\u201cOne of the mandates of the peace accord was to build a national plan for rural health, and that national plan has to incorporate principles behind living well or living beautifully,\u201d says C\u00e9sar Abad\u00eda-Barrero, an associate professor of anthropology and human rights at UConn and director of undergraduate programs at UConn\u2019s Human Rights Institute. \u201cSo, you have these communities really making an effort to build this larger notion of what \u2018well-being\u2019 means, and how rights could be granted. But of course, the rural areas where all of this is happening are the areas where you have new waves of violence because of the government not fulfilling its promises.\u201d<\/p>\n
A medical anthropologist who has long studied health disparities in his native country, Abad\u00eda-Barrero received his degree in dentistry from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, but was already a professor at UConn when the Colombian peace agreement was signed in 2016. The accord was the culmination of a years-long peace process meant to end conflict between the government and the oldest guerilla in the continent, FARC-EP, a conflict that had raged for over five decades.<\/p>\n While the peace process brought the armed conflict to a close, Colombian unrest has continued, as the ceasefire has given rise to protest over extreme social inequities and political violence that persist in the country.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile the peace accord has really moved the country forward in terms of the former guerrilla members giving up their arms and reincorporating into civil society, reducing dramatically the number of people being killed out of the armed conflict,\u201d Abad\u00eda-Barrero says, \u201call these other pieces of the accord \u2013 which warranted new sets of conditions in society, a new social contract, and that people would live with dignity, security and jobs\u2013 have not been fulfilled by the government.\u201d<\/p>\n This year, the straw that broke the camel\u2019s back, Abad\u00eda-Barrero explains, was a proposed tax reform that would have increased taxes on individuals and small businesses while maintaining many tax exemptions for the wealthy \u2013 proposals that those opposed said would put yet another burden on middle-class and poor families in a country already known as one of the most unequal in the world<\/a>.<\/p>\n The tax reform sparked mass protests in Colombia in late April 2021, and while the proposals were withdrawn, the protests have continued as demonstrators from a wide variety of communities have seized upon the moment to speak out about the country\u2019s structural inequalities, lack of educational opportunities, land use policies, lack of accessible health care, and overwhelming poverty.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are two very important players in the new protests,\u201d says Abad\u00eda-Barrero. \u201cThe first is young people, who have been pushed out of educational opportunities \u2013 they are really destined to lives of precarity without being able to access education or job opportunities. And the other big player has been Indigenous communities.\u201d<\/p>\n He continues, \u201cIndigenous communities have always been an incredible force, but the difference now is that they have become a moral symbol of the struggle, and Indigenous agendas have really resonated with larger sectors of society in terms of their understanding of how we should relate with nature, for example, with Mother Earth, as they call it. And it has resonated importantly in times of climate change and food security crisis, and also through the legacies of racism, colonialism, and corruption.\u201d<\/p>\n The rise of protest has also meant a rise in incidents of police brutality, as police forces \u2013 some armed and trained by foreign actors, like the United States \u2013 have deployed tactics used to fight guerillas and paramilitary forces against civilian protestors. The non-governmental organization Temblores, which has been tracking reports of incidents during the Colombian protests, has reported more than 4,200 acts of violence allegedly committed by members of security forces as of June 16, 2021<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are cases of direct shootings from police to peaceful civilians, unarmed people,\u201d says Abad\u00eda-Barrero. \u201cThey have been targeting people. Cases of sexual violence have been reported. They have been going into neighborhoods and houses. There have been kidnappings and torture by military forces and the special police anti-riot force, which is the main actor behind the current human rights violations.\u201d<\/p>\n Democracy at a Crossroads<\/strong><\/p>\n The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) visited the country in early June<\/a> to investigate the allegations of human rights violations during the protests.<\/p>\n While daily protests have recently given way to more targeted protesting, assembly, and activism, the unrest in Colombia is ongoing, as the government refuses to negotiate or even engage in discussion with protesters and police violence and targeting of demonstrators continues.<\/p>\n \u201cColombian democracy is at a crossroads, on the one side you have this wonderful flourishing of democracy in people hands \u2013 everybody is debating key societal issues in local assemblies, creating popular activities to educate and support the peaceful protests, and innovating with art-based initiatives, which is very exciting,\u201d says Abad\u00eda-Barrero, who co-organized the recent webinar, \u201cColombian Democracy at a Crossroads,\u201d cosponsored by UConn\u2019s Dodd Impact and Memoria Viva<\/a>, that featured academics, activists, lawyers, and on-the-ground leaders of the Colombian protests.<\/p>\n \u201cBut on the other side,\u201d he says, \u201cyou have a government that is more and more authoritarian, and really pushing for more militarization, and not wanting to open up to real dialogue, conversations, negotiations. And so we are in a moment that it’s very difficult to know what’s going to happen. We are exactly at that crossroads.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s within this flourishing of democracy that Abad\u00eda-Barrero and his team are embarking on their examination of Buen Vivir<\/em> \u2013 a concept of well-being that was intrinsic to the peace accord and is guided by Indigenous principles.<\/p>\n \u201cCan we create new indicators of well-being using this Indigenous concept of Buen Vivir<\/em>, which is one of the big goals of the research?\u201d he asks. \u201cCan we think of human well-being differently from the traditional way we think about well-being as accumulating \u2013 accumulating stuff for ourselves \u2013 but rather think about harmony with others, harmony with nature, harmony with the community?\u201d<\/p>\n![\"C\u00e9sar](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/cesar-abadia-barrero-200x300.png\")