The Colombia Connection: Panel Discussion on TVO.org

 This article has also been posted on FPA's Latin America Blog

TVO.org out of Ontario, Canada presented a show this week concentrating on Colombia, security, human rights, trade and relations with the US and Canada. The panel consisted of 5 experts on Latin America and Colombia from FOCAL, The Latin America Working Group, The Inter-American Dialogue and a number of North American universities where issues and statistics were discussed in an open and concise manner.

Questions which arose in the discussion surrounded many key statistics. Some notable stats on the drastic drop in crime albeit with a slight drop in narcotics being sold were key issues in the discussion. Internal Refugees also resulted in some shocking discussions. Behind Sudan with nearly 6 million internally displaced people, Colombia has between 2.2 and 4.4 million internally displaced people, second worldwide above Iraq with 2.8 internally displaced people according to the program. Human rights abuses and the opinion of President Alvaro Uribe were also discussed, with the fight against FARC and ELN being compared with threats against native groups and labour leaders in Colombia, balancing rights for some against threats to others.

Colombia's foreign relations and Plan Colombia were discussed heavily. Plan Colombia, which sent $US1.3 billion to curb drug trafficking since 2000 was seen as a failure in many regards by experts on the panel. The result was the militarization of Colombia against internal threats which often were met by a cold peace with its neighbours while bringing Colombia closer to the US and its allies. Recently, trade agreements between Canada and Colombia and talks pushing the US to open a Free Trade Agreement with Colombia briefly brought Colombia's human rights record into debate among US politicians.

For video, show blogs and other info. on the Colombia Panel, please click on the link here.

Guests

Albert Berry is professor emeritus of Economics, and research director of the Programme on Latin America and the Caribbean at the Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto.

Carlo Dade is executive director of the Canadian Foundation for the Americas (FOCAL) where he also directs research programs in Diasporas and Remittances, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Canadian engagement in Haiti.

Lisa Haugaard has been executive director of the Latin America Working Group since June 2002. She has also served as senior associate at the LAWG, where she worked on Colombia and Central America policy.

Cristina Rojas is an associate professor at The Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University.

Michael Shifter is vice president for policy at the Inter-American Dialogue. He is also adjunct professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, where he teaches Latin American politics.