Kolumbien

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.

The United Nations Security Council urged Colombia’s government on Tuesday to implement elements of the 2016 peace deal with former FARC rebels that have come to a virtual halt.Artikeltext

[…] Briefing the Council just days after its members returned from the South American country, Carlos Ruiz Massieu, the Head of the UN Verification Mission in Colombia, said that “as you heard repeatedly during the visit, the Council's steadfast and unified support has been critical to these achievements, and the Colombian people and institutions are deeply grateful to the Security Council.”

After meeting with state officials in Bogota on Friday, the 15 members of the Security Council traveled to southwest Colombia on Saturday to visit a FARC reintegration site in Caldono, Cauca.

The European Union will contribute more than $2.2 million (€2 million euro) to a prosecution unit that seeks to dismantle paramilitary groups, the EU’s special envoy to Colombia’s peace process said Tuesday. … The special investigation unit to dismantle paramilitary group was part of a 2016 peace deal with the FARC. Its mandate has become increasingly urgent following the homicides of hundreds of human rights defenders, community leaders and demobilized FARC since the peace process began.

Colombia’s Supreme Court ordered the capture of a former FARC rebel commander-turned lawmaker on Tuesday after he failed to appear for questioning about U.S. drug-trafficking charges, in a fresh blow to the country’s landmark peace deal.