4 ms·

Colombian Voters Reject Peace Deal with Rebels

4 points by baristaGeek 10y ago

guessmyname 10y ago
I can't say these are good news, but as someone who voted "No" I am glad about the result. There are a couple of things that I didn't like about all this "Peace Agreement", the fact that the majority of poor / non-educated people couldn't understand +300 pages of the document was one of the main reasons for me to take a decision. Many mothers lost their children on this war either by direct contact or via narcotraffic. I know two women who lost their husband and son respectively when they were killed by FARC when they were passing by a small town in Casanare, and one family who lost their two male teenagers after FARC kidnapped them to force them to fight for them. There is more people in Colombia with tragic stories than people without, many of them decided to vote "No", not because they don't want peace but because the agreement between the government and FARC had more benefits for them than for the affected people. The head of FARC were going to get +2 years salary with bonuses without working. I am not going to pay my taxes knowing that part of it is going to become the wine served to these bastards. I am pretty sure they are going to keep their "clean" money in their international bank accounts without problems. Who is going to clean minefields? Who is going to repair children who lost their legs, arms, vision? What about people who were raped? What about all the terrorism? I and my family were very upset during the celebration days ago of the signature of the peace agreement between the government and FARC because they were assuming people were going to vote "Yes" just because of the word "peace". This is another one of the reasons of why I am glad the "No" won, because they shouldn't have celebrated before the results of the plebiscite, they were like telling people via a televised event "We don't care what your opinion is, we are going to have peace no matter the cost". NO!!! I and many other Colombians don't want "peace" knowing that these terrorists are not going to be punished for all the things they did. Knowing that the congress will have more criminals than there already is. I don't want to tell my children that we have congressmen who committed many of the worse war crimes. Do you know how many young geniuses have left the country because of this war? "Fuga de cerebros" was a term coined here to refer to the migration of smart people to other countries mostly because of the decay of the local job market for professionals, but war was and still is the main factor for that migration. Who wants to have a family and raise children in a country where the president and many powerful people non-affected by war decide to give privileges to the criminals instead of the victims? I am not even surprised by the number of votes for the "Yes" coming from Colombians living abroad, many of them have been living abroad too many years to understand what is the current situation. If you are one of them, how dare you? It is easy to tease the lion when it is behind bars. It is easy to think that "peace" is what Colombians want when you are living the good life in a 1st-world country. It is uncertain what is going to happen now, but I can tell you something, if the government doesn't removes those benefits directed to the head of FARC and their guerrilla I, my family, and many of my friends will vote "No" again.
- baristaGeek 10y ago
  The 297 pages of the agreement have a lot of juridical language that's really hard for non-eduacted people to understand. However; magazines, newspapers, tv commercials, YouTube channels, etc. made huge efforts to simplify and summarize the document for the average-joe. What's really interesting is that people in the major cities (where we're alien from war) voted to reject the agreement. In the marginal zones (where conflict occured/occurs) people voted to accept the agreement. The direct victims just want their towns to stop being bombed all the time, if FARC leaders get money or seats in the congress that is just a minor detail for them. If the government didn't care about people's opinion they would've just imposed the agreements and jump the plebiscite. I agree with you that the celebration shown in the news was political propaganda for the 'YES', but in no way that's passing over people's opinion. You don't want to tell your children that you have congressmen who commited many of the worse war crimes? In which country do you think we live in? This is already true, so adding FARC members to the congress in no way changes that. Also, FARC was only going to get 5 out of 102 seats in the senate and 5 out of 166 seats in the chamber of representatives. When M-19 and other rebel groups got their seats in the senate back in '91 they got 15 seats, and today we're not a socialist state. Also, compare this peace process with the ones in countries such as Nepal, Nigeria or Sudan. I mean, in Sierra Leon the rebels got the vicepresdiency, 4 ministries and 4 viceministries. You talk about brain drain in Colombia. The 'YES' won by a huge difference in the voting tables overseas. Following the logic that says that geniuses leave the country (which I believe it's true by the way), geniuses voted 'YES'. What's gonna happen next? Well, first of all we will see if FARC really has intentions of building peace or not. Second, an 'asamblea constituyente' will be built. This will not only prolong the peace process, but will ironically give more negotiating power to FARC.
baristaGeek 10y ago
This is the 'tropical' version of the Brexit: Old and uneducated people ruined the country for young people.

4 points by baristaGeek 10y ago

I can't say these are good news, but as someone who voted "No" I am glad about the result. There are a couple of things that I didn't like about all this "Peace Agreement", the fact that the majority of poor / non-educated people couldn't understand +300 pages of the document was one of the main reasons for me to take a decision. Many mothers lost their children on this war either by direct contact or via narcotraffic. I know two women who lost their husband and son respectively when they were killed by FARC when they were passing by a small town in Casanare, and one family who lost their two male teenagers after FARC kidnapped them to force them to fight for them. There is more people in Colombia with tragic stories than people without, many of them decided to vote "No", not because they don't want peace but because the agreement between the government and FARC had more benefits for them than for the affected people. The head of FARC were going to get +2 years salary with bonuses without working. I am not going to pay my taxes knowing that part of it is going to become the wine served to these bastards. I am pretty sure they are going to keep their "clean" money in their international bank accounts without problems. Who is going to clean minefields? Who is going to repair children who lost their legs, arms, vision? What about people who were raped? What about all the terrorism? I and my family were very upset during the celebration days ago of the signature of the peace agreement between the government and FARC because they were assuming people were going to vote "Yes" just because of the word "peace". This is another one of the reasons of why I am glad the "No" won, because they shouldn't have celebrated before the results of the plebiscite, they were like telling people via a televised event "We don't care what your opinion is, we are going to have peace no matter the cost". NO!!! I and many other Colombians don't want "peace" knowing that these terrorists are not going to be punished for all the things they did. Knowing that the congress will have more criminals than there already is. I don't want to tell my children that we have congressmen who committed many of the worse war crimes. Do you know how many young geniuses have left the country because of this war? "Fuga de cerebros" was a term coined here to refer to the migration of smart people to other countries mostly because of the decay of the local job market for professionals, but war was and still is the main factor for that migration. Who wants to have a family and raise children in a country where the president and many powerful people non-affected by war decide to give privileges to the criminals instead of the victims? I am not even surprised by the number of votes for the "Yes" coming from Colombians living abroad, many of them have been living abroad too many years to understand what is the current situation. If you are one of them, how dare you? It is easy to tease the lion when it is behind bars. It is easy to think that "peace" is what Colombians want when you are living the good life in a 1st-world country. It is uncertain what is going to happen now, but I can tell you something, if the government doesn't removes those benefits directed to the head of FARC and their guerrilla I, my family, and many of my friends will vote "No" again.

baristaGeek 10y ago
The 297 pages of the agreement have a lot of juridical language that's really hard for non-eduacted people to understand. However; magazines, newspapers, tv commercials, YouTube channels, etc. made huge efforts to simplify and summarize the document for the average-joe. What's really interesting is that people in the major cities (where we're alien from war) voted to reject the agreement. In the marginal zones (where conflict occured/occurs) people voted to accept the agreement. The direct victims just want their towns to stop being bombed all the time, if FARC leaders get money or seats in the congress that is just a minor detail for them. If the government didn't care about people's opinion they would've just imposed the agreements and jump the plebiscite. I agree with you that the celebration shown in the news was political propaganda for the 'YES', but in no way that's passing over people's opinion. You don't want to tell your children that you have congressmen who commited many of the worse war crimes? In which country do you think we live in? This is already true, so adding FARC members to the congress in no way changes that. Also, FARC was only going to get 5 out of 102 seats in the senate and 5 out of 166 seats in the chamber of representatives. When M-19 and other rebel groups got their seats in the senate back in '91 they got 15 seats, and today we're not a socialist state. Also, compare this peace process with the ones in countries such as Nepal, Nigeria or Sudan. I mean, in Sierra Leon the rebels got the vicepresdiency, 4 ministries and 4 viceministries. You talk about brain drain in Colombia. The 'YES' won by a huge difference in the voting tables overseas. Following the logic that says that geniuses leave the country (which I believe it's true by the way), geniuses voted 'YES'. What's gonna happen next? Well, first of all we will see if FARC really has intentions of building peace or not. Second, an 'asamblea constituyente' will be built. This will not only prolong the peace process, but will ironically give more negotiating power to FARC.

baristaGeek 10y ago

This is the 'tropical' version of the Brexit: Old and uneducated people ruined the country for young people.