The Colombian Peace Agreement (EN)

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INFORME GENERAL Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica San Vicente del Caguán, Caqueta, July 2000 Credit: San Vicente Jesús del Abad Caguán, Colorado, Caqueta, julio 2000. Fotografía: Jesús Abad Colorado © Source: “¡Basta Ya! Colombia: memorias de guerra y dignitad. Informe General. Grupo de Memoria Historica” – Centro Nacional de Memoria Historica 320 territory was controlled by FARC forces, and the state had no presence in 158 of Colombia’s 1,099 Municipalities – 16% of the total territory. 27 “The Colombian public was totally disillusioned with the prospects for a peace deal with the leftist insurgents, and it was during this period that the FARC reached the peak of its size and power, with an estimated 16,000-20,000 fighters.” 28 Following the severe blows dealt by the Uribe and Santos administrations, FARC fronts, which had been pushed to more remote rural areas and along the jungle borders with Venezuela and Ecuador, have diversified their income source to cattle rusting, illegal logging and illegal mining, particularly gold mining in Colombia’s north and along its Pacific coast. Despite important military victories against the FARC by the Santos government, from 2011 to 2012 there was a significant increase in FARC attacks on infrastructure, such as electricity towers, trains carrying coal and oil pipelines, which often resulted in natural disasters. Some observers speculate that this upsurge in attacks was an effort by the FARC to demonstrate their strength, to gain a stronger negotiating position in peace talks which were actively sought by the group. The Armed Forces of Colombia On March 28 th , 2016, an army general was arrested for his role, a decade previously, in a scandal that saw civilians being killed and subsequently presented as guerrillas killed in combat. The Chief Prosecutor’s Office also announced it would seek the detention of another general, a close ally of former president Uribe, who headed the army when the so-called “false positives” scandal broke in 2008. 29 The revelation that security forces killed thousands of civilians to inflate body counts on which bonuses 10
and vacations were based tarnished the US-backed military, damaged the perception that Uribe’s aggressive campaign against the FARC was bearing fruit but so far had led to very few charges against high-ranking officers. As a deal between the FARC and the government was approaching its conclusion, human rights groups have been warning the public that the accord could have allowed top officers to escape convictions or even prosecution. Between 2002 and 2008, army brigades across Colombia systematically executed more than 4,000 civilians to make it appear they were killing more rebel fighters in action. To date, more than 800 members of Colombia’s security forces have been convicted and hundreds more are still under investigation. 30 Paramilitaries and army soldiers often attempted to inflate combat kills to please army commanders. They were rewarded with 4 million pesos, around €1.150, per casualty. Young campesinos or poor homeless people from big cities’ suburbs were usually targeted. According to freelance journalist Mike Power, “in October 2008, 11 young men were enticed away from their homes in Soacha, a poor suburb of Bogotá, and offered work. A few weeks later, they were found dead near the border of Venezuela, dressed in FARC uniforms and presented as dead guerrillas”. 31 The UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions condemned the crime, but, nevertheless, he admitted that it only represented the tip of the iceberg, since the practice was “carried out in a more or less systematic fashion by significant elements within the military”. 32 The mothers of those victims have been campaigning for justice ever since, and are still receiving death threats. Claudia Ortega is still seeking justice for her mother, who was shot at her home in Vista Hermosa (Meta department). “The Army had surrounded her mother’s home on 4 June 2007. That day, a group of guerrillas were seen crossing the patio of her home, and the Army, using heavy artillery [...] and helicopters, destroyed the house. A bullet blasted through her mother’s neck, according to medical records”. 33 When Claudia searched her mother’s home, her body was not there. It had been taken away and buried: the army had claimed she was a guerrilla, and buried her like one in a graveyard. Locals said the army has no respect for civilians in areas where they operate. They claimed if the combat kills the army declared were actually true, there would be no guerrillas left and the war would be over. That same day, “the Army claimed it had killed 12 guerrillas [...] Locals said only 4 of those men were guerrillas, the rest were local boys who were working aside the road, but by the time the families got to the graveyard they were already buried”. 34 In 2015 the Council of State declared that extrajudicial executions amounted to a systematic practice. However, investigations over these crimes have not proceeded with the necessary celerity. For the year 2015, the Direction of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law, which follows a significant percentage of such cases, has registered 2,653 investigations for murder, of which 167 were closed. 7,773 army members were instigated in these cases, involving 4,392 victims, of which 183 were women and 223 were children. Up until August 2015, only 838 army members had been condemned for their participation in 210 cases. Furthermore, delaying tactics by defence attorneys and laxity of some judges have prevented the progress of many criminal proceedings for murders committed by members of the armed forces. 35 11
Page 1 and 2: THE COLOMBIAN PEACE AGREEMENT HOW W
Page 3 and 4: The aim of this research is to prov
Page 5 and 6: Introduction On August 24 th 2016,
Page 7 and 8: INFORME GENERAL Centro Nacional de
Page 9: profits, land control is a fundamen
Page 13 and 14: ended in April 2006: more than 31,0
Page 15 and 16: countability process. These organiz
Page 17 and 18: post-conflict democracy - set out t
Page 19 and 20: maintain such measures as long as t
Page 21 and 22: such provisions since its inception
Page 23 and 24: 23 June 2016: President Santos and
Page 25 and 26: Carolina, in the jungle of Putumayo
Page 27 and 28: solution that they deem too lenient
Page 29 and 30: Even if an agreement on the FARC de
Page 31 and 32: The real political winner is Uribe,
Page 33 and 34: which the ex-guerrillas were schedu
Page 35 and 36: over child combatants to family-wel
Page 37 and 38: Endnotes 1 World Bank estimates say
Page 39 and 40: 41 Jon Lee Anderson, “At last, a
Page 41 and 42: 82 Informe anual del Alto Comisiona
Page 43 and 44: 119 WOLA Statement: “Peace is Sti
Page 45 and 46: 147 Nicholas Casey, “Colombia’s

The Colombian Peace Agreement (EN)

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