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News > Colombia

Colombia: Victims Reject Closure of Investigation On War Crimes

  • Citizens demand justice for the extra judicial killings' victims, Colombia, 2021.

    Citizens demand justice for the extra judicial killings' victims, Colombia, 2021. | Photo: Twitter/ @MAFAPOCOLOMBIA

Published 29 October 2021
Opinion

"This agreement guarantees total impunity to the Colombian State for the extrajudicial killings and other acts of violence against the civilian population": human rights defenders. 

On Friday, the Victims of State Crimes Movement (MOVICE) rejected the agreement made by the Colombian government and the International Criminal Court Attorney's Office (CPI), which closed the preliminary investigations of the crimes against humanity committed by the State during this country's over-55-year-long armed conflict. 

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"This agreement represents a blow to the war crimes’ victims since it guarantees total impunity to the State for the extrajudicial killings and other acts of violence against the civilian population," the MOVICE spokesperson Eliecer Arias stated.

The CPI investigation included murders, rapes, gender violence, and forced displacement cases, which continue in this Latin American country even though the Colombian State and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) signed a Peace Agreement in 2016.

Arias considered that the likelihood of impartial and independent investigations into these crimes within the country is nil since Colombian courts are not likely to open such cases under far-right President Ivan Duque’s administration.

The CPI decision does not offer guarantees for the non-repetition of these crimes. This situation is worrying, especially if we consider that police forces killed 78 Colombians and raped over 25 young women during this year’s anti-government demonstrations, Arias stresssed.

So far this year, 142 social leaders and 41 guerilla fighters have also been assassinated because of the territorial disputes of gangs dedicated to drug trafficking and illegal mining activities.

"We will continue to fight in the streets and also at the international level so that impunity does not continue to reign in Colombia. We owe this fight to the war crimes’ victims and ourselves as a society," Arias concluded.

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