Colombia peace crisis ‘within national security interest’: White House

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Colombia Reports

Colombia peace crisis ‘within national security interest’: White House

written by Adriaan Alsema October 5, 2016

The United States said on Tuesday that it “is within the national security interest of the United States to end” Colombia’s 52-year war with FARC rebels after voters turned down a peace deal on Sunday.

The peace deal between the Colombian state and the country’s largest rebel group, the FARC, was surprisingly sunk in a referendum on Sunday, less than a week after the country’s President, Juan Manuel Santos, presented the deal to his US counterpart Barack Obama.

. . .

Uribe’s ongoing hindering and stalling of the peace process and his increasing criticism of the Obama administration has frustrated relations between the former president and Colombia’s most powerful ally in the hemisphere that supported Uribe while he was president.

US ambassador Kevin Whitaker was visibly displeased after Uribe said he had written US presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in which he claimed the deal would result in Colombia becoming “a second Venezuela.”

Read more: http://colombiareports.com/colombia-peace-crisis-within-national-security-interest-white-house/

[Judi Lynn]

1. Did Colombians actually reject the peace deal? Not if you look at the statistics.

Did Colombians actually reject the peace deal? Not if you look at the statistics.

By Michael Spagat and Neil Johnson
October 5 at 12:02 PM

The official line is that the “no” vote won the referendum in Colombia. The internationally lauded peace treaty with the FARC guerillas was rejected, and now nobody knows what the country’s fate will be.

But did “no” actually win?

The numbers divide four ways, rather than just two “no” and “yes” answers: 6,431,376 against the treaty, 6,377,482 in favour, 86,243 unmarked ballots and 170,946 nullified ballots.

The referendum process itself was without doubt transparent and fair, and Colombia can be truly proud of it. But there were nonetheless several inevitable sources of statistical error in the counting process that could have swamped the razor-thin victory margin of 53,894. This means that saying “no” definitively won is statistically incorrect.

First, the counting methods. Votes were recorded on pieces of paper and hand-counted in the evening by people who must have been exhausted after working the whole day at polling stations.

More:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/10/05/did-colombians-actually-reject-the-peace-deal-not-if-you-look-at-the-statistics/