Colombia moves past reconciliation and revives the idea of reparation
Jun 10, 2011
from Michelle Chen's article in Colorlines:
When unspeakable crimes have been committed, justice often falls silent, too. That’s why half a century after Colombia plunged into bloody conflict and oppression, the healing has barely begun. But a new law is trying to make victims of the violence whole in a country still fractured by brutal violence. In the process, it has revived an old debate over reparations, and how society should confront past injustices that still shape life today.
Colombia’s so-called “victims’ law” is the product of years of negotiation between the government and militia groups. The law centers on punishment as well as restitution. Many will be compelled to confess their crimes and, unlike many previous efforts at what’s been dubbed restorative justice, survivors will be allowed to petition for compensation.
....The law contains two main parts, the first refers to the judicial process and the conditions under which the members of illegal armed groups (either paramilitary of guerrilla) can benefit from an alternative punishment. That is among others to fully confess their crimes, depose their weapons, enter into a peace agreement, and stop their interference in public affairs, release the people they have kidnapped, contribute to finding the victims of forced disappearance.
The second part of the law refers to the rights of the victims to truth, justice and reparation.
For the first time in Colombia’s history victims came to the center of the attention as it was understood that they were they hinge between justice and peace. Beneficiaries will only be entitled to an alternative punishment if, and only if, they confessed all their crimes, were subject to a criminal procedure by independent prosecutors and judges and, most important of all, if they repaired the victims of their atrocities.
This model of restorative justice parallels similar systems in other countries devastated by conflict. But it takes an unprecedented, perhaps precarious, step toward both symbolic and material recompense.
New debates in human rights law have in fact broadened the concept of restorative justice, popularized during South Africa’s transition from Apartheid. There have recently been movements for reparations for descendants of enslaved Africans in America, and for the so-called “climate debt“—the damages created by global warming—that is owed by rich industrialized nations to indigenous peoples and other poor communities in the Global South.
Through its reparations law, the Colombian government pledges to offset survivors’ losses through monetary compensation, land redistribution, and other restorative measures. The core of the system is not retribution but repair.
Law of Justice and Peace
Unfortunately the author did not have material that clearly explained the situation of the Law of Justice and Peace that was approved in 2005, which during the last five and a half years has only achieved 3 sentences against those paramilitary members who supposedly had to confess everything. Telling the truth became a tug-of-war between the Colombian government and the demobilized prisoners because the truth indicated that the politicians, business leaders, authorities at all levels and the State’s armed forces were involved with, planned with, financed or allowed the paramilitaries to commit atrocities against whoever they chose, principally the civilian population. Many of those involved have been convicted, several are in prison, and others are being investigated by the Supreme Court of Colombia which has received a lot of support on the part of society, and a lot of rejection on the part of others, including the previous government.
Another detail is that the fighters who demobilized under the law of 2005 have to turn over their fortunes of war to the Reparations fund. Today said fund is so poor that the government just passed a new law, the Victims Law of 2011 in order for the State to pay reparation to the victims under the Law of Justice and Peace with taxes from the citizenry. That is to say that the victims of the demobilized paramilitary members who will receive a maximum sentences of eight years for the horrors they have committed.
The innovation of the Victim’s Law is that it recognises that the armed conflict of more than forty years has created victims at the hands of many forces. It recognises the victims that suffered through acts committed by the paramilitaries, the guerrillas or by the legitimate armed forces when they committed criminal abuses since 1985.
The judicial process of the Law of Justice and Peace has been a failure as truth, punishment and reparation but it has permitted the visibility of the thousands of victims and this year the politicians responded with the Law of Victims despite the denials of ex-president Uribe and his party of the U. It is not certain whether this law has been “a process of negotiation over many years between the government and the militia groups.
Restorative justice??? There are some small examples of confessions and apologies to victims through the judicial process related to the Law of Justice and Peace that at times have been televised as news but primarily the process happen in the court houses. The present government is apologizing and returning property in the majority of the country’s zones the conditions do not allow for the victims to return with security for their lives or the option to develop projects.
The situation is complicated and the armed conflict continues but I am a part of a group of three professionals that has created a business called JANO to promote restorative justice options. I will keep you all informed.
Cordial greetings,
Annette Pearson