Happy 20 TTs guys.
I’ll be trying something new with this one and changing the format so the top level post only contains an explanation of the thread, like we do with Wellness Wednesdays and Fun Fridays. The country-specific coverage will be placed in separate comments where people can respond to them directly, or start their own threads as separate comments. This is part of my hope that long term this will become more of a permanent thread that sustains beyond me, because I likely won’t be around long term. In the short term as well, I’ve been trying to produce a lot of the user content but there will be weeks where I'm too busy, and it would be nice to have a stickied thread where people who want to can still chat foreign policy without me.
So:
This is a weekly thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or IR history. I usually start off with coverage of some current events from a mix of countries I follow personally and countries I think the forum might be interested in. In the past I've noticed good results from covering countries that users here live in, and having them chime in with more comprehensive responses. In that spirit I'll probably try to offer more snippets of western news (but you'll still get a lot of the global south). I don't follow present day European politics all that much so you'll have to fill in the blanks for me.
But also, no need to use the prompts here, feel free to talk about completely unmentioned countries, or skip country coverage entirely and chat about ongoing dynamics like wars or trade deals. You can even skip the present day and talk about IR history, or just whatever you’re reading at the moment - consider it very free form and open to everyone.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Colombia
Colombia recently negotiated a 10 month, bilateral ceasefire with Estado Mayor Central, or EMC, the remaining active splinter of the revolutionary guerilla group FARC that finalized a peace deal with the government in 2016. During the ceasefire both parties will be in active negotiation to secure a similar, lasting peace deal. If you count the conflict with EMC as a continuation of the government’s war with FARC, then ending it would be an incredible milestone - the conflict “has run for almost six decades and killed almost half a million people.”
This will be building on Petro’s successful peace negotiations with ELN, the largest active rebel group, secured earlier this year. I’ve mentioned before that Petro’s "Total Peace" initiative seems to have mostly given the cartels breathing room to fight each other more and expand operations, so it’s worth noting that it seems to be making steady progress with Colombia’s other major security concern, the revolutionary guerilla groups (often these two concerns are interlinked).
It should be noted this will be the second such ceasefire, the first was broken due to EMC killing four indigenous teenagers who tried to escape forcible recruitment. Things could fall apart again if they can’t manage to avoid horrifying, national-headline stuff like that.
Speaking of indigenous rights, some 12,000 indigenous Colombians under a group called “Minga” have been protesting in the capital against violence against their communities:
These protests are common in Colombia but this is the first such one to happen under Petro’s Administration. As Colombia’s first-ever leftist President he received substantial support from indigenous voters and was given a stretch of time to prove his new approach, but people’s patience may be wearing down.
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