DEVELOPMENTS

The United States and Colombia have finalized a deal that will allow U.S. military access to seven Colombian bases for the next ten years.  Both parties have insisted that the agreement reinforces an existing partnership fighting regional narco-trafficking; however, very few of the terms have been released, garnering policy-makers’ suspicions and regional accusations. At stake may be U.S. aid standards founded on humanitarian and legal bases, as well as U.S. legitimacy in a pocket of the world growing increasingly resentful of historical U.S. hemispheric hegemony.  After the announcement of the deal’s conclusion, Latin American leaders and policy-makers officially condemned the move; and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez dramatically declared at a meeting of the Union of South American nations that “winds of warfare” were blowing across the continent.

The deal centers on the construction of an air hangar at Palanquero, Colombia’s central air force base, with $46 million set to fund the endeavor.

Developments

Emmerson, one of Sierra Leone’s most popular artists, recently launched a new album, titled “Yesterday Betteh Pass Tiday?” The politically charged album queries whether Sierra Leone has actually improved since its civil war ended eight years ago. Working with the international community, Sierra Leone has been hard at work since 2002 trying to remake its image in terms of good governance, human rights, and rule of law. These are areas wherein the citizens of Sierra Leone have been in longstanding conflict with the State, and when left unchecked, create a fertile breeding ground for revolutionary ideology and a wide-spread conviction that change is necessary. Discontent with a corrupt political system is ultimately what sparked the “self-reliant struggle” of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in 1991, yet change still proves elusive.

Sierra Leone’s justice sector is particularly rife with corruption, mismanagement, bureaucracy, and delays, leaving the most vulnerable members of society, such as women, even more disadvantaged when they find themselves in conflict with the law. In recent years, numerous post-conflict, transitional justice initiatives, such as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), the United Nations Integrated Peacebuilding Office in Sierra Leone (UNIPSIL), and the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission have highlighted the need to reform the judiciary in order to properly consolidate peace.