WOLA: Advocacy for Human Rights in the Americas
Event

White Flags and Green Leaves in Colombia

Wednesday, 19 October 2016
1666 Connecticut Ave NW, Suite 400

WOLA (The Washington Office on Latin America) invites you to

White Flags and Green Leaves in Colombia
Territory, Coca, and Conflict in Post-Plebiscite Cauca

With:

 Anthony Dest
PhD candidate at the University of Texas at Austin

Moderated by

Gimena Sánchez-Garzoli
Senior Associate for the Andes, WOLA

Wednesday, October 19, 2016
5:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.
WOLA
1666 Connecticut Ave NW, Suite 400
Washington, DC 20009

To RSVP, please complete the form to the right.

For more information, contact Sebastian Bernal at (202) 797-2171 or sbernal@wola.org. We hope you are able to join us.

Nearly 70 percent of people in Colombia’s southwestern province of Cauca voted in support of the peace accords with rebels in the October 2 plebiscite. The stakes for peace are especially high in Northern Cauca, a region heavily affected by the internal armed conflict, multinational investment, and narcotics trafficking. However, challenges such as the lack of public support and the potential for reactionary violence threaten the viability of establishing a meaningful peace process. Meanwhile, black and indigenous communities throughout Northern Cauca are organizing in order to ensure that their constitutionally-recognized rights are respected in the context of the accords. During this event, Anthony Dest will report on his work with black and indigenous social movements as they struggle for autonomy and attempt to ensure peace.

Anthony Dest is currently based in Colombia. He is a PhD candidate at the University of Texas at Austin and holds fellowships from the National Science Foundation, the Inter-American Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council. Dest founded the Colombia Land Rights Monitor (www.colombialand.org) and worked at WOLA between 2010 and 2012. He also serves on the Coordinating Committee of the Afro-Colombian Solidarity Network (ACSN).

Gimena Sanchez-Garzoli is the leading Colombia human rights advocate at WOLA. Ms. Sánchez is an expert on internally displaced persons, refugees, and human rights, and her work has shed light on the situation of Colombia’s more than five million internally displaced persons—as well as helped expose the links between Colombia’s government and drug-funded paramilitaries.

She has worked for greater recognition of Afro-Colombian and indigenous community rights, and advocated placing conditions on U.S. assistance to protect these rights. Ms. Sánchez is frequently called upon by universities and other institutions to speak on internally displaced persons and Colombian issues.