Currently viewing the tag: "Colombia"

I have been studying young men in youth gangs in Latin America and Caribbean, mainly in the poor neighborhoods of Medellín, Colombia, for the better part of a decade. I have sat down and talked to lots of young men in gangs, some whom had left gangs, and even their girlfriends and mothers. I have also spoken to young men who didn’t join gangs that came from the very same neighbourhoods and conditions of poverty. Is it possible to trace their trajectories to male adulthood and the processes of socialisation that led some into the gang whist not others? Yes, I think it is. Is it possible to draw up a neat list of causal factors to explain these processes? Well, that is a little more difficult, but it is something we should debate.

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El impacto del conflicto armado que vive Colombia desde hace más de 50 años, aun tiene capítulos de los cuales las y los colombianos y el mundo no conocemos. Sin embargo, el Informe ¡Basta Ya! Colombia: memorias de guerra y dignidad, realizado por el Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica[1] es un aporte valioso en la dirección correcta: narrar la verdad sobre las graves violaciones ocurridas en Colombia; develar la acción de todos los actores del conflicto, sus intereses y vínculos con las élites políticas y sociales en Colombia; rescatar la memoria de las víctimas y la persistencia de su sufrimiento; mostrar las políticas judiciales, gubernamentales y administrativas dirigidas a imponer justicia sobre el muro de impunidad existente; y recomendar medidas concretas para la superación de estos problemas.

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The account of armed conflict that has affected Colombia for more than 50 years still has chapters that are unknown to Colombians and the world. However, the report “Enough Already! Colombia: Memories of War and Dignity,” created by the National Center for Historical Memory [1], is a valuable step in the right direction and it serves a number of purposes: narrating the truth about the [most?] severe violations that have taken place; revealing the activities of all actors in the conflict, as well as their interests and links to national political and social elites; capturing the memory of the victims and the persistence of their suffering; highlighting judicial, administrative and governmental policies to begin to use judicial mechanism to create cracks in the wall of impunity; and recommending concrete measures to overcome these problems.

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It is hard to say even when armed conflict began in Colombia. Most descriptions of the fighting date it back to 1964, the year that the country’s two leftist guerrilla groups emerged. But the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and National Liberation Army (ELN) sprang up after only a brief lull following ten years […]

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