By Stefano Pozzebon, CNN
Colombia’s Fact Fee introduced a long-awaited report on practically six a long time of widespread civil battle throughout an emotionally charged ceremony within the nation’s capital, Bogota, on Tuesday.
The fee’s last report marks the fruits of hours of interviews with victims, armed actors and public servants concerned within the armed wrestle between the Colombian state and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The fee was established in 2016, as a part of a historic peace settlement between the Colombian authorities and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
The 800-page report sheds mild on human rights abuses and legal occasions that occurred in Colombia through the 52-year armed battle that killed as much as 220,000 folks and displaced as many as 5 million folks.
It additionally comprises suggestions for the way the nation can transfer ahead, at the same time as combating continues, regardless of the 2016 peace deal.
Listed here are 5 key takeaways from the report:
There may be an “limitless” checklist of victims
It stays unclear how many individuals died within the battle, which touched each side of Colombian society, in response to the fee. By conservative estimates, in response to the Nationwide Middle for Historic Reminiscence, over 260,000 civilians misplaced their lives on account of the violence.
If each named sufferer of the battle was to be learn aloud it will take over 17 years to undergo all of them, Father Francisco de Roux, the top of the Fact Fee, mentioned Tuesday.
“The checklist is limitless… the ache is immense,” he mentioned.
The fee additionally established that the overwhelming majority of the battle’s victims had been civilians, estimating that as much as 34,000 kids had been forcibly recruited by guerrillas within the final 30 years of the battle alone.
Whereas the deal with Tuesday was dedicated to the ultimate, 800-page report on findings and suggestions, the 11-member fee additionally revealed 9 further volumes detailing historic occasions, testimonies and transcripts from over 14,000 interviews from 2016 to 2020.
The army ought to deal with human rights
The fee mentioned the Colombian armed forces dedicated human rights abuses and carried out legal warfare all through the battle. They’re now calling on the army to bear widespread reform, saying that “the safety method didn’t generate safety.”
De Roux has urged authorities to refocus the army on human rights and worldwide requirements of regulation, and has additionally known as for the creation of a civil police drive. (In Colombia, the police are a part of the Ministry of Protection and policemen typically prepare and work with army items.)
Reframe the battle on medication
The fee recommends the federal government fully change its battle on medication. Drug trafficking is such a pervasive drive in Colombian society that it must be thought-about a political entity and never the goal of repressive measures, the report says.
It requires the top of the observe of aerial fumigations to fight the harvest of coca vegetation in rural areas, as a result of damaging influence it has on well being, meals safety and the setting.
And whereas successive Colombian governments have celebrated the extradition of highly effective drug traffickers, the fee advises that it cease approving so many requests to respect the rights of victims. As an alternative, they advise that drug traffickers face trial in Colombia.
Colombia’s outgoing president was absent
Whereas the fee’s work has been praised at a global degree — notably by the US ambassador to Colombia — visibly absent at Tuesday’s occasion was present President Ivan Duque, who was touring overseas.
In 2016, Duque campaigned towards the peace deal that led to the creation of the Fact Fee and, whereas he vowed to respect the settlement when he grew to become president, safety deteriorated below his watch.
Duque’s celebration, the Democratic Middle, whose chief Alvaro Uribe oversaw one of many bloodiest phases of the armed battle, launched a press release on Tuesday saying: “We don’t suppose it’s applicable that anyone established dogmatic or definitive truths in relation to the battle as there are a number of variations across the occasions that occurred through the battle.”
In the meantime, President-elect Gustavo Petro, a former guerrilla who was elected because the nation’s first left-wing chief in Colombia’s historical past this month, was current. He obtained the ultimate report from de Roux’s palms on behalf of the Colombian folks. He will likely be inaugurated in August.
The report isn’t legally binding
Though the fee’s report is essentially the most in depth investigation into human rights abuses and legal occasions that happened through the armed battle, it carries no authorized weight.
As a part of the 2016 peace settlement, a particular Peace Tribunal is tasked with investigating and sentencing armed actors from each the armed forces and the guerrillas.
The Fact Fee’s position was to current suggestions to stop the same battle from taking place once more.
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