Peace talks
COLOMBIA: Broad participation in the Regional Peace Tables to address the issue of victims
Victims of Valle del Cauca, and Nariño attend the fifth regional peace tableand put forward their proposals to the fifth item on the agenda: the victims. More than four regional tables still remain to be organized in Pretoria, Neiva and Ibagué. This is the second round of regional tables. The first table dealt with the agricultural development policy and political participation. In the five tables that have until now dealt with the issue of reparation to the victims about two thousand people and 700 social organizations from four regions were involved. (El Espectador, 07/06/13)
Weeks before the expiration of the original term for the Justice and Peace Law, demobilized paramilitaries during Alvaro Uribe's government have failed to deliver goods for reparation to the victims. The norm, adopted in mid-2005, was valid for eight years and gave former paramilitary groups the benefit of much lower sentences for their crimes in exchange for truth, justice and reparation. And despite international criticism that the sentences have not reached key paramilitary chiefs who, however, have spent all these years in jail, redress is the area where least progress have been achieved. (El Tiempo, 12/06/13)
The International Criminal Court (ICC) is monitoring the steps taken in the peace talks between the FARC and the government that are taking place in Havana as the agreements could have some implications for the preliminary study of the Colombian case the ICC Prosecution has undertaken since 2005. ICC analysts, Daniel Ulmer and Eugenia Valenzuela, were in Bogotá at the Conference on Prosecution of International Crimes, organized by the Ministry of Justice at Javeriana University. (El Tiempo, 21/06/13)