Christian Aid Blog

Colombia: an election which will determine the fate of peace By Thomas Mortensen, Colombia Country Manager, Christian Aid As Colombians head to the polls on the 27th May, the internationally recognised peace agreement signed with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in late 2016, hangs in the balance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGh4F_AlWxA&feature=youtu.be Edited highlights of a debate between Colombian presidential candidates Ivan Duque and Gustavo...

On 18 December, International Migrants Day, Christian Aid partners in Haiti reminded us of the urgent need to protect the rights of migrants and ‘stateless’ people in the Dominican Republic, who fear violence and mass deportation. Over the past two years, more than 220,000 Haitian migrants and their descendants returned to Haiti from the Dominican Republic. Of these: more than...

A week on from the general elections held in Honduras, on 27 November, there is still no definitive result. The main candidates are presidential incumbent Juan Orlando Hernández, referred to locally as JOH, of the right-wing National Party, versus Salvador Nasralla of the Opposition Alliance, which brings together sectors from the political left and centre ground. The political environment...

Without addressing crucial elements of the original agreement, the revised peace deal risks not living up to expectations in Colombia. It has been a year since the Colombian government and FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) rebel leader ‘Timochenko’ signed the agreement to end more than 50 years of conflict in Colombia. It was a historic moment. Since then, we...

As peace activists, we have become too accustomed to share bad news. However, on this occasion I’m glad to be able to say that, while there are still many challenges, we are on the right path towards building peace in Colombia. The oldest insurgent group in the Americas, FARC-EP (the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia- the People’s Army), no longer...

This is the final post in a series of four written for Christian Aid and LAB by distinguished journalists João Peres and Moriti Neto 4. Company policy: Divide and Rule MRN, or Mineração Rio do Norte, the bauxite mining company which dominates the extractive industry in Pará, improved the process of 'stakeholder mapping' in 2015, according to the company's financial report....

This is the third in a series of four blog-posts, written for Christian Aid and LAB by distinguished journalists João Peres and Moriti Neto 3. David vs Goliath one public document states that since 1995, the aluminium mining company MRN (Mineração Rio do Norte) has been transferring R$495,000 per year for the maintenance of the local unit of the Chico Mendes...

This is the second of a series of four blog-posts, written for Christian Aid and LAB by distinguished journalists João Peres and Moriti Neto 2. Conservation: double standards The lands sought by quilombolas and the mining company, Mineração Rio do Norte (MRN) belong to the federal government, which means they are 'public', but not entirely so. In 1979, president João Figueiredo,...

This is the first of a series of four blog-posts, written for Christian Aid and LAB by distinguished journalists João Peres and Moriti Neto 1. Land: no title, no respect The quilombolas, former slaves who live in the municipality of Oriximiná, in the state of Pará, in the North region of Brazil, first escaped from farms and hid behind wild waterfalls. In...

Prospéry Raymond, Christian Aid’s country manager for Haiti and the Dominican Republic, reflects on how Haiti is moving on from one disaster and preparing for another You could be forgiven for associating Haiti with disaster: when the country is mentioned, it is usually alongside words like ‘earthquake’, ‘hurricane’, ‘political turmoil’ and ‘cholera’. In October 2016, Hurricane Matthew’s 146mph winds swept across...