We just released a public education resource on the war in Colombia called "MADRE Talking Points: The Role of the US in Colombia's Conflict." It gives a broad overview of human rights issues in Colombia and how US policy has impacted people's lives in Colombia. An excerpt is below.
The Conflict in a Nutshell
- For over 40 years, Colombians have endured an armed conflict over their country’s highly concentrated sources of natural wealth, especially land.
- In the mid-1960s, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) arose as a peasant movement demanding land redistribution and social reform from the government.
- Since the 1990s, the conflict has been a three-way war: the FARC is battling the government; the government is fighting to eliminate the FARC; and brutal paramilitary groups function symbiotically with the government and Army to protect the interests of powerful elites.
- Instead of battling one another directly, Colombia’s armed groups usually attack civilians suspected of siding with their enemy. The main victims of the conflict are women and families, hundreds of thousands of whom have been assaulted, displaced from their homes or killed.
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