{"id":547,"date":"2012-10-22T10:16:30","date_gmt":"2012-10-22T10:16:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/colombia-peace-talks-need-for-greater-protection-for-civil-society-crowe\/"},"modified":"2012-10-22T10:16:30","modified_gmt":"2012-10-22T10:16:30","slug":"colombia-peace-talks-need-for-greater-protection-for-civil-society-crowe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/colombia-peace-talks-need-for-greater-protection-for-civil-society-crowe\/","title":{"rendered":"Colombia Peace Talks need for greater protection for civil society &#8211; Crowe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Colombia Peace Talks need for greater protection for civil society &#8211; Crowe<\/span><\/p>\n<p> Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s spokesperson for Foreign Affairs, Trade and Diaspora, Se\u00e1n<br \/> Crowe TD, has called on the Irish Government to support and encourage<br \/> the Colombian Government to provide greater protection for civil<br \/> society and trade union leaders.<\/p>\n<p> Crowe described Colombia as one of the most dangerous countries in the<br \/> world to be a civil society activist and said that the Peace talks<br \/> that have just begun between the FARC rebel group and the Colombian<br \/> government will increase the danger and security threat \u00a0against many<br \/> Civil and Trade Union leaders.<\/p>\n<p> Speaking after raising the issue with the Minister for Foreign Affairs<br \/> Eamon Gilmore in the D\u00e1il, Deputy Crowe said:<\/p>\n<p> \u201cColombia is at a crossroads at the moment. They are facing down a<br \/> road that could lead to a successful peace process \u00a0ending \u00a0nearly<br \/> five decade of conflict, or it could ireturn to conflict and more<br \/> violence.<\/p>\n<p> I hope Colombia takes the path \u00a0of dialogue and an inclusive peace \u00a0process.<\/p>\n<p> \u201cIn order for a peace process in Colombia to be successful in must<br \/> also include civil society.<br \/> .<br \/> \u201c Colombia is one of the most dangerous places to be a civil society activist.<br \/> Assassinations are common place and those under threat receive little<br \/> security protection from the authorities.<\/p>\n<p> &#8221; Many from civil society and union leaders who are at risk have seen<br \/> their fuel \u00a0expenses cut by 50%. This severely reduces their ability<br \/> to use their protective vechicles, and makes them vulnerable to<br \/> attacks.<\/p>\n<p> \u201cWe are also seeing the \u00a0amalgamation of civic society groups and<br \/> individuals in Colombia, called the Patriotic March. This is a new and<br \/> positive development for Colombia, that will \u00a0hopefully encourage more<br \/> civil participation and engagement. \u00a0The Colombian Government needs to<br \/> ensure that they are given the necessary security and space to<br \/> develop.and grow.<\/p>\n<p> No-one wants to see a return of the massacres of political activists<br \/> which occurred after previous peace talks in the late 1980s.<\/p>\n<p> \u201cI am calling for the Minister for Foreign Affairs Eamon Gilmore to<br \/> contact the Colombian Authorities and ask them to reverse their cuts<br \/> as they undermine the security of \u00a0activists who are now in more<br \/> danger from those who oppose these talks.\u201d <strong><br \/><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Colombia Peace Talks need for greater protection for civil society &#8211; Crowe Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s spokesperson for Foreign Affairs, Trade and Diaspora, Se\u00e1n Crowe TD, has called on the Irish Government to support and encourage the Colombian Government to provide greater protection for civil society and trade union leaders. Crowe described Colombia as one of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}