June 19, 2006

OUR MOST UNDERRATED ALLY:

Colombia's displaced trickle home: Only Sudan has more internal refugees. But government aid and better security are helping Colombians reclaim their land (Danna Harman, 6/20/06, The Christian Science Monitor)

[T]he trickle of those desplazados who do return home and successfully rebuild their lives - here in Diamante, 290 miles northwest of Bogotá, and in small villages and towns elsewhere around the country - is a whiff of what the government hopes a more peaceful future will bring.

In the past three years, with President Alvaro Uribe's dedication to both strengthening the military and entering into peace negotiations with all sides to the conflict, security in parts of the country is improving. This, together with a vast government assistance program that has rebuilt 7,000 houses in 150 villages, has allowed half a million desplazados to go home, says Luis Alfonso Hoyos Aristizábal, director of Acción Social, the lead government agency responsible for the displaced. "Is the situation grave? Yes. Have we fixed it? No," he says. "But we have some results."

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 19, 2006 7:15 PM
Comments for this post are closed.