Colombia has been at war for over 50 years between the government and guerrilla groups. Guerrillas started as a group of rebels who were against the corrupted government. At the begging they were not much of threat because their political views were seen as exaggerated. Little by little insurgents started to gain power especially when they joined the drug cartels. On November 6, 1985, the impossible became possible. A small group of guerrillas attacked The Palace of Justice killing half of the Colombia´s Supreme Court judges. This marked the beginning of a new era in terrorism in Colombia. After this incident the country was not the same, people felt vulnerable and the government didn´t provide any security to their citizens. This touched my family too; insurgents took away our farm which was our only way of income. The farm was a very especial place for us not only …show more content…
Farmers are the primary target of guerrillas because they live in urban places far from the cities; they also own big lands, livestock and crops. My dad was constantly blackmailed by this group and when he didn´t have money to pay they would steal from him. Working and living under those conditions was very hard and impossible to make ends meet. At the end he had to give up his land not only to pay his debts with guerrillas but also to safe his family. Losing the farm was very hard but looking for a place that can accept 5 people is even harder. I knew that we were not the only ones in that position but it didn´t make us feel any better. Our lifestyle changed from one day to the other and it didn´t feel real. The only family we had left, aunts, uncles and grandparents they lived faraway and in different cities. Between me and my brothers we were between 7 and 10 years old. The guerrillas had taken everything from us. Our future was
Throughout the conflict, rebel militias would burn down villages leaving few, if any, civilians alive. The government military, while more benevolent, was not often in a position to oppose the rebels’ atrocities.
A drug cartel is a combination of drug manufacturing and drug transportation organizations under one person’s leadership. While there is numerous drug cartels around the world the Mexican cartels have arguably more power than most in regards to territory and membership. This power has allowed them to have main control in not only Mexico but in the United States as well making them a key player in the drug trade. In 2006, the Mexican government challenged multiple drug cartels such as the Sinaloa cartel, The Los Zetas, and the Gulf cartel, beginning the Mexican Drug War. This war has gone on for the past ten years and is still continuing today, causing the death of 10,000 people a year on average. The Mexican Drug War is having a negative impact
The Civil War in El Salvador lasted from 1980 to 1992, and the El SAlvadoran government was doing their best to minimize the threat of their opposition. Their main opposition, The Frente Farabundo Marti Para La Liberacion Nacional; otherwise known as the FMLN, was a guerrilla group that was organized to fight the corruption in the country. 175). One of the main goals of the organization was to create a new society that is not degrading its citizens and promotes equality. Throughout El Salvador’s history, one organization to the next would run the country through repressive actions and social injustice. One of the main reasons that the FMLN fought the acting government were due to these social restraints on the lower- class citizens in El Salvador.
A lack of food would seem to be the bottom line where families finally understood that there was nothing in the Great Plains except for hardship and death of crops along with livestock. In the Ken Burns documentary it states “convinced that the storms were a freak accident, that the rains would soon return, residents could not imagine that they had entered a battle that would last a decade.” This was the mind set of many farms during that time, that the storms was an accident and that it would not last, however, they were proved to be wrong and the issues
There was piece in the streets, no more bombs, less violence, kidnapping, etc… I want people outside of Colombia to know about what truly Colombia is about. We always take into the fact that when people associate Colombia they associate it with the negative actions of Pablo Escobar and how he smuggled Cocaine into the United States. When people associate Colombia, they do it with Pablo Escobar, when the actual reality is that Pablo Escobar was at war with
The Central American country of Guatemala fought a bloody civil war for over 36 years. The internal conflict began in November of 1960 and did not end until December of 1996. The key players that fought where the Guatemalan government and the ethnic Mayan indigenous people that where extremely leftist compared to the Guatemalan government. The indigenous persons where joined by other non-government forces known as the Ladino peasantry and other rural poor. This civil conflict would escalate to a bloody series of events that inevitably would see the Guatemalan government regime held responsible for acts of genocide and other human rights violations.
A decade later, in 1985, the Colombian Supreme Court was studying the constitutionality of Colombia’s extradition treaty with the United States. It was besieged by left-wing Colombian guerrillas from the 19th of April Movement (M-19) and half the court’s judges were murdered. Escobar was thought to have been responsible for this action, but this was never proven. The 1989 bombing of a Bogota security building was attributed to Escobar. A number of American intelligence reports claimed that Escobar‘s cartel was planning to kill President Bush Sr. with a bomb on his visit to Cartegena in 1989, which did not transpire.
About 4 years later I wake up and work on the farm. I knew how to work one because my mother taught me. Mother was not really worrying about father and Tim. I was reading the paper this morning and It said over five hundred thousand New Yorkers served for america, but about thirteen thousand died. I was hoping that Tim and father was ok.
The smallholders (farmers) were in “the midst of a nation brought to the verge of moral, political and material ruin” (Foner, 2013,p.642). They have been faced by numerous struggles politically as well as economically. To begin with, they were denied the right to direct vote and choose a representative to remedy their problems. Corruption has manifested through the congress and legislatures. The capitalists hav...
...to introduce other factors, such as fear, corruption of minds, and obedience to authority that also have played a large role in the success of growing rebel movements in different conflict areas, such as Sierra Leone and Uganda, etc., that have not been mentioned by the two authors. Conflicts as well as rebel groups differ in their construct, and although in most of them common sense of deprivation plays a role, and in their enlargement economic and social factors play a crucial role, it should also be recognized that fear and other negative aspects are used by the rebels to strengthen their movement.
Mexico has been fighting drug cartels and their violence since December of 2006, since then, the activity between these organizations and crimes have been on the rise. In Mexico, over 70,000 people have lost their lives in crimes and violence associated with the leading cartels of Mexico. These leading cartels include: The Beltran Leyva, Gulf Cartel, Juarez Cartel, La Familia Michoacana, Los Zetas and the Tijuana/Arellano Felix Cartel. One of the most important effects of these cartels is in the social life of the citizens. Most of the citizens are terrified of these cartels, to the point where streets seem vacant because the people are too scared to roam the streets. These cartels impose fear with acts such as that of September 15, 2008, when grenades were thrown into crowds in Morelia town square in an independence day celebration killing eight people. The soci...
McDermott, Jeremy. “US Targets Colombian Rebels as War against Terrorism Escalates.” Scottsman.com. February 10, 2002.
Sunday July 7th was going to be the last day of my journey to reunite with my mother. By then, it had been seven years since she left us to go work in Texas. In Honduras, we had owned a small convenience store a block from our home before we lost it- along with our peace- to gangs. You see, in the late 90s, the United States government had deported hundreds of ex-convicts to Honduras with the majority turned out to be gang members. Most of them, members of Mara Salvatrucha1 (MS13) and Barrio 182 and well those two gangs aren’t exactly the best of friends. By the early 2000s, those two and other local gangs had begun a bloody battle for the territory they all claimed. Along with that they extorted locals and made and distributed drugs to earn money.
By the year 2000, the AUC had grown to include more than 30,000 combatants and had notorious members of Los Pepes (a drug cartel) in senior positions. The AUC had a goal to monopolize drug trafficking and production, and waged a campaign of brutal violence against anyone who stood in their path to include indigenous persons, trade unionists, human rights advocates, religious leaders, and other civilians. The AUC and other paramilitaries are responsible for the vast majority of the 70,000 civilians that are dead and the millions of forced displacements that have occurred since the beginning of the
In 1991, the Somalian Civil War was started. Today, over 500,000 people have been killed by this continuing conflict in this African country. Many wonder about different things that happen in a civil war, such as why it happened, but now is the time that the world needs to become concerned with how this war affects the people that live in this country. In order to understand what these people are going through, first we must understand this conflict and why it has not stopped. There are many other ways that this civil war has affected the people of Somalia; the economy, healthcare, family life, and education are all affected by this continuing conflict.