Updates from WOLA tagged “FARC”

Blog entries, commentaries, and statements from WOLA’s Colombia team

Power Rivalries Put Pressure on Colombia’s Peace Treaty

March 15, 2021

By: Mariano Aguirre, WOLA Board Member
(Cross-posted from chathamhouse.org)
(Versión en español disponible en esglobal.org)

The creation of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP in Spanish) as part of the 2016 Peace Treaty between the Colombian State and the guerrilla group FARC has seen its work much criticized over claims from certain powerful factions that it has a hidden agenda to free former FARC leaders and imprison senior military commanders.

Investigations carried out by the JEP have been a major success of the peace agreement and the process that followed. But most of the right-wing section of governing party Centro Democrático have been working to cut its funding and complicate the implementation of the peace deal.

Founded on the principle of transitional justice, the JEP works by recognizing accountability for past crimes from the conflict and establishing alternative sentences. This does mean some powerful people – politicians, businesspeople, and landowners – may feel threatened because its investigations may reveal their past connections to both official and nonofficial repression unleashed upon trade unionists, peasants, politicians, and civilians in the name of defeating the FARC.

Ariel Avila, from the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation, states that as transitional justice moves forward ‘victims will be more at risk. As ex guerrilla members, military officers, parapoliticians, begin to tell the truth, they will inform on those who supported them, those who benefitted from the war, people who, for the most part, are within the scope of legality’.

Hostages and human rights violations

The JEP recently accused seven FARC leaders for promoting kidnapping as a systematic practice and inflicting human rights violations on hostages, and also announced it will investigate and prosecute state security forces for war crimes, as the Colombian army stands accused of allegedly murdering at least 6,402 innocent civilians under what is called ‘false positives’ – counting them as guerrilla fighters to give the impression they were winning the war against the FARC.

Almost 80 per cent of those crimes were committed between 2002 and 2008 when right-wing political leader Álvaro Uribe was president and, since the JEPs’ creation in 2017, he and some of his followers – known as ‘Uribismo’ – along with Iván Duque’s current government have been persistently critical of the body.

This has led the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to express concern about ‘persisting public statements questioning the suitability of the JEP and their staff, and about the legislative proposals to abolish the Special Jurisdiction for Peace’, and the damage being done to the JEP was revealed in a detailed report from 14 senators of different opposition parties in the Colombian Congress, led by Senator Juanita Goebertus (Green Alliance Party). 

The main targets of the attacks by the government and Uribistas are the reforms in the rural sector, voluntary coca crop eradication, and the implementation of transitional justice, which the peace treaty committed the government to achieve. Returning land to thousands of peasants displaced by violence would reverse gross inequalities in land distribution, as would the political strengthening of local communities.

“The main targets of the attacks by the government and Uribistas are the reforms in the rural sector, voluntary coca crop eradication, and the implementation of transitional justice.”

But rural elites strongly oppose these moves and the state has been largely absent in these rural areas, contributing to a rise in illegal mining, illicit crops, and now the killings of social leaders and ex-FARC guerrilla combatants. The president of the JEP recently claimed ‘a social leader is killed every 41 hours’ and, according to a report by the Colombian Commission of Jurists along with other local groups, these killings are being committed by hit men, FARC dissidents, organized crime, and even members of the armed forces.

Most cases are not being solved and the Inter American Commission for Human Rights indicates most government investigations focus on the material authors of the crime, not those who gave the order. Human Rights Watch says that, because of such state shortcomings, investigations and prosecutions are facing significant hurdles particularly with regard to the ‘intellectual authors’ of many killings.

Rural communities under pressure from criminals

OHCHR estimates 513 human rights defenders and 248 former FARC combatants were killed between 2016 and the end of 2020 but this is disputed by the government. Many of those who died had accepted the peace agreement, committing themselves and their communities to stop harvesting coca in exchange for receiving state financial assistance and shifting to producing legal goods. But Duque’s government, believing alternative crops do not work, froze the scheme alleging a lack of funds.

This put communities under renewed pressure from organized crime and guerrillas to produce coca again, an option made easier by the ban on the coca fumigations which were used by the US government between 1994 and 2015 to keep crop levels down and reduce drug production.

Fumigations were ended in 2015 by the Colombian Supreme Court due to evidence that the crop spraying harmed the environment as well as human and animal health, but the risk of cuts to aid and loans from the Donald Trump US administration recently pushed Duque to try and lift these restrictions.

His government has launched military-civil stabilization operations in areas of high conflict and illicit crop production, but peasants and indigenous communities see fumigation as another breach of the peace treaty and they intend to resist it.

They also consider stabilization to be too dependent on the military, and various experts also consider this approach to be inefficient and a poor substitute for the lack of a proper state presence in rural Colombia.

“Peasants and indigenous communities see fumigation as another breach of the peace treaty and they intend to resist it.”

Now with the change of administration in the US, Joe Biden has already expressed interest in the protection of human rights and appears less likely to be supportive of restarting fumigation as well as any ongoing resistance of the Colombian government to the peace agreement, especially as key Democrats in the Obama administration and Congress supported the negotiation and approval of the peace deal and many are now in the Biden administration.

The trick for Duque now – and Uribe – is to successfully balance their own partisan policy preferences with the country’s need for long-term military, strategic, and economic ties to Washington.

Tags: False Positives, FARC, Illicit Crop Eradication, Indigenous Communities, JEP, Military and Human Rights, Politics of Peace, Special Jurisdiction for Peace, Transitional Justice

UN Security Council Must Guarantee that Colombia Implement Peace and Protect Social Leaders

December 8, 2020

On November 24, 2020—four years after the signing of the 2016 peace accord between the Colombian State and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)—Defend the Peace Colombia (Defendamos la Paz Colombia, DLP) published a statement addressed to Ambassadors before the United Nations Security Council. DLP, a broad coalition comprised of many sectors of Colombian civil society and of which WOLA forms part, urged the Security Council to demand a greater commitment to peace accord implementation from the Colombian government.

DLP’s statement expressed deep concern with ongoing threats against the physical and legal security of FARC ex-combatants, the assassinations of social leaders, and a disturbing trend of massacres. Rather than taking the measures in the accord to prevent and condemn violence in the territories, the government uses the violence as an excuse to deepen its campaign to discredit the peace process. The coalition also noted that in international mediums like the Security Council, the government maintains a pro-peace discourse while simultaneously engaging in an anti-peace discourse domestically.

The window of opportunity for peace remains open. DLP trusts in the Security Council’s cooperation to use existing mechanisms to verify and defend human rights throughout this path to peace and to demand the Colombian government hold to its commitments.

A translation of the full statement is below.
The original Spanish version is here.


Dear Ambassadors,

We address you as Defend the Peace, Colombia’s peace movement, to denounce the threats against the physical and legal security of ex-combatants of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP), as well as the assassinations of social leaders in the territories.

1. Physical safety at risk

The latest report of the United Nations Verification Mission, presented to the Security Council in September 2020, says: “since the signing of the peace accord, the Mission has verified 297 attacks against former members of the FARC-EP, including 224 murders (of which 4 were women), 20 disappearances, and 53 attempted murders (of which 4 were women)”. From October to November, the FARC-EP reported 18 additional murders.

So far in 2020, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Colombia received information on 110 cases concerning killings of human rights defenders, of which 51 have been confirmed and the others are under verification. As of October 31, of the 61 massacres reported this year, 51 were documented with 195 deaths.

The United Nations Verification Mission is in charge of verifying point 3.4 of the accord, which outlines the security guarantees for ex-combatants, human rights defenders, social and political movements. It also addresses the struggle against successor paramilitary organizations and includes unfulfilled government commitments.

The National Commission for Security Guarantees, created by the accord, is meant to formulate public policy on security and crime in order to protect the people involved in the implementation of the accord. To date, this body has yet to formulate this public policy. For two years, the President, who presides over the Commission, only attended three meetings; the Special Jurisdiction for Peace was forced to take action and enforce precautionary measures for ex-combatants and summon the meeting.

Not only has the government failed to take the measures in the accord to prevent and condemn violence in the territories, the government also uses the violence as an excuse to deepen its campaign to discredit the peace process, insisting that the causes of violence lie with the accord. On the contrary, the peace accord provides the elements necessary to stop the violence, of which the government continues to turn its back on.

It is important to note that a significant number of assassinations and massacres mainly take place where the Armed Forces have deployed the most troops.

In the 1980s, Colombia experienced the extermination of a political party with the murders of more than 2,500 members of the Patriotic Union. The defenders of peace ask the Security Council to help avoid repeating history. 

2. Legal security at risk

Colombia’s transitional justice system—the Comprehensive System of Justice, Truth, Reparation and Guarantees of Non-Repetition—is under attack by President Duque, his government and the ruling party.

In open interference with the independence of the judicial branch, President Duque has dictated orders to the Special Jurisdiction for Peace.

Several paramilitary commanders have expressed a willingness to submit to the Special Jurisdiction for Peace. The President told the judges that “in that justice system [the transitional justice system] there is no room for members of paramilitary groups, as they can submit to the ordinary justice system under other normative frameworks “.

The Colombian government demands the truth from the FARC-EP. But it also outright rejects the truth when it is told. Members of the FARC-EP not only confessed their responsibility in the murder of conservative leader Álvaro Gómez Hurtado, but also pledged to deliver evidence during pertinent procedural hearings.

The President dismissed this act, asserted that the country is still waiting to know the real perpetrators and causes, demanded that the JEP make a prompt determination of the veracity of the claims, and suggested the JEP undertake an investigation for false self-incrimination. The President insists that “it was the murderous bullets of drug trafficking,” and not the FARC-EP that killed Gómez Hurtado, in attempts to delegitimize the JEP.

The governing party presented a project to reform the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, announced a popular referendum to repeal it, and proposed changing the composition of the Truth Commission. President Duque filed objections to the statutory law of the JEP, which failed in Congress and ultimately delayed the start of processes for months.

The onslaught of the government and its party against transitional justice and against the peace accord does not stop.

As such, Defend the Peace brings to the Security Council’s attention the Colombian government’s responsibility, by omission, of attacks and assassination attempts against those building peace. We also bring to its attention the opposition against the transitional justice system—the backbone of the peace accord—by the President, his representatives, and his political party. We note that in international mediums like the Security Council, the government maintains a pro-peace discourse. In Colombia, the government maintains an anti-peace discourse.

We’ve seen how several post-conflict contexts make the transition from Chapter VI to Chapter VII when one or more parties do not comply with what was agreed upon. It is our conviction that, if effective and immediate measures are not taken to prevent killings and massacres as well as guarantees aren’t made for the legal security of ex-combatants, the international commitments assumed by the Colombian state could end up turning the Colombian case into an “international threat to peace and security,” in the terms developed by the Security Council’s practice in the last decade.

Defend the Peace, a platform that integrates a broad coalition comprised of diverse and representative sectors of Colombian society, brings together the peace accord negotiators from the government and the FARC-EP, social leaders and human rights defenders, victims’ and women’s organizations, Indigenous and Afro-descendants, ex-ministers and congressmen, unions, businessmen, and intellectuals.

We respectfully request that you demand from the Government of Colombia a greater commitment to the peace accord, its implementation, its signatories, and the new generation of Colombians. Our window of opportunity for peace remains open; we trust in the cooperation of the Security Council not to close it.

We are united by the desire for peace and we know that we have mechanisms from the United Nations to verify and defend human rights and to accompany us in this path to peace.

Tags: Civil Society Peace Movement, FARC, massacres, Social Leaders, Special Jurisdiction for Peace, United Nations

Protect Colombia’s Peace: New Report with Key Recommendations for U.S. Policy

July 23, 2020

(Español abajo)

Despite an outpouring of civic action by Colombians—many of them victims of the conflict—to make the peace accords real, the Colombian government’s actions have been limited and have failed to protect those risking their lives for peace.

On July 23, the Latin America Working Group (LAWG), alongside the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) and 22 other international and local civil society organizations, published a report entitled, Protect Colombia’s Peace.

The report outlines the current challenges of Colombia’s peace process, including: the obstacles to fully reintegrating ex-combatants, despite advances; the very partial implementation of the ethnic chapter and gender provisions; the increasingly dire situation of human rights defenders; the halting implementation of rural reforms; the return to drug policy solutions that are not sustainable and undermine the accords; and the impact of the Venezuelan refugee crisis on Colombia. 

It is not too late to preserve Colombia’s peace accords.

The U.S. and the international community can play a critical role in catalyzing support for a sustainable peace, only if they boldly encourage compliance with the 2016 peace accords.

Key recommendations in the report advocate for U.S. aid and stronger diplomacy to call on the Colombian government to implement the peace accord’s ethnic chapter and gender provisions, ensure justice for the victims of the armed conflict, protect human rights defenders, advance sustainable drug policy and rural reforms to reach Colombia’s small farmers and Afro-Colombian and Indigenous communities, end abuses by the Colombian armed forces, and dismantle the paramilitary successor networks.

The U.S. government’s diplomatic efforts in Colombia helped pave the way for peace, and this wise investment should not be wasted. 

Read the full report in English here.
Read the executive summary in English here.


Protejan la paz en Colombia: Nuevo informe con recomendaciones claves para la política estadounidense

A pesar de la gran cantidad de acciones ciudadanas de los colombianos— incluidas muchas de las víctimas del conflicto— para lograr hacer realidad el acuerdo de paz, las acciones del gobierno colombiano han sido insuficientes y no han protegido a las personas que arriesgaron sus vidas por la paz.

El 23 de julio, el Grupo de Trabajo de América Latina (LAWG), junto con la Oficina en Washington para Asuntos Latinoamericanos (WOLA) y otras 22 organizaciones internacionales y nacionales de la sociedad civil, publicaron un informe titulado, Protejan la paz en Colombia.

El informe describe los desafíos actuales del proceso de paz en Colombia que incluyen: los obstáculos para lograr la plena reintegración de los excombatientes, a pesar de los avances; la muy incompleta implementación del capítulo étnico y las disposiciones de género; la situación cada vez más difícil de los defensores de los derechos humanos; la vacilante implementación de las reformas rurales; el regreso a las soluciones de políticas de drogas que no son sostenibles y debilitan el acuerdo; y el impacto de la crisis de los refugiados venezolanos en Colombia.

Aún no es demasiado tarde para preservar la frágil paz colombiana

Los Estados Unidos y la comunidad internacional pueden desempeñar un papel fundamental para catalizar el apoyo a una paz duradera, solo si actúan con determinación para impulsar el cumplimiento del acuerdo.

Las recomendaciones claves en el reporte abogan por la cooperación de Estados Unidos y una diplomacia más fuerte para pedirle al gobierno colombiano que implemente el capítulo étnico y las disposiciones de género del acuerdo de paz, garantice la justicia para las víctimas del conflicto armado, proteja a los defensores de los derechos humanos, promueva una política de drogas sostenible y reformas rurales para alcanzar a los campesinos y las comunidades afrocolombianas e indígenas de Colombia, ponga fin a los abusos de las fuerzas armadas colombianas y desmantele las redes sucesoras de los paramilitares.

Los esfuerzos diplomáticos del gobierno de los Estados Unidos en Colombia ayudaron a allanar el camino hacia la paz y esta sabia inversión no debe desperdiciarse.

Lea el informe completo en español aquí.
Lea el resumen ejecutivo en español aquí.

Tags: Civil Society Peace Movement, ELN Peace Talks, FARC, U.S. Aid, U.S. Policy

Statement from the Cooperation Space for Peace (ECP): Stop the Bloodshed and Protect Social Leaders

April 3, 2020

On March 16, the Cooperation Space for Peace (Espacio de Cooperación para la Paz – ECP) published a statement, signed by 17 international civil society organizations, urging the Colombian government to guarantee protections for social leaders throughout the country.

Social leaders are vital to the communities they represent. The statement argues that in its process of consolidating peace, Colombia cannot tolerate violence against leaders who work in their communities to improve living conditions and protect natural resources.

The statement calls on the Colombian government to provide adequate safety guarantees, ensure justice is enforced, and implement policies that dismantle the criminal groups responsible for the bloodshed against social leaders and their communities. Below is the English text of the statement:

STATEMENT TO THE PUBLIC AND A CALL TO THE COLOMBIAN GOVERNMENT INTERNATIONAL CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS

Bogotá, March 16, 2020. The international civil society organizations signed onto this statement express with deep pain and concern the persistence and increase of threats, attacks, harassment, and murders against individuals and human rights organizations who endorse the peace agreement and, in the process of reincorporation, move from a past of war to a future of reconciliation and peace. 

In the past week, Astrid Conde Gutiérrez (March 5) and Edwin de Jesús Carrascal Barrios (March 10) were assassinated. Thus far, according to the FARC’s political party, these killings amount to 15 former combatants of the FARC killed since the beginning of this year and 190 former combatants killed since the signing of the Peace Accords in 2016. Additionally, the corporation Legal Solidarity (Solidaridad Jurídica) has also reported threats and harassment against other former political prisoners. 

On March 11, a new threat from the Black Eagles (Águilas Negras) against an extensive list of lead social organizations and social leaders became public. It included the Wayuu Women’s Force (Fuerza de Mujeres Wayuu)—a human and territorial rights organization that won the 2017 National Human Rights Defense Award and has been working for ethnic and territorial rights in La Guajira since 2006. 

The lack of protections for social leaders and the lack of comprehensive implementation of the Peace Agreement put the sustainability of the process and the search for new paths towards peace in Colombia at serious risk. Thus, it is urgent for the State, who is responsible for the life of all Colombians, to: 

  • Provide sufficient guarantees for those who actively work towards peace and defend human and territorial rights so they can carry out their legitimate work in an enabling environment. 
  • Ensure that justice is enforced and that those responsible are identified, investigated, and brought before competent authorities. In doing so, a strong message in favor of peace would be expressed through Colombia’s institutions, currently governed by Iván Duque.
  • Rapidly advance the design and adoption of public policies to dismantle criminal organizations that are responsible for killings and massacres or attacks on human rights defenders, social movements, or political movements. Such criminal organizations include paramilitary groups, successor groups, and their support networks (3.4.3 of the Peace Agreement). Civil society organizations have already submitted proposals about this matter.

The international civil society organizations signed onto this statement and members of the Cooperation Space for Peace (Espacio de Cooperación para la Paz) reiterate concern about these incidents and the lack of strong action by the Colombian State to clarify and finally stop this bloodshed in Colombia. 

A country that genuinely aims to consolidate peace cannot tolerate violence against citizens of any kind, particularly against those in civil society who work to improve living conditions and protect territories and natural resources. 

Tags: Attacks on social leaders, FARC

International Civil Society Organizations Warn of Human Rights Crisis Jeopardizing Peace Accords

June 7, 2019

Alarmed by the deteriorating human rights situation and the return of violence to rural Colombia, 23 International Civil Society Organizations released a public statement demanding action from the Colombian government. With over 40 years of experience working on peace-building in Colombia, the organizations condemn the government’s delays and reneging on peace accord implementation, attacks to the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz, JEP), and violence against social leaders and human rights defenders. The article makes reference to the recent New York Times’ article exposing military directives demanding increased body counts, the murder of former FARC combatant Dimar Torres on April 22, and the 62 social leaders murdered so far in 2019.

The May 30 statement demands Duque sign the JEP’s statutory law and abstain from promoting members of the military who have links to extrajudicial killings. On June 6, the president signed the law as asked and the Senate voted in favor of promoting General Nicasio Martínez despite the objections of human rights organizations. The statement also calls for the investigation of the murders and attacks on social leaders, the extended presence of the UN Verification Mission and renewal of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights among other requests.

Here is the full statement translated into English:

Public Statement

International Civil Society Organizations Express their Serious Concern for the Grave Humanitarian and Human Rights Crisis in Colombia Jeopardizing the Sustainability of the Peace Accord

The International Civil Society Organizations signatory of this statement, in reference to our mandates, have been committed to the respect for human dignity, the guarantee of rights, the construction of peace, and the negotiated termination of the Colombian armed conflict for over 40 years.

                We recognize the importance of the agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC-EP guerilla signed on November 2016, as well as the dialogues with the ELN (Ejército de Liberación Nacional), now sadly stagnant due to lack of political will.

                The reneging and delays on the commitments made in the Final Agreement (FA), the permanent attacks against the Integral System for Truth, Justice, Reparations, and no Repetition (Sistema Integral de Verdad, Justicia, Reparación y no Repetición, SIVJR) – particularly towards the decisions of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz, JEP), place the lives and lawfulness of those participating under this jurisdiction at risk, including members of the FARC.

                This along with the murders, threats, intimidations, and stigmatizations against human rights defenders, environmentalists, and persons participating in voluntary illicit-use crop substitution, place the possibility to consolidate peace under serious threat.

According to the Center for Research and Education’s Program for Peace (Centro de Investigación y Educación Popular, CINEP), their 2018 category for political violence reports 648 murders, 1151 death threats, 304 injured, 48 attacks, 22 forced disappearances, three cases of sexual assaults, and 243 arbitrary detentions. So far, 62 social leaders have been murdered in 2019[1].

The annual report of the We Are Defenders Program (Programa Somos Defensores), published this year on April, states that in 2018 there were 16 women human rights defenders murdered, surpassing the murder rate of male human rights defenders[2].

The New York Times recently exposed[3] a military directive that could bring back the infamous “false positives” within the Colombian Armed Forces, as seen in the case of demobilized FARC-EP member Dimar Torres, who was murdered by an active member of the military on April 22, 2019. Dimar’s murder in the Colombian northeast was confirmed as a military killing by general Diego Luis Villegas[4].

The government’s response to these reports is worrying. Among these are the Defense Minister’s recent statement denying the existence of said directive, and the inflammatory remarks made by a government party congresswoman, which forced the article’s author[5] and photographer to leave the country[6].

The Colombian government has the obligation to guarantee Human Rights, honor the commitments made in the peace accords with the FARC-EP, and respond effectively to protect the life and dignity of those who are put at great risk for advancing peace and Human Rights.

Thus, we demand the Colombian government to:

  • Order government officials to abstain from making speeches that stigmatize those who defend peace and Human Rights, as well as civilians.
  • Order the respective authorities to carry out investigations and sanctions towards the material and intellectual authors of the murders, attacks, and threats against Human Rights defenders and FARC-EP leaders who seek reintegration into civilian life.
  • Ratify the statutory law of the JEP and comply with its decisions. In this regard, investigate the facts surrounding the recapture of Mr. Seuxis Paucias Hernández, establish its legality, the truth about his situation, and guarantee him his right to due process.
  • Abstain from promoting high ranking members of the military that have been admitted to the JEP, or have open judicial cases, as a measure to guarantee non-repetition to the victims of conflict[7].
  • To the President, as commander in chief of the military, that he ensure that all orders, manuals, and operational documents of the military comply with national and international law as well as Human Rights and International Human Rights Law.
  • Extend the presence of the UN Verification Mission and renew the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights as recognition to the work of the international community on Human Rights.
  • Guarantee the right to information by protecting free and independent journalism.

We request that the diplomatic apparatus, international community, and guarantor countries of the peace process demand the Colombian government honors the Final Agreement and takes the necessary measures so that its implementation is not bloodier than the conflict it aims to overcome. 

As civil society organizations, we reiterate our compromise to the construction of complete peace in Colombia and we will keep on working alongside victims, rural communities, persons on transit to civilian life, and the Colombian civil society at large.

Bogotá, May 30, 2019


[1] https://www.cinep.org.co/Home2/component/k2/690-informe-ddhh-violencia-camuflada-labase-social-en-riesgo.html

[2] https://somosdefensores.org/2019/04/23/la-naranja-mecanica/

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/es/2019/05/18/colombia-ejercito-falsos-positivos/

[4] https://www.elespectador.com/noticias/judicial/homicidio-de-dimar-torres-fue-una-ejecucionextrajudicial-comision-de-paz-articulo-852708

[5] https://www.semana.com/nacion/articulo/periodista-del-new-york-times-abandona-el-pais-poracusaciones-del-maria-fernan-cabal/616115

[6] https://www.elpais.com.co/colombia/otro-periodista-sale-de-por-senalamientos-contrapublicacion-the-new-york-times-nicholas-casey.html

[7] https://www.france24.com/es/20190302-human-rights-watch-colombia-ejecuciones-extrajudiciale

Tags: FARC, Human Rights Defenders, JEP