https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/latino\/colombian-presidential-election-looms-fears-grow-about-fate-historic-peace-n872936<\/p>\n
When Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos announced a number of emergency decrees last month in a bid to salvage a
\nlandmark ceasefire agreement with leftist guerrillas, the fragility of the country\u2019s truce was laid bare.
\nThe measures, forced through Congress following a surge in drug trafficking-related violence and allegations of embezzlement of peace funds, came almost
\neighteen months after the Santos administration shook hands with leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in a deal to end over five
\ndecades of civil war.
\nFears for the future of the peace process are now set to escalate as Iv\u00e1n Duque, candidate for the conservative Democratic Center party, has pledged to make
\n\u201cstructural modifications\u201d to a deal that he and his supporters believe lets demobilized rebels off the hook for serious war crimes.<\/p>\n
Duque, a prot\u00e9g\u00e9 of former president \u00c1lvaro Uribe, a fierce critic of the peace process, leads with 38 percent of intended votes ahead of the first round of the
\nelection on May 27th, with his closest rival, the left wing firebrand Gustavo Petro, with 25 percent. Duque and Petro are favorites to face off in a second round
\nof voting on June 17th.
\nExperts warn that tampering with the agreement could end up reigniting hostilities.
\n\u201cIf the FARC read it in a certain way, we could see a lot of members, including mid-level commanders, going back to violence,\u201d said Kyle Johnson, senior
\nanalyst for Colombia at the International Crisis Group.
\nThe conflict in Colombia between government troops, Marxist guerrillas, right wing paramilitaries and drug cartels left more than 220,000 people dead and
\nmillions internally displaced.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/latino\/colombian-presidential-election-looms-fears-grow-about-fate-historic-peace-n872936 When Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos announced a number of emergency decrees last month in a bid to salvage a landmark ceasefire agreement with leftist guerrillas, the fragility of the country\u2019s truce was laid bare. The measures, forced through Congress following a surge in drug trafficking-related violence and allegations of embezzlement of peace funds, came almost eighteen months after… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1752"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1753,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1752\/revisions\/1753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}