Weekly Update on the implementation of the Peace Accord. This week's Peace Mail covers: the five recommendations to include peace in the agenda of the national dialogue; the first public talk between ex-President Santos and Timochenko since the signature of the Peace Accord; Congress’ decision that Santrich’s seat remains empty until the end of the legislature; the National Strike Committee’s demand to resume negotiations with the ELN; the Paramilitaries’ contribution to Truth.

Download Peace Mail /  26 November - 2 December

 Five recommendations to include peace in the agenda of the national dialogue:

Non-compliance with the peace agreement has been recurrent critique formulated by different social sectors participating in the strike. The five recommendations to include peace in the agenda of the national dialogue are the following: 1) those who represent society should focus on the implementation of provisions already included in the Peace Accord; 2) the government’s call for dialogue should be inclusive – the reference to "peace with legality" is by nature exclusive; 3) the Government’s proposals should be accompanied by concrete actions (for example, designation of  concrete and sufficient budgets) in order to build confidence; 4) the government should build its proposals on the work carried out over the past three years, in which clear demands and actions plans have been formulated, in particular in the PDETs; 5) when discussing the most sensitive chapters of the Peace Agreement (the JEP or the Integral System for Truth, Justice, Reparation and Non-repetition), the starting point should be that these entities already exist, thus the focus of the debate should be on how to improve them.¹

First public talk between ex-President Santos and Timochenko since the signature of the Peace Accord: For the first time since signing the Peace Agreement, former President Juan Manuel Santos and Rodrigo Londoño, alias Timochenko, held their first public talk in Guadalajara Mexico. Commenting on the strikes that have recently agitated Colombia, Santos argued that Iván Duque had “a golden opportunity to implement the Peace Accords, which is one of the main demands of the demonstrators”. Timochenko, for his part, assured the audience that Marquez’s rearming was widely condemned and that his group would not manage to recruit widely. Both men advocated for the liberalization of drugs in order to free Colombia from violence.²

Santrich’s chair in Congress will remain empty until the end of the legislature: The FARC party officially lost a seat in the House of Representatives after its president, Carlos Cuenca, signed a resolution by which Jesus Santrich’s seat would temporarily remain vacant. The Supreme Court of Justice stressed that given that an arrest warrant for drug trafficking had been issued, Article 134 of the Constitution applied. This article says that those convicted of crimes related to the "promotion or financing of illegal armed groups or drug trafficking activities (...) or those against whom an arrest warrant is issued within the respective processes” cannot be replaced. Santrich's passage through Congress was brief; he was sworn in as representative on 11 June 2019, after being released from prison. He disappeared a few days later before appearing along Iván Marquez on the video of 28 August announcing the FARC’s rearming.³

Negotiations with the ELN on the petition list of the National Strike Committee:

In a letter sent on Friday 28 November to President Iván Duque, the National Strike Committee put five topics on the agenda of the national dialogue. One of these is entitled “integral implementation of the peace agreement”, in which the Committee suggest that possibilities to resume the dialogue with the ELN be explored. Dialogue with the guerrilla was suspended by the government in January 2019, following the group’s attack on the Police Cadet School in Bogotá, which left 23 dead. The government has repeatedly indicated that dialogue could only resume if the group released all the hostages held and forcibly recruited minors, and ceased all terrorist activities and kidnappings. So far, the ELN has not demonstrated any interest in negotiating, official information indicating that at least four people have been abducted, while attacks against oil infrastructures have continued.⁴

Paramilitaries’ contribution to Truth: During 10 years, the National Center of Historical Memory (CNMH) collected during around 9,000 testimonies of the ex-members of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). CNMH investigators compiled the information contained in 55,000 hours of interviews recorded in a book entitled “Quantitative Analysis of Paramilitarism in Colombia”. The book presents the most important figures of this armed group and presents its patterns, the profiles of its members and even its modi operandi from the 1990s to 2006, when the group demobilized. Close to 45% of the demobilized combatants came from Antioquia, and 60% declared having joined the paramilitary group for financial reasons.⁵