Internally displaced people in Colombia: Victims in permanent transition

by Dan Van Ness 

I have just received a copy of a research study on the peace negotiations in Colombia: Internally displaced people in Colombia: Victims in permanent transition: Ethical and political dilemmas of reparative justice in the midst of internal armed conflict by Sandro Jiménez Ocampo, et al.

From 2004 to 2007, the Colombian Government conducted peace negotiations with paramilitary groups. One of the issues negotiated had to do with the claims of people who had been killed or forcibly displace from their land, lands that were held by the combatants when the negotiations began.

Forced displacement and deaths continued during the course of the negotiations, creating new claims. While reparation to victims was supposed to be a prominent outcome to the negotiations, the difficulties of negotiating peace in the course of a violent conflict together with the absence of the victims of displacement from the negotiation meant that there were claims of serious inadequacies with the results. 

Jan 28, 2010 Retribution, Theory, Correspondent:Dan Van Ness, Victim, National Reconciliation, Region: Latin America, Country:Colombia, Restitution

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Prisoners donating money to Lakewood families

Note: On November 29, 2009, a gunman shot and killed four police officers as they sat eating at a restaurant in Lakewood, Washington.

from Eric Wilkinson's report on KING-5 News:

It's a cold and unforgiving place - a place you'd expect to find nothing but bitterness and hatred toward police. But at the Monroe State Reformatory, the heartless killings of four Lakewood police officers are softening even the most hardened criminals.

"The first thing that went through my mind was, 'oh no, not again'," said triple murderer Tony Wheat, who killed three gas station clerks during robberies 44 years ago and who is serving a life sentence at Monroe.

He's part of a prison organization called "Concerned Lifers" where those serving life terms try to mentor young convicts and keep them from reoffending. Wheat says the Lakewood killings shocked many inside the reformatory's walls.

Jan 08, 2010 Restitution, Prison

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