Last week we tweeted an article from NGO CERAC with a graph showing that, since the last truce, most combats between the guerrilla and the Armed Forces were initiated by the Armed Forces. This data was seized upon by the Farc as evidence to support their view that the truce should be bilateral, a position rapidly rejected, at least by the Defense Minister.
The Farc warned that military operations are putting its cease fire at risk, and look bent on keeping the progress in Havana as slow as possible. It also said that a popular referendum on the agreement does not represent the organization.
President Juan Manuel Santos says that a bilateral cease fire could be ready by January 1, 2016, but urged the Farc to accelerate the negotiations in order to do so. Meanwhile the ELN orchestrated a deadly attack which left at least 11 soldiers and one police officer dead.
The Farc claimed that despite a preliminary agreement, its unilateral cease fire and a halt of bombings from the military, the army’s constant operations against it have moved it to suspend its political and cultural courses.
An agreement to search for those missing due to the conflict and a wide statement of support (with conditions) from the business community, plus more optimism from the general public in a recent poll made this last week a positive one for the government’s peace efforts. But doubts on transitional justice remain.
A regional military publication profiled the Colombian armed forces troops assigned the task of protecting the nation’s pipelines from guerrilla attacks, and detailed some of the collaboration with other government agencies on the environmental cost.
The president of the National Hydrocarbons Agency (ANH) Mauricio de la Mora reiterated the entity’s quest to create a flexible regulatory scheme for companies to complete their obligations and contracts, but said that this does not mean that the regulator will lose its teeth, and will root out those companies that do not meet their obligations.
After an exchange last week between government and Farc negotiators on the supposed reaches of transitional justice, the two have agreed to form a special commission to work out the differences.
As a companion to yesterday’s graph on CAPEX, we look at the trend in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) based on Central Bank data through 2Q15. Preliminary September 2015 figures say FDI fell 19% year-over-year led by the petroleum and mining sectors falling 54%.
The legislative bill containing the constitutional reforms to facilitate the Havana agreements on peace passed their first debate in one session, but its main critics in the Centro Democrático party abstained, leading to confrontations with supporters of the bill.
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