The policy of Defense of Colombia, a priority in a country that has just emerged from a war of more than half a century, is facing questions steady since Ivan Duke assumed the reins of Government in August of 2018. The management of her guardian, the minister Guillermo Botero, takes months whipped by a gale. This Tuesday, the Senate begins to debate the second motion of censure against the politician in the midst of a severe crisis by the wave of murders of indigenous people in the Cauca department. Although predictably the numbers of the Camera will not achieve his removal as occurred in the first attempt last June, the opposition seeks to push the president to force his resignation.
The parliamentary initiative, promoted by senator Roy Barreras, of the Partido de la U, coincides with the upsurge of violence in the Pacific region. In a week in the Cauca region have been killed in various attacks at least 12 people, mostly indigenous people, Nasa, and the response of the authorities has not managed to contain the bleeding. The president traveled this Monday, accompanied by Botero and the military leadership, to the capital of the department, Popayán, where he announced a “plan of social investment”. This project will build the dispatch of 2,500 soldiers of the Rapid Deployment Force number 4 to dismantle the criminal gangs that try to take control of the drug trafficking, the Government points to as responsible for these murders.
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The growing violence in several regions of Colombia, alert Red Cross More than a hundred exguerrilleros who signed the peace have been killed in Colombia from 2016
The management of this emergency in a region plagued for decades by guerrillas and paramilitaries increased the political tension and received objections also from the United Nations. “We urge the Government to respond to this dramatic situation in a comprehensive and concerted manner, and not only through the increase of the military presence,” said the office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet. The militarization has always been the natural outlet of the State in the midst of armed conflict. But Colombia signed almost three years ago a peace agreement with the now-defunct guerrilla of the FARC and the opposition, demand the search of other solutions.
Botero, who represents the sector of the Executive more closely linked to the former president Alvaro Uribe, is questioned also by the ghost of the return of false positives. So as to know the scandal of extrajudicial executions of civilians presented after as guerrillas fallen in combat. According to the Prosecution, the armed forces carried out at least 2.248 murders between 1998 and 2014.
The death of former FARC fighter Dimar Torres on the 22nd of April was described initially by the minister of Defence as an incident. A recent research of the magazine Semana showed that it was a murder planned by soldiers, but the Duke said that it did not seem a sufficient reason to request a waiver and left the case in the hands of justice.
The first motion of censure to the one that faced Him, and won with ease, he gave in June in the House of Representatives after learning of a directive, which was withdrawn, that they were refurbishing the door to a controversial policy of incentives within the Armed Forces and by a case of conflict of interest. However, the debate was interpreted by most as a discussion about the legitimacy of the work of the Army and that’s why the congressmen closed ranks with the minister. Now add to the other reviews. Not just their decisions in light of the killings in Cauca, but also to their response to the trickle of deaths of social leaders, exguerrilleros, and his controversial statements about social protest. A month ago, considered it “urgent” to present a project to regulate.
