FARC Says Colombian State Must Respect, Defend Human Rights

At the resumption of peace negotiations Tuesday, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) denounced the deaths of 19 human rights defenders and threats issued to a further 249 activists during the first trimester of 2015.

The death threats represented a tripling of the amount of threats over the same period last year.

The FARC’s comments were made in light of the opening of the 36th cycle of peace talks, underway in Havana between the rebels and delegates from Juan Manuel Santos’s government.

Referring to the government of Alvaro Uribe, which regularly boasted about killing guerrilla commanders, FARC delegate Commander Pastor Alape said:

“In no other country in the world have there been presidents who organize and lead narco-paramilitary armies, or who publicly proclaim before television cameras that they have committed war crimes.”

Uribe is currently facing investigations of having links to paramilitary forces.

Alape said that the state must meet its obligations under international law, as well as respect its own laws on the matter of protection of human rights.

"It is evident, then, that the Colombian state is an offender state; despite the fact it has sat at the dialogue table for more than two years now with the aim of ending a prolonged political and armed social conflict, it continues to maintain its long-standing habit of failing to comply with its own commitment and its own laws,” said Alape.

The FARC reiterated its commitment to reaching an agreement with the Santos government that will end the five-decade-long conflict but said this would only be possible if Colombia ceased to be an “offender state.”

The peace process and its proponents have faced regular attacks over the two-and-a-half year period it has lasted. Former senator and advocate of the Colombia peace process, Piedad Cordoba, was recently attacked outside her home in Bogota, Colombia’s capital.

The peace process faced a serious test after an armed clash in April left 11 government soldiers and two guerrillas dead. The government claimed its soldiers were ambushed, which the FARC vehemently denied, saying the actions by the guerrillas were defensive in nature.