Challenges and alternatives towards peacebuilding. Israel Biel Portero
economic loss or substantial impairment of their fundamental rights, through acts or omissions that constitute gross violations of international human rights law, or serious violations of international humanitarian law. Where appropriate, and in accordance with domestic law, the term “victim” also includes the immediate family or dependents of the direct victim and persons who have suffered harm in intervening to assist victims in distress or to prevent victimization. (ONU, doc. A/RES/60/147, 2005, para. 10).
This definition served as a reference for Law 1448 of 2011, known as the “Ley de Víctimas y Restitución de Tierras” or “Victims and Land Restitution Law”, establishing the concept of victim at the national level. However, with regards to the internal armed conflict, Article 3 of this law limits the recognition of a victim to events that occurred only after January 1st, 1985.
Different international standards have established the essential guarantees of those people that have suffered damages as a result of serious violations of their human rights or violations of International Humanitarian Law. These guarantees, known as victims’ rights, can essentially be broken down into three categories: truth, justice and reparation. The right to the truth implies the right to know the truth of what happened, which includes: who committed the acts, under what circumstances and for what reasons they were committed. The right to justice is the right for the State to investigate, prosecute and, if appropriate, punish those responsible for the acts in proportion to the damage caused. The right to reparation is the right of the victim to be fully compensated for the damage suffered. Reparation, which can be individual or collective, can be carried out in various ways, mainly through measures of restitution, compensation, rehabilitation or satisfaction. The establishment of guarantees of non-recurrence, which was originally conceived as a means of reparation, has been configured over time as an autonomous right to adopt the necessary measures, including structural or institutional transformations, to prevent the victimizing acts from reoccurring.
These basic rights of the victims have been recognized internally by the different States that make up the international community. In the Colombian case, not only have they been recognized and established both normatively and jurisprudentially, but they occupy a central place in the Peace Agreement. Indeed, it is in the contexts of transitional justice that the rights of the victims acquire their full meaning, since these rights are precisely the pillars on which the peace process is built.
The post-conflict challenges
Far from being the final objective of the Peace Agreement, the disarmament and demobilization of the FARC are merely the starting point in the process that is beginning to develop. To achieve national reconciliation, allowing for a peaceful coexistence in Colombia, great efforts are required on behalf of all the belligerents of the conflict and the rest of society. To ensure that the conflict does not recur, structural reforms will be necessary to address the problems that caused and exacerbated it. However, there will be many difficulties that will have to be faced during this process.
Achievements and difficulties in the implementation of the Peace Agreement
One of the greatest achievements with the implementation of the Agreement has been the abandonment of weapons by the FARC. Disarmament occurred in a particularly short period of time and in a number that exceeded expectations. Next, came the extrication of the former guerrillas and their process of reincorporation into civilian life. This reincorporation was especially successful in the political sphere, since the “Fuerza Revolucionaria Alternativa del Común” (FARC) political party was formed, which will be represented in Congress. Today the FARC has ceased to exist as a guerrilla organization, the number of victims has fallen dramatically and the indicators of violence are, globally, the lowest in recent decades.
Significant progress has also been made in mine clearance tasks, as interventions have already been carried out on more than half of the country’s mined territory. In the legislative field, more than a hundred norms have been approved, including several constitutional reforms, aimed at regulating and executing concrete measures to implement the agreements. Some institutions, such as the Truth Commission, the Missing Persons Search Unit and the Special Court for Peace, are in the process of organization and structuring. It is true that they are not yet fully operational, but it is also true that we are at a very early stage of the post-conflict.
However, many significant challenges still face the peace process. One of the main problems has been the constant breach by the Government of its obligations in the Agreement, as verified by various national and international supervisors (Comisión Internacional de Verificación de Derechos Humanos en Colombia, 2018; Fundación Paz y Reconciliación, 2018a). Regarding the point of “Comprehensive Rural Reform”, there are significant delays due to the lack of coordination and resources, derived fundamentally from the absence of a CONPES document. Thus, there are still no concrete plans for rural development and the Land Fund only has 200,000 hectares of the three million planned. There are also setbacks with regards to the point on illicit crops, as the success of the voluntary substitution programs depends largely on the “Planes de Desarrollo con Enfoque Territorial” (PDET) or “Development Plans with a Territorial Focus”, whose implementation is experiencing serious difficulties.
Since the signing of the Peace Agreement, the “Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz” (JEP) or “Special Court for Peace”, has had to face numerous obstacles and difficulties that have conditioned and limited its proper functioning. Along with the absence of legislative will to regulate its code of procedure, the substantive reforms promised by President Iván Duque have generated great uncertainty regarding its near future.
In addition to the weakness and lack of coordination of the institutional architecture for post-conflict (International Commission for the Verification of Human Rights in Colombia, 2018), there has been a very worrying rise in paramilitary activities and criminal gangs in the regions, as well as the terrible increase in selective killings of community leaders and human rights defenders (Fundación Paz y Reconciliación, 2018a).
The “Zonas Veredales Transitorias de Normalización”
The Peace Agreement foresaw the need for the creation of several “Zonas Veredales Transitorias de Normalización” (ZVTN) or “Transitional Normalization Zones”, and “Puntos Transitorios de Normalización” (PTN) or “Transitional Normalization Spots” in the national territory. These are temporary and transitory areas, defined, delimited and agreed upon by the National Government and the FARC, to carry out the process of leaving arms and beginning the guerrilla group’s transition to legality.
As established in Point 3.1.4.1 of the Agreement, the location of the ZVTN would be agreed upon by both parties and would feature ease of access by road or river. Its limits would correspond to those of the village where they were located and would be of reasonable size so as to allow monitoring and verification by the Monitoring and Verification Mechanism and the fulfillment of the objectives of the ZVTN, with the references of these limits being more specifically anchored to geographical features or characteristics of the local terrain.
In the department of Nariño, two ZVTN were established: one in Policarpa and the other in Tumaco. Although the municipality of Policarpa is located in Andean territory and that of Tumaco on the Pacific coast, both territories had two important factors in common; high rates of violence derived from the armed conflict with a constant presence of armed actors, and a high percentage of their inhabitants economically dependent on the cultivation of illicit crops –basically coca– or other activities linked to drug trafficking. These elements, together with conditions of poverty and the absence of effective state control, made them two particularly complex territories.
After a pre-grouping period, the guerrillas moved towards the two ZVTN in January 2017. In both areas, the basic infrastructure was found to be severely inadequate for the task at hand, which affected the minimum living and safety conditions of the ex-combatants. Under the supervision of the Tripartite Monitoring and Verification Mechanism, they remained there carrying out the essential task of adaptation until the conversion of the ZVTN into “Espacios Territoriales de Capacitación y Reincorporación” (ETCR) or “Territorial Spaces for Training and Reincorporation”.
Currently, very few of those remain, as the serious breach by the State of many of its commitments