Hes the Nobel Peace Prize winner whos also accused of covering up war crimes ill challenge former colombian president Juan Manuel Santos and well also discuss his fellow nobel peace laureate aung sang suu kyi whos been defending her government against accusations of genocide this week at the hague. One Manuel Santos former president of colombia thank you for joining me on up front your country is the latest in latin america to be the scene of antigovernment protests were now 3 weeks into these demonstrations where hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets the president even duquesne has declared the 1st curfew in bogota in nearly 4 decades hes put the military on the streets at least one protester has been killed Dozens Injured given you recently suggested that the chilean government has overreacted to the protests there do you think your countrys government you think colombia has overreacted as well. Yes declaring a curfew over reacted. Pretty the military on the street. In my opinion. Reaction when people are going out to protest in colombia theyre protesting mainly because of corruption issues because of income inequality those are not overnight developments are they you left the presidency just 16 months ago after 8 years in power a period in which colombia remained one of the most corrupt and unequal countries in the world so a lot of this discontent is all new is it not. Known we made tremendous advance. Fight against corruption. Measures that we. Took. Day after day month after month year after year you can see that we advanced tremendously in the fight against corruption i even presumably cochaired the world some of the 1st world summit that was held in london against corruption and all the multilateral at the end reduced. Our knowledge tried to we have had a good you say that. But traveller and see international to recognise Transparency International says your country fellas there are plenty of spots from 78 to 99 on your watch between 2012820 ranks in the Transparency InternationalCorruption League about there is a very very clear explanation about that because we took measures like for example every single contract that the government signed must be made public and so we were able to take corruption out of the secrecy it had been for many many decades and people started to see the corruption that was there for a long time so the perception yes the perception of corruption increased but precisely because of the measures that we took of course globally you are best known for securing the Peace Agreement with the marxist fock rebels that ended 50 years of civil war in your country in which you were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 3 years ago but today the current colombian president even decay is dismantling parts of that agreement while a prominent thought commander who helped negotiate it with you even marquez now says its time for a new struggle so is your deal dead and did you get the peace prize too soon. You know its not dead on the contrary as the commander of the farkas said 95 percent or more of the people who be mobilized are with the agreement there comply with the agreement the agreement. Was very successful after less than a year what he called the d. D. R. Demobilization disarmament and reintegration had already been finished. The challenge here is that dissent agreement has been the most comprehensive and the most ambitious agreement ever negotiated anywhere in any country and we are struggling and doing the best to fulfill what we agreed to go dont worry when you hear even marc has a fox say in august in a video that its time for a new phase of the Armed Struggle that of them are you. You know it doesnt worry me because he has no people that are behind him he went to for reasons that Everybody Knows he was accused of beating of committing crimes after the signature of the rayment and it doesnt worry me no and since the far left that territories in the south under the terms of your deal hundreds of indigenous and left activists and civilians have been killed by Paramilitary Forces by other rebel groups thats not what peace is supposed to look like is that hundreds of people dead nobody promised that colombia would be a paradise after the signature that peace there is always in every Peace Process it backlash and we are suffering that backlash the Drug Trafficking which is not colombias fault the fault of the world the demand in the United States in europe the Drug Trafficking continues and the drug traffickers were very worried precisely because one of the points of the agreement was to stimulate the voluntary situation of coca plantations for legal plantation and they would run out of raw material and so they have been killing some of the promoters of these. Running terry substitution also we have been we were very aggressive in giving the land back to the peasants that was taken away because of the violence and maybe some of the landowners apparent terese and drug traffickers who took illegally this nad were very worried that the process will. Eventually get to them and take their land away so there are various sources of these murders and the government has a big responsibility here on stopping them because any government must stop any kind of assassination with the benefit of hindsight. Do you regret the way you tried to formalize the peace deal with the fog 1st pushing it in a referendum that you narrowly lost in 2016 and then pushing it through the Legislature Without public approval in a referendum some would say you open the door to the current colombian president s anti peace deal platform by doing it in that way i followed our question to should and our Constitutional Court said if you lose the referendum dont go back to the people the traditional and established procedure in the cross to do should that was a ruling over the course of your record and that it is exacted you have to do a referendum in the 1st place that you then lost undermining your deal and you i promised the equipment people at the beginning of the process that it was that i would do a referendum and i wanted to fulfill my promise yes but hold on that sounds very instrumental if you wanted to do a referendum presumably because you wanted the approval of the people the people didnt give it to you but you rammed it through anyways but a new agreement and thats what the constitution quarter said you must renegotiate an agreement i asked the leaders of good no vote to come to. The table lets renegotiate this agreement they. Put on the table to 59 changes 59 points we accepted 56 so we had a new agreement and of course we shouldnt chord and establish very clearly that if you have a new agreement you can go ahead but not through a referendum but through the normal channels which is the congress and yet the current president mr du k was elected to Office Running on a pledge to dismantle parts of that agreement so obviously you didnt do that great job of getting the Colombian Public on board so soon after the deal theyre voting in a guy whos going to dismantle the deal. But you are you are not. Taking into account then in the last elections 3 weeks ago all the candidates that were for the agreement for the us road will once won in the mayors of the cities d and the governors of the states so that was a ratification that people are with the Peace Process they want to accept how the president has implemented except for the current president quite a big figure i would argue in colombia where the president is now he realized that he has to implement the Peace Process. But it because many start just one of them is because its in the constitution and of course as you know of course said that for the next 3 president ial d periods or 3 the next 3 governments they must implement the Peace Process this Peace Process was very very issues we we we put we established. Some point said we will take about 15 years to do. So we didnt wear down scene and we are dancing with the normal problems at any Peace Process especially so complex as this one but i am quite satisfied that many many thousands of lives have been saved but fark is no longer the biggest oldest strongest Guerrilla Group in the americas it is now a Political Party and thats what a Peace Process is what about the Nobel Committee gave you the peace prize in 2016 for youll struggle for peace in colombia but the year before you won it in 2015 Human Rights Watch put out a report covering your tenure as defense minister between 20062009 in which thousands of civilians were killed by Colombian Security forces who then dressed up their corpses as guerrillas in order to boost the fog body count and get themselves promoted that socalled false positive scandal happened on your want to didnt it why. Manuel santos you are not distorting exactly what happened because you know where you were that i was a war and stop that i changed the military doctrine and everybody here and not just that but you started something that happened on your watch it also happened in during your period as defense minister it happened at the beginning of my watch and i stopped it and it went down to 0 i stopped the trial so dont bring here its false information youre saying that Human Rights Watch called these false positives one of the worst episodes of mass atrocity in the western hemisphere in recent decades you say you stopped and yet no one senior was ever held to account just a few 100 lower level soldiers no generals no military commanders no politicians have ever been held to account for thousands of deaths in your country thousands thats not true generals are not out in the Transitional Court and theyre being judged because of the cross posters you say is not true but when you were president you made one of the commanders of the 4th brigade who is accused of being behind some of these killings you made in the countrys top military officer how is that now impunity. Who are you talking about general one public rodriguez when he was the commander of the armed forces he had nobody had any accusation against that would happen afterwards and nobody has made him responsible before and thats not true you said nobody had true Human Rights Watch says at least 28. 00 alleged extrajudicial killings by 4th brigade troops when general juan pablo rodrigos barragan commanded it in 2014 would have made the countrys top military official by you. You know he was the commander of the armed forces and when he was a commander of the armed forces nobody accused him of any. Being wrong it was afterwards what did you do when you saw the Human Rights Watch report in 2015 what action did you take against any of the generals they named. When i discovered that. I brought. Brought down the commander of the the the army and many more generals and i tell you i dont know why you dont want to accept this i was the one responsible for tradition. Why do you insist on denying that im not denying im just right at the time you did remove the heads of Army Air Force navy but you said it was a routine change you didnt say it was punishment for the fall it was no sir thats what the telegraph member quotes he was saying i went to 15 that is not true you have to move that unpunished you remove them as punishment for being in loss. And they removed it against against the after which they are now in the present. Theyre now being the hatches of an army navy an air force and you know what joe may be an air force no head of the army is now being prosecuted as a result of your decision made as. A result of the process yes just look at hell part of the world it seems beset by political chaos these days on the left you have a home or a less out in bolivia and what some call a coup pressure on madeira to step down on venezuela on the right you have conservative former president mccree of argentina beaten last month in the election you have protested ecuador in chile in colombia as a former National Leader looking at your region what do you think the political future holds for south america. Well its not only in south america and in that america you go d into trance you go to lebanon you go to iraq you go to hong kong theres protest all around in the case of latin america there are some common denominators which is inequality corruption and something that we are seen very clearly the success of the region in fighting poverty that brought many many people out of poverty into the middle class and their expectations have increased geometrically and the governments have not been able to keep up with these expectations and so other people are going to the streets and protesting in the case of colombia the Peace Process has also in a way liberated many people that before were afraid of going to streets because they would be. Singled out or accused of mean terrorist or being with the guerrillas and now they feel free and if you go to france you see other reasons and you go to hong kong you see other reasons i dont columbus specifically given the protests given a president trying to dismantle the whole deal given the violence we discussed are you an optimist about colombias future i still am an optimist i think the president do not understanding that he has to change many of the things hes doing among them he has to. 200. 00 to fulfill the promises that were made it would be structured to implement a Peace Process yes to be much more aggressive on his social policy and thats what theyre now discussing but i am optimist because colombia has always been a country where going back to be institutions. Strong situation is that having been able to cope with these type of crisis Juan Manuel Santos thank you so much for joining me on outfront. This week at the hague the nobel peace laureate and defacto president of myanmar. Defended a countrys military against allegations of genocide as the International Court of justice began its hearing into the abuses against the Rohingya Muslims its one of the only times the National Media has ever personally addressed to tribunals and with hundreds of thousands of people displaced suchi is facing massive pressure and condemnation from the International Community but can the uns top court really bring justice for the writing of kind of put an end to the violence in myanmar one of the 1st people to accuse the country of genocide was monks arnie the burning scholar and activist whos lived in exile for more than 20 years and who knows suchi personally he joins me now from london. Thank you for joining me on upfront for year is weve seen extensive evidence of killings crimes against humanity forcible displacement and now this week on saying suchi myanmar state counselor goes to the hague to defend her countrys military against this very serious charge of genocide you were there this week as well how does the Rohingya Crisis finally reached a turning point as a result of this historic case do you think. I believe this is the milestone in the struggle by if they were injured themselves to get the crimes that they have been subjected to for the last 40 years. Recognition that you know the crime duly deserve that they are hopeful that some semblance of justice and accountability will follow this is not the only. Trial that is happening right now as you know the i. C. C. The International Criminal court that tries individual criminals and puppet traitors of atrocity crimes has also embarked upon full investigation theres also independent ringback mechanism that has been authorized by the General Assembly set of to record memorialize and. Any evidence of that war crimes crimes against humanity and genocide against all hinge or as well as other ethnic minorities the gambia with the support of 57 members of the organization of islamic cooperation the oh i see fall this case against me on the i. C. J. Citing violations of the Genocide Convention both countries are parties to the Genocide Convention but why did the gonna be of all countries do this what was the whats the a whats the strategy of the allies see in the gambia with this case what do they want to achieve from this case while there are 2 things that need to be emphasized you know gambia cumbia may receive that political moral and Material Support from oh i see also that i care that navid not just oh i see because that genocide is not simply about a muslim so this is not a muslim issue this is a human kind of a shoot back and thats why the netherlands and canada are have officially issued a joint states. Say they support case and secondly the gambier team has asked for you know stopping any form of genocide of policies and practices law wing the role he enters in the modern day concentration camps call in or the internally displaced camp theyre brought 120000 raw injures that have been kept in these camps since 2012 using this banner or that the rhetoric of protective custody but protective custody was first 2 used by the german abscess in the 940 said thirtys is the problem though that the court could rule against International Opinion is against me but inside of me among science you see in the generals have a lot of support thousands of people rallied in support of her before she left the country there was even a religious ceremony held in order before she set off for the hague whats your reaction as someone living in exile looking at your country and what is happening on the streets of your country people cheering her on even though the rest of the world disgusted by whats going on well of course as a purchase as a burmese and a put this race in that country lived there for a quarter of a century i am a stream lease sat in and thats the same type of outrage by what i see as a emergence of burma in society you know similar to what we saw in the 1930s nazi germany our son suchi is not simply defending the Burmese Military which is the only and all the can of the state own son suchi is there defending myanmar as a member state and racist society so so are not known among all not know is she there at the hague defending the military and her country and the government and the state is she doing that as a puppet of the military as some people believe shes in a tough position or if she does not because she. Wants to do it shes there enthusiastically of our own free will happily defending what is going on in Rakhine State from where the rohingya have been displaced what the fact our son suchi had the result of to stand in captivity for 15 years on and all of the pushing for our own agenda which we now know that is not to be human rights or protection of minorities or democratization its our own personal you know of personal ambition to be the head of state legally now she is head of state the fact 2 she is not a puppet she is pro actively defending passionately and of the fatherland li defending the indefensible she is fully culpable she is criminally responsible on a par with the burmese generals heres a thing about last time you were on the show back in 2017 you werent quite ready then to demand that aung sang suu kyi whom you once a supporter of you were ready to call for her to step down i believe you should change your mind and youve now called for to resign what made you change your mind and how can you be sure that her departure wont lead to full military rule returning to me. No im not calling for our resign i i want to see our son suchi and the burma is military leaders and religious leader alive were out to and lead a coup in the defendants dock at the i. C. C. International criminal court because i. C. J. Does not try criminal matters and heres a question for you me and mother refuses to acknowledge wrongdoing. She has gone to the hague and called the allegations of genocide in complete misleading the berm is government said they will not cooperate with the uns independent investigative mechanism so what in your view is the best possible outcome of all of this given that even a court ruling in a few years time wont be able to change facts on the ground in terms of whats happening to the road in places like iraq and stay. Well what were seeing is said you know the i. C. J. Tribunals has exposed the the full collaboration among major institutions in the country you know the other monks of the Civil Society actors a majority of them including job ermes journalists from arrow or d. And other of lead so yes you are absolutely right facts on the grounds are not likely to change however this is one of the very very few venues for pressure accountability and justice in a International Order that is completely broken on you know when it comes to the wretched of the earth the oppressed not just the premise that the palestinians. You know the syrians so i think in the end that scenario we are looking at. Rather rather this small picture and but still as activists and advocates for humanoids and the rights of common human beings we cannot give up hope that this is something that we must hold onto and built on to build the law a bigger move that we call for boycott of nima because nima has turned in to get the equivalent of the road to germany in the 1930 s. Today under our sun to cheese vote and active leadership monks on he will have to leave it there thank you for coming on up front and thats our show up from where we back next week. Discover the world of aljazeera. The best films from across on network of channels and if 106 boys then to go to know the citizens of fresh perspectives and new insights to challenge and change the way we look at the world. Of. Aljazeera world. On aljazeera. Oh im. Done with a quick look at headlines now u. S. President donald trump has moved one step closer to being impeached house of Representatives Judiciary Committee has voted to approve 2 charges of abuse of power and obstruction of congress against the president hes accused of putting pressure on ukraines president to investigate his political rival the Democrat Joe Biden these charges will be voted on and likely approved by the democrat controlled house next week ahead of a full trial in the senate. Did the move as a sham and says he doesnt care if its a lengthy trial