Visions of Peace Amidst a Human Rights Crisis: War on Drugs in Colombia and the Philippines

Abstract

Peace is one of most widely used yet highly contested concepts in contemporary politics. What constitutes peace? That broad analytic inquiry motivates this article, which focuses on the contentious discourses of peace within a society besieged by widespread trafficking and use of illegal drugs. Focusing on the illegal drug problem in Colombia and the Philippines, the central puzzle of this paper constitutes two fundamental questions: How do state leaders justify their respective “war on drugs”? How do they construct and discursively articulate ideals of peace in the context of the illegal drug problem? This paper compares the post-9/11 Colombian war on drugs (2002–2010) vis-à-vis the Philippine war on drugs under the Duterte administration (2016–2019), particularly in terms of how their presidential administrations articulate “peace” in the context of resolving the drug problem. The paper examines the varying discourses of peace, investigates how those local discourses relate to global discourses on peace and illegal drugs, and underscores how and under which conditions those peace discourses portray the material distributive conflicts in those societies. The core argument states that the Uribe and Duterte administrations primarily deployed the notion of peace as a justificatory discourse for increased state repression, intensified criminalization of the drug problem, and the reluctance of the state in embracing a public health approach to the proliferation of illegal drugs.

Children in Armed Conflict: A Human Rights Crisis in Somalia

“…We argue that, as children have seen their own lives disrupted and their country devastated by the different parties to the conflict, they have been brought to develop a sentiment of collective pride that propelled them to enlist, in one faction or the other, to put an end to the conflict. Perhaps the choice of becoming CAAFG came about on the grounds that Somali children have never experienced structural peace 164 during their lifetime. Even though they dream and want to eventually achieve a Somalia without armed hostilities, the only way familiar to them to fight for the freedom of their country, its people, and a nonviolent future, is through armed conflict itself.…”

Spatial Struggles and the Politics of Peace: The Aung San Statue as a Site for Post-War Conflict in Myanmar’s Kayah State

“…This means analytically approaching peace as an aspiration, rather than an empirically observable condition, as Bart Klem ( 2018) suggests. As expressed by Regilme (2020), "peace is a flexible discursive tool that political actors use to rally and to mobilise support for a particular policy strategy" (p. 3). Notions of peace are significant due to their strong moral and political appeal, which makes them powerful tools that can lend legitimacy to political actions and agendas.…”

“…We argue that the statue case provides an opportunity for exploring the clash between competing visions of peace that often give rise to new conflicts after war (Klem, 2018). Critical peace research scholarship argues that conflicts over peace are a key feature of the post-war period and demonstrates how notions of peace, due to their wide normative appeal, can be mobilised to legitimise political orders that reproduce inequality and repression (Gusic, 2020; Klem, 2018; Regilme, 2020; Shinko, 2008). Exploring how competing visions of peace are articulated and deployed advances theoretical and empirical knowledge about the complex and conflictual dynamics of post-war transitions.…”

Securitization in the Philippines’ Drug War

“…The "rescuing" mission does not provide them protection but exposed them as targets of abuse and violence. increasing crime rate (Regilme, 2020).…”