARC that would not be particularly popular with Washington, which has long funded aerial fumigation of coca crops – the widespread spraying of tens of thousands of coca hectares.
“The end of fumigation is one of the principal demands of the FARC, and the Santos government has shown greater openness to discussing alternatives to the practice,” she said.
[...]
Click here for the complete article.
The Wilson Center’s prestigious Latin America Program provides non-partisan expertise to a broad community of decision makers in the United States and Latin America on critical policy issues facing the Hemisphere. The Program provides insightful and actionable research for policymakers, private sector leaders, journalists, and public intellectuals in the United States and Latin America. To bridge the gap between scholarship and policy action, it fosters new inquiry, sponsors high-level public and private meetings among multiple stakeholders, and explores policy options to improve outcomes for citizens throughout the Americas. Drawing on the Wilson Center’s strength as the nation’s key non-partisan policy forum, the Program serves as a trusted source of analysis and a vital point of contact between the worlds of scholarship and action. Read more
