I want this new blog to come with a podcast. I started the blog because so much of what I do all day is explaining: explaining what we’ve been learning, explaining what concerns us, and explaining what a better policy, strategy, or approach would look like.

The blog forces me to be a better explainer in writing. A podcast can force me to be a better explainer in “talking.”

The podcast I’m launching here is just me sitting at a microphone trying to explain something. No interviews or “produced” documentary content—that’s what the WOLA Podcast is for. This is less ambitious, and I don’t plan to promote it beyond the occasional tweet to let people know an episode exists.

Still, I hope you find it useful, especially because there is so little out there. I listen to a lot of podcasts, but I can’t find much in English about Latin America. (Especially since Rick Rockwell got promoted to dean at Webster University, leaving Latin Pulse almost as dormant as the WOLA Podcast has been.)

Speaking of the WOLA Podcast, expect a new one next week. I’m raising the priority of podcasting at work too. If all goes well, I’ll be posting a WOLA Podcast every 2 weeks, alternating with a “me sitting at the microphone” podcast every 2 weeks. (I’m sure travel and work schedules will interfere with that regularity, but I’m putting it out there as a goal.)

In this inaugural episode, I voice some gnawing concerns about whether, and how, Colombia is going to implement its peace accords. This may be a recurring theme.

I refer to a few documents here:

  • The UN monitoring mission’s latest report.
  • The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights’ report on 2016 (English | Español).
  • WOLA’s statement about the transitional justice bill.
  • Colombia’s peace accord.
  • Addendum, 3:00PM: Also, I mention that Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute has found “something like 560” individual things that the parties to Colombia’s peace accords have committed to do. I found the actual number: it’s 571 “observable, measurable actions.” Yikes.

Also see:

  • The “Post-Conflict Colombia” tag on this blog.
  • Links to every news article I’ve found useful about this: go to my online news database, click on “Tags” in the left column, then choose “Colombia Post-Conflict.” As of this morning, there are 393 links.

(Here’s the mp3 file. And here’s the podcast feed.)