TALK TO JILL IF YOU WANT JOE TO QUIT

Dr Jill Biden’s ‘wide and deep’ role in the President’s fight to the end

The First Lady has become  IS STILL  a central figure in Joe Biden's campaign for re-election

First Lady Dr Jill Biden has been cited as one of the reasons her husband is still in the presidential race

 (Photo: Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo/Anadolu/ Getty)

By Sally Guyoncourt

July 12, 2024 

Dr Jill Biden has been a rock for her husband as his campaign for re-election wavers, publicly backing US President Joe Biden as he resists calls to step aside.

The First Lady has taken a high-profile role in the 81-year-old’s race for the White House, at his side for the Nato summit this week, on hand for support and on the road campaigning on his behalf.

She was the one apparently doing much to improve diplomatic relations with the French at the Nato conference in Washington this week, where she was pictured holding hands with French President Emmanuel Macron.

On the campaign trail on Monday, the 73-year-old told rallies in Florida, North Carolina and Georgia she was behind her spouse all the way.

“For all the talk out there about this race, Joe has made it clear that he’s all in,” she said. “That’s the decision he’s made.

“And just as he has always supported my career, I am all in too.”

After Biden’s poor performance in the debate with Donald Trump, she was heard to congratulate him on a “good job”. In comments described as “infantilising” by some observers, she added: “You answered every question. You knew all the facts.”

Speaking to Vogue afterwards, the President’s wife of 47 years said the family “will not let those 90 minutes define the four years he’s been President. We will continue to fight.”

First Lady Dr Jill Biden on the President’s re-election campaign: “Just as he has always supported my career, I am all in too” (Photo: Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters)

The President acknowledged the influence she has over him at his press conference on Thursday night, when he referred to his packed schedule, apparently attributing his debate performance to international travel the week before. He said: “I just have to pace myself a little more… I love my staff, but they add things all the time. I’m catching hell from my wife.”

But as concerns are raised about his physical and mental health and demands for him to step aside from within the Democratic Party grow louder, questions are being asked about whether Dr Biden’s influence is driving his unwavering bid to return to the White House or is simply a loyal wife prepared to back her husband in whatever decides.

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Professor John Owens, professor of American Government and Politics at the University of Westminster, said that “like any close family, Joe and Jill will influence one another greatly”.

He told i: “Given Joe’s institutional position and Jill’s wide and deep involvement in her husband’s re-election campaign, that will be important to whether or not he remains president and stays in the race. Beyond that, it’s speculation.

“Moreover, other close political allies – representing the party – are bound to exert influence, notably, [Senate Majority Leader Chuck] Schumer and [House Minority Leader Hakeem] Jeffries, and [House Speaker Emerita Nancy] Pelosi.”

On the question of how much influence Dr Biden, 73, has on her husband and to what effect, he said: “I guess we’ll find out sooner or later.”

But he warned that “in order for the existential threat of Trump to be met effectively, Biden needs to resign ASAP and be replaced by Harris”.

Veteran Democratic political strategist Hank Sheinkop has previously described the President’s wife, who still works as an English professor, as “Biden’s closest adviser”.

But Elizabeth Alexander, the First Lady’s communications director, said Dr Biden’s most important role is as the President’s spouse rather than political adviser.

She said: “As much as any husband and wife team make decisions together that impact their lives, they absolutely do, but as she’s said more times than I can count, politics is his lane.

“She’s his biggest supporter and champion, because she believes in him, and she fears for the future of our country if it goes the other way. Just as he’s always supported her career, she supports his.”

Dr Elspeth Van Veeren, associate professor in Global Politics at the University of Bristol, cautioned against seeing Dr Biden as the ultimate power behind the throne.

She told i: “We should exert some caution in terms of looking to Jill Biden as an explanation for Joe Biden’s choices until a historical record (interviews, memoirs, diaries) becomes available.

“Joe Biden is and has been a political actor of significance in US politics for decades and subject to all sorts of influences – past and present.

“Otherwise, we risk reproducing the idea of ‘the manipulative woman behind the throne’ trope (a Lady Macbeth figure or feminina suspectis) that is an extremely problematic, if recurrent feature, of presidential politics and elections.”

ZIONIST OPINION IS RACIST AND PARANOID

The cause of Palestine transnationalization

Israel and Zionism are the so-called bogeymen; the actual goal is the Jews.

A portrait of American writer James Baldwin with the statue of Shakespeare Albert Memorial, 1969. Credit: Allan Warren via Wikimedia Commons.

(July 12, 2024 / JNS)

Many people—too many—in fact, were surprised by the pro-Palestine alliance that we witnessed in the post-Oct. 7 period. What had been building up since the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and the overt participation of pro-Palestine activists in the riots, and to pinpoint it further, since Durban 2001, should not have come as a surprise. But Jews always seem to be surprised by events and trends. It was quite clear to Jewish students in the summer of 1967 after we read the infamous SNCC declaration and its linkage between world events and the black struggle in America.

Malcolm X was talking about the dangers of Zionism in the 1960s after a 1964 visit to Gaza. James Baldwin used the term “occupied territory,” albeit in relation to Harlem, N.Y., in 1966; and it has resonated and echoed. The Black Panther Party was training briefly with the Palestinian Liberation Organization in Algeria. In 1970, a group of prominent black activists took out an ad in The New York Times expressing solidarity with Palestinian liberation.

The ideological constellation of transnational cooperation moved on.

French philosopher Gilles Deleuze expressed his opinion in an interview published in a May 8-9, 1982 issue of Libération under the title Les Indiens de Palestine, that

“Something seems to have ripened on the Palestinian side. A new tone …as if they have attained a region of certainty and serenity, of ‘right,’ which bears witness to a new consciousness. A state which allows them to speak in a new way, neither aggressively nor defensively, but ‘equal to equal’ with everyone.”

Canada and the decline of Western civilizationJuly 10, 2024


That he was far from the truth concerning how exactly Arabs of former Palestine “speak” was par for the course, following up on the charge of “settler-colonialism” expressed in Paris by Maxime Rodinson in Jean-Paul Sartre’s Les Temps Modernes.

Deleuze then continued:

“the Palestinians are not in the situation of colonized peoples but of evacuees, of people driven out. … The history of Zionism and Israel, like that of America … [was]: how to make an empty space, how to throw out a people?”

Palestine, then, does not stand alone. Its transnational status was analyzed by Timothy Seidel, writing in 2016, of the possibilities of solidarity for the cause of Palestine. He explained that:

“the Palestinian liberation movement itself embodies a ‘transnational’ movement—and always has since the Nakba, as Palestinians are always both ‘scattered’ and ‘at home,’ both ‘inside’ and ‘outside.’”

Since October, calls for the elimination of Zionism and of “revolution, intifada” have been sounded by so many, using the “river to the sea” slogan to represent the physical disappearance of Israel. The success of Palestinianism’s transnational portrayal results in the Jewish people’s de-nationalism—the negating of the Jewish people’s national identity. Israel and Zionism are the so-called bogeymen, but the actual goal is the Jews.

Malcolm X, after his 1964 pilgrimage to Mecca. Credit: Herman Hiller, World Telegram staff photographer/Library of Congress. New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection via Wikimedia Commons.

As we have witnessed recently on the North American continent and in Europe, mostly Arab immigrants together with their followers have beaten up Jews sipping coffee, laid siege to Jews in synagogues and shot at Jewish schools. In league with Jewish anti-Zionists of both the Neturei Karta variety and the IfNotNow kind, they have targeted Jewish politicians as Jews, and AIPAC and the ADL as specifically Jewish institutions. Jews and Jewish, for them, have replaced Israel. In a convoluted but purposeful pattern, Palestine transnationalization has become the vehicle of the 21st century’s retransformed antisemitism, channeling black anti-Jewish feelings with the Marxist negation of Jewish nationalism and Islamist triumphalism.

It was, once again, Baldwin who, in the fall of 1979, published “Open Letter to the Born Again” with pro-Palestine thinking. While denying any antisemitism on his part, writing that “the despicable, utterly cowardly accusation that ‘the Jews killed Christ’” did not “reverberate” in him, although he did point out that “it is worth observing that non-Jewish Zionists are very frequently anti-Semitic.” And he did postulate that Israel was not created for “the salvation of the Jews” but for “the salvation of the Western interests.” In his view, “Palestinians have been paying for … Europe’s guilty Christian conscience” and then he added:

“The Jew, in America, is a white man … he is still doing the Christian’s dirty work, and black men know it.”

Six decades later, anyone with eyes and ears open and attentive knows that all this mash and mix of ideology, of a kind of thinking that creates “facts” rather than the facts formulating the paradigms and understandings, of transnationalism and intersectionality, are coming home to roost. “White privilege.” “Holocaust guilt.”

Are Jewish leaders aware? Are they cognizant of what is developing? Have they a strategy and plans prepared? Can they protect Jewish students? Can they hold back the modern-day version of the “barbarians at the gate”?

ZIONIST

YISRAEL MEDAD
Yisrael Medad is a researcher, analyst and opinion commentator on political, cultural and media issues.

WWIII

U.S. and South Korea Bolster Nuclear Deterrence Against North Korea

In a meeting at a NATO summit, U.S. President Joe Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol reaffirmed their commitment to deter North Korean aggression. They approved guidelines for an integrated system of deterrence, including U.S. nuclear assets on the Korean Peninsula. Yoon also pledged increased support for Ukraine.

U.S. President Joe Biden affirmed the country's commitment to deterring North Korean aggression during a meeting with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol at a NATO summit. This commitment includes the deployment of nuclear capabilities.

The leaders authorized a framework for an integrated extended deterrence system aimed at countering nuclear and military threats from North Korea. The guideline mandates deploying U.S. nuclear assets on and around the Korean Peninsula, a significant escalation in regional security measures.
In a joint statement, both presidents highlighted that any nuclear attack by North Korea would provoke a swift, overwhelming, and decisive response. This was followed by Yoon's doubling of South Korea's contribution to a NATO trust fund for Ukraine, signaling increased support without direct military aid

Devdiscourse News Desk | Updated: 12-07-2024 

 

Criminalizing coercive control may seem like a good idea, but could it further victimize women?

by Eden Hoffer and C. Nadine Wathen, The Conversation

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

As of June 2024, Bill C-332 is at its second reading in Canada's Senate, following its third reading in the House of Commons. Introduced by NDP MP Laurel Collins, Bill C-332 is an amendment to the Criminal Code that would criminalize coercive control in intimate relationships.

Coercive control involves a continuing yet often subtle and nuanced pattern of behavior by one partner through tactics of domination, isolation, manipulation, intimidation and fear. Many victims and survivors of coercive control have highlighted its insidious nature and how it's often invisible to those outside of the family.

Bill C-332 seeks to criminalize "using or attempting to use or threatening to use violence against certain persons, coercing or attempting to coerce the intimate partner to engage in sexual activity or engaging in other conduct that could reasonably be expected to believe that their safety, or the safety of a person known to them is threatened." The proposed legislation calls for a prison term of up to 10 years for anyone convicted of coercive control.

At first blush, the prospect of criminalizing coercive control seems positive. Through the creation and implementation of a uniform response, criminalization would indicate coercive control is being taken seriously by authorities. It signals to the public that coercive control is unacceptable and is being addressed by policymakers and the criminal justice system.

Mandatory charging

These arguments in favor of criminalization are familiar. They're similar to the arguments supporting the criminalization of intimate partner violence through mandatory charging policies that were implemented across Canada in the 1980s. These policies require police to lay charges in cases where there are reasonable grounds to believe that an assault has occurred at the scene of a domestic dispute.

Mandatory charging policies also had seemingly benevolent intentions aimed at acknowledging the severity of intimate partner violence and that it was no longer a private matter but, instead, a crime.

However, in some cases, mandatory charging policies have been harmful to the victim-survivors they were intended to protect, who are disproportionately women. Specifically, since the implementation of mandatory charging policies, there has been an increase in the number of victim-survivors who have been arrested—in tandem with their partner or solely. This criminalization primarily occurs as the result of women's defensive violence, which is often not recognized as defensive given the justice system's incident-based nature.

Additionally, mandatory charging policies have been exceptionally harmful for Black women, Indigenous women and migrant women. They often face additional barriers, including racism and discrimination from those working in the criminal justice system, fears of police, concerns regarding deportation or language barriers.

The criminalization of coercive control could face the same unanticipated outcomes.

Women who are victims or survivors of intimate partner violence have detailed how mandatory charging policies have been weaponized against them by their violent partners. Some women have described how their partners fabricated accounts of violence or lied to police in order to portray them as the aggressors, while other women have said their partners used their knowledge of how the justice system operates to convince investigators that she was the primary aggressor, resulting in criminal charges against her.

Systemic risk factors

There are multiple reasons why criminalizing coercive control could face the same challenges that have plagued mandatory charging policies for the past four decades. Here are three:

1. Patriarchal justice system. Like many other societal institutions and systems, our current criminal justice system is patriarchal in nature. This means that legislation and the judicial framework at large reflects patriarchal values and norms, upholding male dominance. As a result, women's needs and realities when they experience intimate partner violence will continue to be unconsidered, unacknowledged or distrusted.
2. Gender-neutral policies. Like mandatory charging policies, coercive control policies are gender-neutral, which obscures the ways it occurs within an often gendered pattern of violence. Gender neutrality also disregards the reality of intimate partner violence, where statistics indicate that women are disproportionately victims and suffer more severe consequences of violence.
3. Criminalized survivors. With mandatory charging policies, it became simple to blur the line between offenders and victims, and, given the tactics used by intimate partner violence perpetrators, they often found a way to turn this to their advantage. A significant concern regarding criminalizing coercive control is that women's protective behaviors—especially when it comes to their children—could be used against them by abusers, in concert with the patriarchal criminal justice system, to portray women as offenders. This can lead to "double victimization," resulting in serious impacts on women and their children across various systems, including criminal law, family law and child welfare. This is seen, for example, during custody hearings that delve into the discredited but still powerful and salient idea of "parental alienation."

The system is already failing women who have been affected by intimate partner violence, and as other gender-based violence experts have acknowledged, additional criminalization through criminalizing coercive control is not the solution.

In addressing intimate partner violence, scholars have suggested the implementation of trauma- and violence-informed care (TVIC), which acknowledges the ways that interpersonal violence, systemic violence and structural inequities intersect to impact an individual's life. TVIC would serve to address institutional and systemic violence, including policies like mandatory charging policies that perpetuate harm. TVIC also emphasizes the responsibilities of health and social service organizations so that people who require assistance can get the help that they need.

Coercive control is exceptionally difficult to identify, and as mandatory charging policies have shown, a solely criminal justice-based approach to intimate partner violence—without acknowledging the broader social context in which gender-based violence occurs—will likely continue to harm victim-survivors.

Provided by The Conversation 

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Report reveals billion-dollar toll of domestic violence in California

Most Americans want to decrease immigration into the U.S., says Gallup poll

Anti-immigration sentiment is up dramatically from last year as the border is overwhelmed

A group of people, including many from China, walk along the wall after crossing the border with Mexico to seek asylum, near Jacumba, Calif., Oct. 24, 2023. Ecuador on Tuesday, June 18, 2024, announced the suspension of an agreement with … more >


By Tom Howell Jr. - The Washington Times - Friday, July 12, 2024

A majority of Americans want to slash immigration to the U.S., according to a Gallup poll that finds a sharp increase in the sentiment.

The polling company said 55% of U.S. adults want to decrease immigration compared to 41% who felt this way a year ago.

Gallup said it is the first time a majority called for a decrease since 2005, and the largest share since 58% in 2001 — the year of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The record high was 65%, recorded in 1993 and 1995.

“The shifts in attitudes have come after monthly illegal border crossings reached record levels late last year. They have dropped significantly since then, but remain above most monthly pre-pandemic totals,” the pollsters said.

Immigration consistently ranks among the top issues cited in Gallup polls, and 42% in the survey called the situation at the southern U.S. border a crisis.

Former President Donald Trump is making border security a central plank of his presidential campaign. He’s called for large deportation operations and says President Biden fumbled the border by revoking policies that worked well under the Trump administration.

Mr. Biden says recent moves to crack down are slowing the flow across the border and blamed Congress for refusing to pass an overhaul of immigration laws.

People across all parties are looking for a tougher stance, according to Gallup. Compared to last year, there’s been a 15-point increase among Republicans (to 88%) wanting a decrease in immigration; an 11-point increase among independents (to 50%); and a 10-point increase among Democrats (to 28%).

Also, 53% of Americans favor the expansion or construction of walls along the U.S. border, the first time Gallup recorded a majority in favor of the idea. Border walls are a key part of Mr. Trump’s platform.

Gallup said 76% of Americans favor hiring new border patrol agents, and 63% want to allow the president or Homeland Security secretary to temporarily bar migrants from seeking asylum when the southern border is overwhelmed.

Seven in 10 Americans say immigrants who enter the country illegally should get a chance to become U.S. citizens if they meet certain requirements over a period, and support for that idea increases to 81% when it comes to those brought to the U.S. illegally as children.


• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.

Young people led surge for smaller parties but no Reform ‘youthquake’, says UK election survey

THE CONVERSATION
Published: July 12, 2024 

One of the defining features of contemporary electoral politics in Britain is the age divide. Young people are far more likely to support Labour, and older people to support the Conservatives. This divide is still apparent following the 2024 election – but it hides the complexity of how young people in particular choose to vote.

To the extent that there is a “youth vote” in Britain, it is characterised not by support for a single party, but by a particularly fierce rejection of the Conservatives – alongside greater enthusiasm than their elders for left-wing, socially liberal alternatives to Labour.

YouGov surveyed 2,182 adults of all ages between July 5 and 8 for my research team at the University of Exeter. The sample was selected to be representative of the British adult population.

The data from this survey – published here for the first time – gives a snapshot of how people of different ages say they cast their votes. Five per cent of our respondents under 30 didn’t tell us how they voted so we don’t know how their votes might have changed the overall picture. More research in the coming months may give a fuller account.

As the graph below shows, it’s only among the over-65s that the Conservatives won more support than Labour (by around 26 percentage points). They trailed Labour by around 8 points among the 51-64 age group, 26 points among 30- to 50-year-olds, and 35 points among the under-30s. Almost incredibly for Britain’s oldest and most successful political party, the Conservatives won barely 7% of the vote of under-30s in the survey.

Parties voted for by age group:

Bar chart showing vote choice by age group. Source: YouGov for University of Exeter, 5-7 July 2024., CC BY-NC-ND

Another key characteristic of the 2024 election is the record-low combined vote share for Labour and the Conservatives, and concurrent record-high vote share for smaller parties. This was not a blip. Voters have been steadily shifting away from the two major parties for years. But in 2024, the extent to which they did so was unprecedented: overall, the combined Labour/Tory vote share was just 57%.

The rejection of the major parties is most profound among young voters. Their support has become fragmented to such an extent that it is not really accurate to speak of a singular “youth vote”. Less than half (49%) of under-30s surveyed voted for Labour or the Conservatives. This compares to 54% of 30- to 50-year-olds, 55% of 51- to 64-year-olds, and 60% of over-65s.

The combined vote share for smaller parties among the under-30s was greater – at 46% – than the 42% who voted for the Labour party. The most successful challengers to the major parties for the youth vote were the Greens and Liberal Democrats, each of whom were backed by 15% of under-30s in the survey.

“Others” – including the Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymru and independents – won a combined 10% of votes from young respondents aged under 30. But the young people surveyed were not simply casting around for any alternative to the major parties. Just 6% of under-30s in the survey said they backed Reform UK (compared with 17% among the over-50s).

No Reform youthquake

In the closing days of the campaign, there was some suspicion that Reform might achieve a “mini youthquake” in this election or the next. A JLPartners poll found that Reform appealed strongly to soon-to-be-enfranchised 16- and 17-year-old voters, and mock school elections apparently saw Reform winning a great deal of support among schoolchildren across the country.

Our data suggests this did not materialise in 2024. Reform has had some success in appealing to young voters: among under-30s from poorer households, for example, 13% said they supported Reform, compared with 4% for those from wealthier households.

However, similar proportions of under-30s from poorer households also said they voted for the Liberal Democrats (11%) and the Greens (14%). While voters in older age groups who were fed up of Labour and the Conservatives were more likely to switch to Reform and may do so again in future, among the under-30s such voters appeared more likely to switch to the Liberal Democrats, Greens and nationalist parties in Scotland and Wales.
Turnout

Turnout is a crucial issue when considering how young people vote. They have always been less likely to vote than their elders in any particular election. This owes primarily to lower levels of political interest, as well as circumstances associated with early adulthood such as being financially precarious and being less settled in one location. This was true in 2024 as well.

The graph below shows self-reported turnout by age group. The figures are substantially higher than the true turnout numbers, reflecting the long-established tendency of people to exaggerate their voting behaviour in surveys, but they clearly illustrate the age divide: under-30s were the group most likely to say they hadn’t voted.

Turnout by age group:

YouGov for University of Exeter, 5-7 July 2024., CC BY-NC-ND

The graph shows not only was the turnout of under-30s lower than that of older age groups, but that of under-30s from poorer households was particularly low. Young people from poorer backgrounds are less likely to vote than their predecessors were 30 years ago, and so are under-represented in elections to an even greater extent today.

Read more: Votes at 16 and decent citizenship education could create a politically aware generation

People who vote during early adulthood establish habits that make them likely to vote for the rest of their lives. Those who don’t form such habits by their late 20s are likely to remain serial abstainers.

Younger generations are becoming increasingly unlikely to vote in their first election, leading a greater proportion of them to develop lasting habits of non-voting.

It is this tendency that lies behind one of the major democratic challenges facing the UK: rising levels of disengagement with politics and with voting, as younger people age but continue their youthful pattern of avoiding the ballot box.

Author   

Stuart Fox
Lecturer in British Politics, University of Exeter
Disclosure statement
Stuart Fox received funding from the British Academy Small Research Grant for a project studying public opinion and young people's political engagement. That grant funded the survey on which this article is based.

 

Scientists discovered origins of plague epidemics that destroyed population of Europe

12 July 2024 

By Alimat Aliyeva

Danish scientists from the University of Copenhagen named the reason for the large-scale extinction of the population of Northern Europe about 5 thousand years ago. According to experts, agricultural communities of the Stone Age became victims of the plague epidemic, Azernews reports.

The origins of the catastrophe, known as the Neolithic collapse, have long been the subject of debate in the scientific community.

In the new study, the team analyzed the DNA of human teeth and bones found throughout Scandinavia. The researchers analyzed the remains of 108 people. Of these, 17% were infected with the plague at the time of their death.

Scientists have compiled a family tree of 38 people across six generations, spanning about 120 years. Genomic data showed that this community had experienced three separate waves of an early form of plague.
Experts found out that the last strain of the plague bacterium turned out to be more contagious than the previous ones and was transmitted from person to person.

A later form of the same pathogen caused the Justinian Plague in the 6th century AD and the Black Plague in the 14th century, which devastated Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, claiming tens of millions of lives.

Since the strains circulating during the Neolithic decline were much earlier versions, the plague could cause different symptoms than those during epidemics millennia later.

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Colombia’s Historic Drop in Deforestation Could Be Linked to Criminal Groups

by Juan Diego Cárdenas12 Jul 2024

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Deforestation in Colombia has fallen to its lowest levels in 23 years, suggesting the government’s fight against environmental crime has yielded results. But criminal groups could also play a role in the decrease in destruction.

Colombia’s Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development Susana Muhammad announced on July 8 a 36% reduction in deforestation in 2023 compared to the previous year.  The number of deforested hectares fell from 123,517 hectares in 2022 to 79,256 hectares last year, according to a government report.

SEE ALSO: GameChangers 2023: A Win Against Deforestation in the Amazon, For Now

The study was conducted with the Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies (Instituto de Hidrología, Meteorología y Estudios Ambientales – IDEAM), which is charged with producing technical and scientific knowledge about natural resources in Colombia. The departments most affected by this phenomenon were Caquetá (12,647 hectares), Guaviare (11,467 hectares), Putumayo (10,852 hectares), Meta (10,310 hectares) and Antioquia (8,139 hectares), all located in Colombia’s Amazon region, with the exception of Antioquia. 

The main drivers of deforestation were land grabbing, extensive cattle ranching, illegal roads, illicit crops, illegal mining and logging, and the expansion of agricultural lands beyond their legal limits.

The figures are the lowest in 23 years, making it an “iconic year in the fight against deforestation,” Muhammad said.

“We are meeting and exceeding our targets. We have identified that there is a direct association between peace and deforestation. Peaceful conditions generate reduction,” she added.

InSight Crime Analysis

Although the 2023 figure reverses several years of high levels of deforestation, it is important to note the role criminal organizations play in the fluctuation of this criminal activity.

Just a year after the signing of a peace agreement in 2016 between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – FARC) and the government, Colombia experienced one of the highest deforestation rates in the last 10 years. In 2017, the country reached its highest peak in a decade, with 219,552 hectares deforested as a result of the FARC’s departure from woodlands it had imposed strict control over.

Although deforestation dropped between 2018 and 2019 (to 197,159 hectares and 158,894 hectares respectively), it rose again between 2020 and 2021 as groups that rejected the peace agreement, known as ex-FARC mafia, got more involved in criminal economies such as illegal logging and mining. That was on top of an end to the restrictions on deforestation that their predecessors the FARC had imposed. 

SEE ALSO: Five Security Challenges for Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s Next President

In 2022, the trend changed again. Prior to Gustavo Petro’s victory in the presidential elections, the Central General Staff (Estado Mayor Central – EMC), a confederation of ex-FARC dissident structures with a significant presence in the Amazon, adopted a policy of reducing logging in its areas of control, which reportedly had a positive effect on deforestation.

This rule was maintained through 2023, and it is possible that the EMC used it as a bargaining chip during negotiations with the Petro government. 

However, the emergence of divisions within the group, paired with the withdrawal of several dissident factions from peace negotiations with the government, puts the issue of armed groups and their relationship with the forest back on the table, especially those with control in the Amazon region and that could embrace illegal logging and other destructive criminal markets again. 

In that sense, the community-based approach that the government has prioritized with respect to the fight against environmental crime might not be enough to stop the armed groups from embracing deforestation as a business opportunity. 

“It’s impossible to enter some of the areas where deforestation is concentrated. So it’s very difficult for the government to implement conservation plans there,” said Juan Carlos Sandino, a conservation expert.

“Deforestation reduction programs and payment for environmental services are great, but they don’t attack the big loggers. The timber business has never stopped and never will because it’s so lucrative.”