RPR Peace Mail 8-14 October
This week's Peace Mail covers: The call from the UN Security Council for strengthening the reintegration of former combatants; the extended deadline from the JEP to receive reports from victims and social organizations; the decision from the FARC political party to expel Santrich and Iván Márquez; and, the numbers of forcibly displaced people since the beginning of the year.
Download Peace Mail / 08-14 October 2019
This callout box includes a weekly update on news and work specifically related to implementing the Peace Accord between the Government of Colombia (GOC) and the FARC-EP.
The UN Security Council calls for strengthening the reintegration of former combatants: The Security Council called for accelerated measures to reintegrate former FARC combatants and ensure their safety and that of social leaders. It insisted that the Colombian State needed to reach out to the most remote parts of the country in order to improve security and prevent a return to conflict. The Security Council also condemned the return to arms of several former guerrilla leaders and commended the response of the Government, the FARC party, and society at large. The UN Special Representative of the Secretary General for Colombia, Carlos Ruiz Massieu, stressed the need for further progress in the social reintegration of former combatants, and the urgency to increase support to those who remain committed to peace. "It is now more important than ever to support the women and men who remain firmly committed to peace and to transforming their lives and those of their families and communities," he told the Security Council.[1]
The JEP extends deadline to receive reports from victims and social organizations: Today the judges decided to extend the deadline for the submission of reports containing all the facts concerning victims and events that occurred throughout the 50-year-long war, to 15 March 2021. For the judges of the Truth Recognition Chamber, this decision guarantees the principle of centrality of the victims and their right to access to justice, truth, reparation and non-repetition. This extension will also enable the JEP to exercise its jurisdiction over actions that, in the opinion of the social organizations, violated their human rights, but also to formally recognize the victims and their right to participate actively in the respective judicial processes. However, it was stipulated that the extension only applied to organizations and victims. For State entities, the initial deadline of 15 March 2020 was maintained.[2]
FARC slams the door on Santrich and Iván Márquez: The FARC party published a communiqué in which they expelled Iván Márquez, Jesús Santrich and the other rearming former FARC combatants who abandoned the reincorporation process. The arguments advanced by the party were: "the abandonment of the peace process, the rearmament, the usurpation of the historical name (FARC - EP) and the ignorance of its management bodies, statutes and code of ethics". Since the announcement of the rearmament, the whole country has been attentive to the reaction of those who laid down their weapons. On the same day the famous video was released, the spokesperson of the party assured that they did not share their former comrades’ decision, and that they would remain committed to peace.[3]
Since the beginning of the year, 15,140 people have been forcibly displaced: The Ombudsman's Office has documented the occurrence of 58 events of massive forced displacement as a consequence of the armed conflict, which have affected 15,140 people (5,126 families). 15 of these events occurred in Nariño, 13 in Chocó and 10 in Antioquia, the departments most affected by these events. In addition to the forced displacements, the situation of confinement in which several territories find themselves, is also worrying. According to the Ombudsman’s Office, in August and September only, the armed incursion of the AGC in the municipality of Murindó (Chocó) and the possibility of clashes with the ELN, have led to the confinement of 1,773 indigenous people from the Chageradó and Murindó indigenous reserves.[4]
Government requests that Cuba extradites ELN commanders: The Colombian Government sent Cuba a new request for the extradition of ELN commanders. Since last July, it has insisted that the guerrilla leaders be extradited from the island to answer for the crimes they committed in the context of the armed conflict in Colombia. The High Commissioner for Peace explained that this new extradition request is based on an order of the fourth sentence execution judge of Antioquia, who requested that Aureliano Carbonell and Pablo Beltrán, members of the Central Command, respond in Colombia for the Machuca massacre which was committed 21 years ago and left 84 dead.[5]