Colombia: Justice for Victims at Center of Peace Process

teleSUR English 2015-06-02

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The issue of justice for victims of Colombia's five-decade armed conflict continues to dominate peace negotiations underway in Havana. Many argue that justice must be understood in a broad context, which in this case includes recognition of the damages, serious compensation for victims, guarantees of non-repetition, the truth about what actually occurred, and acknowledgement of responsibility from the perpetrators. Gustavo Gallon, of the Colombia Commission of Jurists warns against reducing the question of justice to mere prison terms for the responsible parties. For lawyer Victor Manuel Moncayo, a member of the Historical Commission on the Conflict, a peace agreement requires an assessment of the nature of the conflict, the complexity of factors that were at play, and assigning responsibility to both the state and rebel organizations. One of the issues that must be addressed is what's known as the "false positives scandal", whereby victims of repression were dressed up as rebel soldiers and accused of being guerrilla fighters in order to inflate the government's body count and deflect attention away from the authorities' role in human rights violations. Natalia Margarita reports from Bogota.

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