![]() “Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. Many former Farc members have since become politicians.Ībout a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”: Organized into a political force, they played a key role in shaping the deal and softening the stances of the two sides. ![]() During talks that cemented a 2016 pact with a larger guerrilla group known as Farc, tens of thousands of victims of that war were at the table. ![]() The guerrillas might end their violent tactics if the deal begins to fulfill the social and economic goals that inspired them to take up arms in the 1960s.Ĭolombia already has experience in bringing civilians into a negotiated peace agreement. “Let this be the people’s agreement,” said ELN chief negotiator Pablo Beltrán during the signing ceremony in Cuba.Īllowing civilians to monitor the cease-fire would set the stage for them to participate in the details of a final peace agreement, which Colombian President Gustavo Petro expects by 2025. Last Friday, the Colombian government and the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas signed procedural agreements that not only plan for a 180-day cease-fire but also open a way for civil society to track and verify the deal. One of the world’s oldest violent conflicts could be near an end because of a novel idea in peacemaking: Let civilians participate. I tried to place the baby carriage.Then I had to turn and run. I imagined Eisenstein instructing the dozens of extras, the Cossack soldiers, the young mother. I had to move fast.As I viewed the steps, I wondered about the history that had occurred there. And he had a friend.The next day, Sophia met us at the military checkpoint near her parents’ apartment inside the off-limits area. ![]() I bought an old yellowed postcard featuring the grand steps at a Sunday flea market instead.This trip I was determined things would be different.The steps are still off-limits, but Oleksandr Naselenko, who guides and supports Monitor reporters in Ukraine, had an idea: Residents living inside the restricted area couldn’t be prohibited from having visitors. For unexplained “security” reasons, the area near the site was closed. ![]() Last August, I’d tried, and failed, to reach the steps. But with an air raid siren wailing and a Ukrainian soldier ordering me back, I had less than 10 seconds to take it all in.My quest to see the steps had taken much longer than that.This was my second reporting trip to Odesa for the Monitor. In perhaps the most iconic moment, a mother pushing a baby carriage is shot, with her fallen body sending the carriage down the victim-strewn steps.Last week, I found myself at the top of the Potemkin steps. If the words “stairs” and “baby carriage” together leave you shuddering, you know what I’m talking about.In Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein’s 1925 silent film “Battleship Potemkin,” the 192 steps leading from the port are the setting for czarist Russia’s murderous repression of Odesans greeting the mutinous sailors of the film’s namesake ship. You don’t have to be a film connoisseur to know the Potemkin steps in the Black Sea port city of Odesa are the setting for one of cinema’s greatest scenes. ![]()
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