Kolumbien

The implementation of a peace deal with former FARC guerrillas implies more than the policies currently outlined by the Colombian government, according to the United Nations. In his quarterly report to the Security Council, Secretary General Antonio Guterres highlighted advances made in the reintegration of former FARC guerrillas and development in historically violent areas.

Colombia’s President Ivan Duque is dismantling the peace process that sought to end armed conflict in his country, hundreds of human rights organizations reported Thursday. In a crushing report for the European Parliament, approximately 500 organizations said that the government is “stagnating” and “simulating” the implementation of the 2016 peace deal.

Colombia will increase protection for political candidates running in October's local and regional elections after the murders of seven aspirants, President Ivan Duque said on Monday. The killings have sparked renewed calls for more to be done to prevent political violence in the country, where hundreds of community leaders and human rights activists have also been murdered.

The European Union’s foreign minister told Colombia’s President Ivan Duque on Thursday he can forget about support for military intervention in Venezuela and ought to proceed with his country’s peace process. EU Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini’s visit couldn’t have come at a more delicate moment; Duque has been under immense pressure over his government’s failures to implement a peace deal with demobilized FARC guerrillas while stirring up military tensions with Venezuela.

Colombia’s President Ivan Duque rejected a proposal of United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres to ease military tensions with Venezuela through talks on Wednesday. Guterres proposed the talks after Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro kicked off two weeks of military exercises and 11 members of the OAS agreed to invoke a 1947 pact in which OAS members vowed to defend each other in the event of an attack.

Since the signing of the landmark 2016 deal, Colombia’s peace process has been beset by challenges, not least a proliferation of armed groups that has seen renewed conflict and soaring displacement. But last week, alarm ratcheted up a level as a group of ex-FARC guerrillas took to YouTube and called for a return to the armed struggle.

A mayoral candidate in southwestern Colombia was killed along with five other people in an attack likely perpetrated by dissidents from the demobilized FARC guerrilla group, the government said on Monday. The killing was the first of a candidate for October local and regional elections and came days after some prominent former members of the rebel group said they were rearming.

A former commander in the Farc rebel group in Colombia, Iván Márquez, has called on his followers to take up arms less than three years after the rebels signed a peace agreement with the government. Iván Márquez appeared in a video in military fatigues and carrying a gun. He announced that a "new phase of the armed struggle" was beginning. He was one of the main negotiators of the peace deal and his announcement is a heavy blow to the peace process.

Attacks against civilians in Colombia continued to increase in the first half of 2019 compared to the same period last year, according to the United Nations. In the latest report on the humanitarian situation in the South American country, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) registered a slight decrease in combat, mass displacement and restriction of movement, but an increase in attacks on civilians.