{"id":1909,"date":"2018-09-20T13:36:04","date_gmt":"2018-09-20T13:36:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/?p=1909"},"modified":"2018-09-20T13:39:32","modified_gmt":"2018-09-20T13:39:32","slug":"colombia-struck-a-peace-deal-with-guerrillas-but-many-return-to-arms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/2018\/09\/20\/colombia-struck-a-peace-deal-with-guerrillas-but-many-return-to-arms\/","title":{"rendered":"Colombia Struck a Peace Deal With Guerrillas, but Many Return to Arms: BBC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Under a torn Colombian flag on a windy hilltop, a ragtag guerrilla militia gathers. One fighter is missing an arm. Another, a leg. A commander who can barely read but goes by the alias \u201cthe Poet\u201d tells of a recent firefight with a paramilitary squad in the hills nearby.<\/span><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It might be just another scene from Colombia\u2019s decades of guerrilla warfare were it not for a puzzling fact: The group the fighters say they belong to, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, laid down its arms after it signed a peace deal meant to end the longest war in the Americas.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The peace accords signed in 2016 by then-President Juan Manuel Santos and the rebels were meant to bring an end to five decades of fighting that left at least 220,000 dead and nearly 6 million people displaced from their homes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Behind the agreement, though, loomed a fear: That many of the thousands of fighters granted amnesty under the pact might sour on civilian life and pick up arms again.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The government, which had promised to sweep into rebel lands behind the FARC, bringing health and education services and potable water, is barely seen in much of the country. President Iv\u00e1n Duque of Colombia campaigned against the accords and now says he will revise them. One of the FARC peace negotiators was arrested for trafficking 10 tons of cocaine this year \u2014 while preparing to take a senate seat.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then there are groups like the one The Times visited, which present a particularly grave threat to the accords. There can be no peace in Colombia if the rebels rearm.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Under a torn Colombian flag on a windy hilltop, a ragtag guerrilla militia gathers. One fighter is missing an arm. Another, a leg. A commander who can barely read but goes by the alias \u201cthe Poet\u201d tells of a recent firefight with a paramilitary squad in the hills nearby.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":97,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1909","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\/97"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1909"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1909\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1918,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1909\/revisions\/1918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}