Publicado por El Espectador el 17 de mayo de 2020.
The former maximum leader of the AUC paramilitaries, extradited to the United States in 2008, has completed his U.S. prison term and may soon return to Colombia.
Publicado por El Espectador Colombia 2020 el 8 de mayo de 2020.
A discussion of peace accord implementation amid the COVID-19 crisis, with Senator Iván Cepeda; Marco Romero of CODHES; Elena Ambrossi, a former member of the government peace negotiation team; Rodrigo Uprimny of DeJusticia; Representative Juanita Goebertus; Saúl Franco of the Truth Commission; and Representative Feliciano Valencia.
Publicado por El Espectador el 23 de abril de 2020.
An academic conversation about the balance between reconciliation and justice in Colombia’s post-conflict transitional justice system.
Publicado por El Espectador el 15 de abril de 2020.
An interview with Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) Magistrate Camilo Suárez about how the JEP is functioning during the coronavirus lockdown.
Publicado por un grupo de congresistas colombianos el 7 de abril de 2020.
A data-filled report on the current status of implementation of the FARC peace accord, compiled by a group of pro-peace members of Colombia’s Congress. (link at juanitaenelcongreso.com)
The 2016 Peace Accords created the Truth, Coexistence and Non-Repetition Commission (La Comisión para el Esclarecimiento de la Verdad, la Convivencia y la No Repetición) via Article 5.1.1. This entity is the truth component for the Comprehensive System of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Non-Repetition (Sistema Integral de Verdad, Justicia, Reparación y No Repetición, SIVJRNR). The government established the Truth Commission through Legislative Act 01 of 2017 and structured its functioning through Decree 588 of 2017. According to the Decree, the Truth Commission will operate for a period of three years following an additional six-months of institutional preparation. The Truth Commission started operating on November 28, 2018.
According to the Peace Accords, the Truth Commission aims to fulfill three main objectives before the end of its mandate:
Here, the Truth Commission’s activities are explored based on how they broadly advance each of the three objectives.
On November 28, 2021, the Truth Commission will publish a comprehensive report explaining Colombia’s protracted armed conflict. For this, the Truth Commission is undertaking a multi-step investigative process. Throughout the first stage of its investigative process, the Truth Commission is hearing from victims and armed actors.
In 2019, the Truth Commission received a total of 10,755 testimonies from 5,988 individual and collective interviews. 20% of these testimonies were from Ethnic Peoples: 2,086 persons testified during eight collective interviews, and 61 testified in individual interviews. These indigenous communities were significantly impacted by the armed conflict. For approximately every seven victims, one victim was an indigenous person. Notably, civilian actors (such as members of the business community who financed the conflict) only gave 2% of the testimonies. Also notable, the Truth Commission received 365 testimonies from exiles.
Some prominent individuals provided testimonies to the Truth Commission including Former President Ernesto Samper who testified on allegations that the Cali Cartel financed his 1994 presidential campaign, as well as, former Senator David Char who spoke about the paramilitary’s activities in Atlántico and their involvement in his Senate campaign. Additionally, this year, José Miguel Narváez, former Deputy Director for the Administrative Department of Security (Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad, DAS), is set to testify about the paramilitaries’ infiltration in the intelligence agency. Narváez is currently serving a 26-year sentence for the assassination of journalist Jaime Garzón.
On March 9, 2020, the Truth Commission launched a new mechanism for collective interviews called Listening Spaces (Espacios de Escucha). With this initiative, the Truth Commission seeks to hear from a more diverse set of individuals involved in the conflict. Among the individuals scheduled to testify are former combatants from every irregular armed group, politicians from different parties, business leaders, journalists and members of the Armed Forces. This year, the Truth Commission expects to hold eight national and 56 territorial Listening Spaces —at least two in each of its 22 regional offices or Truth Houses (Casas de la Verdad). During the first Listening Spaces former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, FARC) members spoke about the assassinations of fellow ex-guerillas and other security issues they currently face.
To solidify its explanation of the Armed Conflict, the Truth Commission will contrast the conclusions from the testimonies gathered with secondary sources. In 2019, the Truth Commission received 118 reports from various social and ethnic organizations describing the incidents they and individuals from their territories suffered. Recently, for example, a group of women from the Nukak Maku peoples submitted their report on the sexual violence they endured for over 20 years. The social organization Region Corporation (Corporacion Región) also submitted their report: an account of the conflict’s impact on Antioquia based on more than 90 testimonies by individuals from the San Carlos, Granada, and San Rafael municipalities.
The Truth Commission aims to transversally apply the Ethnic Chapter of the Peace Accords. This Chapter requires an ethnic-based perspective in the implementation of the Accords. To guarantee that the ethnic perspective is properly integrated, the Truth Commission met with the Permanent Working Table for Indigenous Peoples, and the Permanent Working Table for the Black, Afro-Colombian, Raizal and Palenquero Peoples, and the Permanent Working Table for Women from the Afro-Colombian, Raizal and Palenquero Women. These Permanent Tables bring together representatives of indigenous and Afro-Colombian organizations to the Truth Commission in an advisory capacity. At these meetings, participants discussed the implementation of truth-seeking methodologies sensitive to the racism and ethnic intolerance that many communities suffer. They also stressed the importance of adopting a narrative that explains the differentiated experiences ethnic and racial communities suffered during the armed conflict in the final report. Groups that were present at these meeting were the Matamba Collective National Space for Previous Consultation (Colectivo Matamba Espacio Nacional de Consulta Previa), Paez’s Captaincy (Capitanía de Páez), the Network of Women from Matamba and Guasa (Red de Mujeres Matamba y Guasa), Other Black Women (Otras Negras), and Feminists (Feministas).
In order to guarantee continuous input from victims during its recognition process, the Truth Commission held 131 sessions with victims’ working groups. 4,476 individuals participated in such sessions. They held sessions with the following groups:
These tables aimed to guarantee the participation of victims in the planning and development of four Encounters for Truth (Encuentros por la Verdad). The Truth Commission designed these events to recognize victims of the Armed Conflict and to promote the acknowledgement of responsibilities. Each Ecounterhad a specific focus:
At Cartagena’s Adolfo Mejía Theater, more than 400 women and members of the LGBTQ+ community gathered to recount their experiences as victims of sexual violence. During the event, the attendees heard the stories of 17 victims who, at the hands of paramilitaries, guerillas, police officers, and U.S. officials, were raped, tortured, or slaved. The stories emphasized the particular vulnerability of indigenous and Afro-Colombians to this criminal modality. Later in the day, approximately 2,000 individuals participated in artistic and cultural events in recognition of the victims’ courage and resilience. Cartagena (Bolívar) – as one of the Caribe region’s main cities – was chosen for the first Encounter because approximately 30% of reported sexual violence cases took place in the city.
For three days, the Truth Commission organized a series of events in the city of Pasto (Nariño) to commemorate the victims of forced disappearance. These included theater plays, academic forums, art displays, and concerts in which more than 17,000 individuals participated. At the Encounter’s main event, the Truth Commission held an open dialogue ceremony with the mothers and families of the disappeared. There, the relatives of the victims (who are also considered secondary victims themselves) narrated their decades-long struggle to find their loved ones. Despite the lack of accurate data, estimates calculate around 80,000 to 100,000 individuals were disappeared during the armed conflict in Colombia. This criminal modality involved every actor in the conflict: guerilla groups, paramilitaries, and state agents.
At two separate events in Medellin (Antioquia), the Truth Commission and more than 1,000 attendees heard the stories of twenty-six children and adults that –as children–were victims of the armed conflict. Their accounts highlighted that, during the conflict, minors were especially vulnerable to massacres, forced recruitment, murders and internal displacement. Notably, this was the first Encounter where perpetrators faced their victims and publicly acknowledged their responsibility. Rodrigo Londoño (former FARC leader), Fredy Rendón (former paramilitary commander), and Daladier Rivera (a military major) stood in front of the victims and recognized their direct or indirect responsibility for the crimes they committed. According to Colombia’s Victims Unit (Unidad de Victimas), approximately 2,500,000 children were victims of the armed conflict.
The Truth held the fourth Encounter for Truth in Cabrera (Cundinamarca), a town at the center of the Sumpaz Rural Farmers’ Concentration Zone. This Encounter consisted of multiple intergenerational and inter-territorial tables where rural farmers (victims of the armed conflict) shared their experiences. More than 700 individuals participated. For decades, these individuals suffered forced displacements, land dispossession, and political persecution. Out of the more than 8 million individuals internally displaced in Colombia during the conflict, approximately 6 million are rural farmers. Such massive displacement has contributed to a highly unequal land ownership regime in which 1% of the productive units own more than 80% of the land.
The Truth Commission also held six events titled “Dialogues for Non-Repetition: Truth Comes Alongside Social Leaders.” These were public round table-type discussions were stakeholders considered how the phenomenon of social leaders’ assassinations affects peacebuilding and non-repetition in Colombia. Many of attendees were representatives from social organizations. Others included social leaders, journalists, opinion leaders, and government officials. More information on the events:
During this dialogue, speakers introduced the phenomenon of social leaders’ assassinations. According to data mentioned at the discussion, 4,788 social leaders have been assassinated in the country since 1986. The departments most affected are Cauca, Antioquia, Nariño and North Santander. All four of them have a significant number of coca crops and are strategic locations for drug trafficking. The speakers also discussed the causes and dimensions of this phenomenon. They highlighted that, since 1997, the government has signed legislation aimed at protecting social leaders. However, as the speakers pointed out, the government has failed to comprehensively implement these measures partly because it lacks presence in the most vulnerable areas.
At this second dialogue, speakers expanded on the causes of social leaders’ assassinations discussed in the first dialogue. The speakers agreed that the indiscriminate stigmatization of social leaders as guerilla sympathizers is among factors that cause this deadly phenomenon. They also explained the role of social leaders as the voice of the country’s communities: they regularly report corruption in their territories and fight against private or public projects that go against their community’s wellbeing. The speakers also emphasized the wide discrepancy between the central government’s concept of security and that of the rural, indigenous, and Afro-Colombian communities. They argued that the general security measures crafted at the central level do not match different local-level needs.
At this third dialogue, speakers explored the relation between the assassination of social leaders and Colombia’s peace-building efforts. In their interventions, many of them emphasized the particular history of Cordoba as the stage of multiple peace processes. Cordoba saw the demobilization of the Popular Liberation Army (Ejercito Popular de Liberación, EPL), the United Self-Defense Forces (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, AUC), and now of the FARC. Nevertheless, social leader’s assassinations are on the rise in this department. Among others, the speakers presented two factors as causes for this increase: (1) a general effort to exclude ethnic and racial communities, and (2) the efforts by irregular groups to maintain political and economic control of strategic regions as other groups demobilize. Different from the last two dialogues, legislators from three different political parties participated in this discussion.
The focus of discussion during the fourth dialogue was the Middle Magdalena region, a historic epicenter of the Armed Conflict and a region that extends into 8 departments. At this dialogue, speakers tried to answer the question: how has the aggression against social leaders evolved recently? In their answers, the speakers introduced a new level of analysis for the phenomenon: the extraction-based economy. Barrancabermeja is a national center for the extraction of oil, and as armed groups fight to capture some of the oil rents, to the risk to social leaders increases. The speakers also discussed other topics mentioned before such as the lack of state presence in vulnerable areas of the territory as well as the endemic corruption present in many of the country’s departments.
The Armed Conflict disproportionately affected departments like Chocó: with precarious standards of living, widespread poverty, and acute state abandonment. At its capital Quibdó, the speakers discussed these and other dire socio-economic conditions and how they impact the efforts at non-repetition. They emphasized the disparities between urban and rural territories, and why the latter experience higher levels of social leaders’ assassinations. Notably, this was the first time that a former FARC leader took part in the dialogues. Pastor Lisandro Alape, now a political leader, centered his remarks on how the lack of implementation of multiple elements of the Peace Accords hinder efforts at closing the country’s socio-economic gap. These elements include the comprehensive rural reform (Chapter 1) and the 16 congressional seats for victims of the conflict (Chapter 2).
During the last dialogue, four social leaders provided concluding remarks on the impact of social leaders’ assassinations on their communities. They reiterated the crucial political and cultural role that social leaders play in pace-building. After their remarks, Francisco de Roux—the Truth Commission’s president—and eight Commissioners spoke. They summarized the general points on the causes of social leaders’ assassinations as well as the particular impact of this phenomenon on Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities. This concluding dialogue centered on themes such as the lack of appropriate region-specific protection measures, and the forced displacements caused by social leaders’ assassinations cause. De Roux also mentioned the proposals discussed at the dialogues. Among others, he explained the need to strengthen self-defense mechanisms like the Afro-Colombian Cimarrona guard and the indigenous guard. He closed by calling for the full implement the Peace Accords.
To promote coexistence, the Truth Commission held a number of capacity-building workshops with social and community leaders. The first series, conducted in partnership with the Foundation for Reconciliation (Fundación para la Reconciliación), trained 110 social leaders in: reconciliation, restorative practices, generative dialogues, and appreciative communication. The second series consisted of 5 “truth laboratories;” an idea proposed by the Center for Faith and Culture (Centro de Fe y Culturas). At these events, the Truth Commission sought to raise awareness about the role of the environment and the territories in the promotion of coexistence. Held in Urabá, North Santander, Cauca, Caquetá and the Pacific region, 84 social leaders participated in these.
The Truth Commission also created 58 spaces for capacity-building in coexistence practices. At these events, the Truth Commission worked with victims of the conflict on coping mechanisms, constructive communication strategies, and other tools to promote peaceful coexistence. With 1,508 participants, these spaces are territorially distributed as follows:
| Macro Region | Number of processes carried out |
| Caribe | 2 |
| Center Andina | 24 |
| Middle Magdalena | 2 |
| Northeast | 9 |
| Orinoquia | 8 |
| Pacific | 5 |
| Antioquia and Eje Cafetero | 6 |
| South Andina | 2 |
Since 1997, John Otis has been reporting from Colombia, covering the Andes, for many news outlets. You may recognize his voice as National Public Radio’s correspondent in the Andes, or seen his many recent bylines in the Wall Street Journal. He is also the author of a highly recommended book about aspects of the conflict, Law of the Jungle (2010).
Here, John talks about some of the many changes he has seen in both Colombia and Venezuela during his tenure. The conversation also covers Colombia’s peace process, the difficulty of explaining the country’s complexity, and some places and people who’ve left very strong impressions over the years.
Listen above, or download the .mp3 file.
Published by National Post on March 27, 2020.
Maximum AUC paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso is to be released from U.S. custody after 12 years. This report looks at Mancuso’s deeds, the “Justice and Peace” demobilization process, and the views of AUC victims exiled in Canada.
Chapter 5, Article 1.2 of the 2016 Peace Accord created the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) as the justice component of the Comprehensive System of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Non-Repetition (Sistema Integral de Verdad, Justicia, Reparación y No Repetición, SIVJRNR). The Special Jurisdiction’s mandate, which cannot last for more than 20 years, is to administer transitional justice and uncover the crimes committed before December 1, 2016 in the context of the armed conflict. The JEP began operating after approval by the Senate on November 15, 2017 and was further strengthened on March 9, 2018 through the Acuerdo 001 of 2018, which regulated and structured its functioning.
Since it started operating and as of January 23, 2020, 12,493 individuals have come before the JEP—77.9% of them are former FARC members and 21.2% are members of the Armed Forces. It has held 96 hearings and has heard 249 individual testimonies. Notably, the JEP has granted 183 amnesties to former FARC combatants, one guarantee against extradition, 313 transitory, conditional, and anticipated parole to members of the Armed Forces or third actors, and 171 to former FARC combatants.
The JEP’s work is concentrated on seven macro-cases:
On July 4, 2018, the JEP opened case 001 to investigate the high number of kidnappings that took place throughout the armed conflict. The JEP is basing its preliminary investigations on a report by the Prosecutor’s Office that identified 8,163 victims, in cases allegedly committed by the FARC. During the case’s first stage: “recognition of truth, responsibility and determination of facts and conduct,” the JEP’s Sala de Reconocimiento has held multiple fact-finding and truth-telling sessions with former FARC members. Through these sessions, the JEP is seeking to expand the collective testimony that it received last September from 10 delegates of FARC’s former Estado Mayor. These sessions are organized territorially, based on the areas where the FARC’s Blocs operated, and held in the former Territorial Training and Reincorporation Spaces (Espacios Territoriales de Capacitación y Reincorporación, ETCRs). On December 3, 2019, former FARC members from the Occidental Bloc testified in Popayán (Cauca). Next on the list are the testimonies in Pondores (La Guajira) by the Caribe Bloc, and in Miravalle (Caquetá) by the South Bloc and the Teófilo Forero Mobile Column. Additional to these collective territorial testimonies, the JEP has also received 33 individual testimonies and will soon begin hearing from the victims. As of December 12, 2019, the JEP had accredited 1,709 victims in this case.
Opened on July 10, 2018, this case centers on investigating the human rights abuses and the violations to International Humanitarian Law (IHL) perpetrated by former FARC members and members of the Armed Forces in Nariño. Initially, the JEP is only investigating cases that occurred between January 1, 1990 and December 1, 2016. By restricting its attention to the Tumaco, Ricaurte, and Barbacoas municipalities, the JEP is taking unprecedented steps to acknowledge the environment as a victim of the armed conflict, especially in Afro-Colombian and Indigenous territories. As such, the JEP is investigating the “socio-environmental and territorial” harm that Afro-Colombian Community Councils (Consejos Comunitarios) and Awá and Eperara Siapiadaara Reservations suffered in the region. Along with these, the JEP is also investigating other crimes such as internal displacements, assassinations, sexual violence, torture, and forced recruitment. On November 2019, the JEP accredited Tumaco’s Campesino Association (Asociación Campesina de Tumaco)—a group of more than 5 thousand families—as collective victims. A week later, it recognized the Katsa Suterritory and 32 Awá cabildos as victims, more specifically as collective subjects of rights.
The JEP opened this case on July 17, 2018 to investigate the so-called false positive cases. Case 003 focuses on specific areas of the country: Cesar, Antioquia, Catatumbo (North Santander), Casanare, Meta and Huila. The evidentiary basis for the case came from a report by the Prosecutor’s Office, which identifies 2,248 victims in cases that occurred between 1988 and 2014. According to documents from the Ministry of Defense, 1,944 members of the Armed Forces have already expressed willingness to appear before the Special Jurisdiction. By December 5, 2019, the JEP had heard 156 testimonies of individuals involved in these crimes. Notably, in December 2019, the JEP ordered General Mario Montoya Uribe, former commander of the National Army, to testify. Various reports obtained by the JEP, as well as multiple testimonies by members of the Armed Forces, implicate General Montoya in cases of false positives. Also noteworthy, several testimonies in the past year led the JEP to a mass grave in Dabeiba, Antioquia apparently filled with victims of false positives. So far, the JEP has exhumed 54 bodies. The JEP’s Sala de Reconocimiento is expected to release its preliminary conclusions and begin the process of hearing from the victims later this semester.
On September 11, 2018, the JEP opened case 004. This case focuses on crimes against humanity and war crimes perpetrated in the Urabá region between January 1, 1986 and December 1, 2016. Ten municipalities are at the center of the investigations: Turbo, Apartadó, Carepa, Chigorodó, Mutatá and Dabeiba (Antioquia) and El Carmen del Darién, Riosucio, Unguía and Acandí (Chocó). Reports by the Prosecutor’s Office, the National Center of Historic Memory, and social organizations such as the Reiniciar Corporation and the Popular Research and Education Center (Centro de Investigación y Educación Popular, Cinep) cite 3,523 crimes relevant to case 004. These include cases of massacres, internal displacements, illegal land takings, gender-based violence, and sexual violence. Among the individual and collective victims identified by the JEP thus far are Unión Patriótica leaders, the Embera-Katío, Embera Chamí, and Tule o Kuna Peoples, the Afro-Colombian Community Councils (Consejos Comunitarios) of Jiguamiandó and Curvaradó, and San José de Apartadó’s Peace Community. As of February 21, 2019, the JEP had accredited more than 1,700 victims, including the most recent accreditation of 37 victims, for the “La Chinita” massacre. The JEP is expecting to hear the testimonies of 100 former members of the Armed Forces and 74 former FARC members who have some degree of responsibility for the crimes in case 004.
The JEP opened this case on November 8, 2018. Case 005 investigates 2,308 “victimizing acts” that occurred in seventeen municipalities in Northern Cauca and Southern Cauca Valley between January 1, 1993 and December 1, 2016. The significantly high number of victims that these acts produced makes this case notable. Among them are 344,333 victims of internal displacement, 1,038 victims of kidnappings, 828 victims of confinement, 260 victims of anti-personnel mines, 2,105 victims of forced disappearance, 26,861 victims of threats, 213 victims of forced recruitment, and 3,885 cases of attacks against the civilian population. On January 21, 2020, the JEP made history when it accredited the largest number of victims in any case related to the armed conflict— 124,785 victims. These victims comprise of the 31 Nasa Reservations and Cabildos part of Cauca’s Indigenous Regional Council (Consejo Regional Indígena del Cauca, CRIC) and of North Santander’s Association of Indigenous Cabildos (Asociación de Cabildos Indígenas del Norte del Cauca, ACIN). Additionally, the JEP also accredited 20,205 victims who are members of 47 Afro-descendant Community Councils (Consejos Comunitarios). Some of these Councils form the Association of North Cauca’s Community Councils (Asociación de Consejos Comunitarios del Norte del Cauca). Others are part of different organizations from Southern Cauca Valley.
The JEP opened this case on February 24, 2019 to investigate between 1,620 and 6,000 instances of victimization suffered by UP members. Among the cases are the 67 assassinations of UP leaders, which were declared crimes against humanity. Throughout last year, the JEP conducted multiple sessions to hear from UP victims in exile; it gathered 16 testimonies. By October 2019, 72 members of the Armed Forces and state agents had requested to be accepted in the JEP. These members claim to have knowledge relevant to case 006. Recently, on January 13, 2020, the JEP’s Appeals Section rejected requests from General and former DAS Director Miguel Maza Márquez to have his case taken up by the Special Jurisdiction. Maza Márquez is currently serving a 30-year sentence for the assassination of Luis Carlos Galán.
On March 1, 2019, the JEP opened case 007 to investigate cases of child recruitment from January 1, 1971 to December 1, 2016. The Prosecutor’s Office has identified 5,252 victims of child recruitment thus far. However, this phenomenon is notable for its high degree of impunity—there are only 10 convictions out of the 4,219 investigations opened by the Prosecutor’s Office. During the first stage of the investigation, the JEP applied the April 1997 Declaration of Cape Town Principles’ definition of child recruitment. The Declaration defines a child soldier as any individual under the age of 18 who forms part of an armed group in any capacity other than being a family member. According to reports received by the JEP, during the FARC’S Seventh National Guerilla Conference in 1982, the group adopted a policy that allowed recruitment of children starting at the age of 15. Moreover, the JEP has also found that such policy was not strictly applied and almost half of FARC’s child recruits were 15 years of age. These facts, according to the JEP, may suffice to attribute responsibility for these crimes to former FARC leaders. Indeed, between December 2, 2019 to January 30, 2020, the JEP summoned 14 former FARC-EP members to provide their version of the facts. Initially, the JEP only planned to summon former members of FARC’S Estado Mayor or Secretariat from 1978 to 2007.
Published by the State Department Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor on March 11, 2020.
The Colombia section of the State Department’s annual worldwide overview of human rights. (Link at state.gov)
Publicado por la Fundación Ideas para la Paz el 8 de marzo de 2020.
An infographic responding to some of the concerns raised by victims and by the general public after the FARC’s initial testimonies about its practice of mass kidnapping during the conflict.
Published by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Colombia field office on February 26, 2020.
The annual report of the UN agency, which has maintained a strong reporting and technical assistance presence in Colombia since the 1990s. (Link to Spanish and English versions at hchr.org.co)
