| Is This the End for FARC?, London |
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Thursday, 10 July 2008, 7:30pm - 9:30pm |
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Media Talk: Is This the End for FARC?
Thu 10th July, 7.30pm Price: £10.00
Malcolm Deas (Oxford University)
Andy Higginbottom (Colombia Solidarity Campaign)
Hernando Alvarez (Colombian journalist and BBC Latin American Service)
Alice O'Keefe (New Statesman)
Isabel Hilton (journalist)
Location: 13 Norfolk Place, London W2 1QJ
This event will be webcast live - you can view it for free via the
link on our homepage - www.frontlineclub.com
http://www.frontlineclub.com/club_events.php?event=2468
Will the release of Ingrid Bettancourt - arguably the world's most
famous hostage, and FARC's main bargaining chip - along with 14 other
hostages - mean the end of FARC and the beginning of serious peace
negotiations with the Colombian government?
In what is perhaps the mortal blow in a series of declining fortunes
for the 44 year old insurgency movement - the release of the hostages
has left the already weakened FARC with no negotiating power and has
vindicated President Uribe in his hard line policy against the
movement.
FARC lost its leader - Manuel Marulanda - earlier this year, as well
as suffering the assassination of two senior commanders and a
withdrawal of support from former proponent Hugo Chavez. Facing
constant combat, the insurgency is losing members in record numbers
and popular support is dissipating.
Is this now the beginning of the end for FARC? Will we see the return
to the negotiating table and the commencement of mass demobilisation?
Malcolm Deas is Director of Graduate Studies at the Latin American
Centre, University Lecturer in the politics and government of Latin
America, Fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford. His Colombian articles
have been published under the title Del poder y la gramática (1993)
and his recent works are an essay on Colombian violence in David
Apter's collection, The Legitimisation of Violence, London, Macmillan,
1997, and Vida y opiniones de Mr William Wills, 2 vols, Bogota, Banco
de la República, 1996.
Andy Higginbottom is Secretary of the Colombian Solidarity Campaign
and Senior Lecturer in Politics and Human Rights at Kingston
University. Andy is editor of Frontline Latin America. His essay
Globalization, Violence and the Return of the Enclave to Colombia is
in Development, 2005 and his Killer Coke is a chapter in Dinan and
Miller (eds) 2007 Thinker, Faker, Spinner, Spy London, Pluto.
Hernando Alvarez was born in Bogota, Colombia. In 1996 he moved to
London. He wrote for various magazines and newspapers while doing a
Masters in History at the London School of Economics. In 2000 he
joined the Latin American Section of the BBC World Service, where he
is now the current affairs editor.
Alice O'Keeffe is arts editor at the New Statesman magazine and
regularly reports on Latin America. She worked for the British Council
in Colombia for two years 2001-2003, and has subsequently returned
many times as a journalist. She reported from Bogota during the recent
diplomatic crisis between Colombia and Venezuela, where she conducted
extensive interviews with former combatants from the FARC and other
armed groups. She has previously written reports from Brazil,
Venezuela and Cuba.
Isabel Hilton has covered a wide range of Home and Foreign Affairs.
She covered the Falklands War from Buenos Aires, and subsequently
reported extensively from Central and South America. In 1986 Isabel
Hilton joined The Independent newspaper, pre-launch, as Latin America
Editor.
Hilton joined The Guardian in 1997, where she has contributed a
regular column. She contributes extensively to BBC World Service and
BBC Television Current Affairs, particularly in Foreign Affairs.
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