Ethnic peoples were the population that gave the most testimonies to the Truth Commission. / EFE
One day left for the Truth Commission deliver to the country its Final Report, a document that summarizes the more than three years of mandate of this institution that seeks to explain to the country the origins and reasons for the armed conflict of more than fifty years. In its pages, it talks about the violence between 1958 and 2016, the reasons for the persistence of the conflict in the country, the criminal patterns and the responsibilities of each sector of society in this war.
This is not the first time in the world that these spaces have been created to achieve a transition to peace, after an armed conflict or a Peace Agreement. There have been 51 in the whole world: the first was that of Ugandana, which intended to investigate the forced disappearance that existed in that country in the midst of its armed conflict in the 1980s, but in Latin America Several countries have already gone through this experience: Peru, Panama, Uruguay, El Salvador, Guatemala, Ecuador and Argentina, among others.
However, the Truth Commission in Colombia it has unprecedented characteristics that none of them have had in another country: there is a gender chapter, in which the violence of women and the LGBTIQ+ population in the midst of the conflict is addressed; there is an ethnic chapter, in which the patterns of violence of indigenous and Afro-descendant populations are treated differently, and there is also a chapter dedicated to voices in exile, which addresses the invisible experience of Colombians who have had to leave of the country because of the war.
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Another of the particularities of the final report that the country will receive this June 28 is the voices chapter, where testimonies and stories about what the armed conflict meant are included, as part of an exercise in historical memory. This point, in charge of the commissioner Alexander Castillejohas a leading role in the multimedia platform of the Report, because there are sound extracts with some testimonies of the victims, but also of armed actors. The Truth Commission it is the first in the world to include a sound volume as part of its report.
Violence against women and the LGBTIQ+ population
One of the ten chapters of the Final report is that of women and the LGBTIQ+ population, which addresses sexual and reproductive violence and the forms of differentiated violence to which this population was subjected by different armed actors. The woman behind this investigative work is the commissioner Alexandra Miller, 51-year-old economist who has worked for more than half her life with women who have lived through the armed conflict. Her journey began with the Women’s Peaceful Route and much of his work has been centered in the department of Cauca.
There were several civil organizations that delivered, over three years, reports, documents, testimonies and investigations to the Truth Commission for their stories to be included in the Final Report: Sisma Mujer, the House of Women, the Pacific Route of Women, Women’s Link Worldwide, Colombia Diversa, Caribe Afirmativo and Santamaría Foundation, among many other territorial entities that also participated in this extrajudicial process.
His expectation is that the Commission manage to dimension the impacts that women have experienced throughout the history of Colombia and how they have been spoils of war for the armed actors. Mariana Ardila, of Women’s Link, says that they hope this chapter will deal in detail with the reproductive violence to which several women were subjected. “There is a subcategory of gender violence that is reproductive violence, it is different from sexual violence and in the armed conflict it was committed, for example, when women were forced to plan or subjected to forced abortions in unsafe conditions. This issue has been much more invisible.
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Lawyer Ardila says that they hope that one of the recommendations of the Final report be the reparation of girls and women victims of reproductive violence, for example, who were part of armed groups such as the FARC, either because they were recruited at an early age or because they joined the ranks voluntarily. “The Victims Law (1448 of 2011) It excludes them from reparation if these women demobilized or fled from the group when they were of legal age, despite the fact that they are also victims. We hope that this Law changes and not that they have to file guardianships in each case”.
Carmen Perlaza*a woman victim of forced displacement and gender violence in 2004 in Casanare, says that she told her story to the Truth Commission in 2021 to document the types of violence to which she was subjected for being a woman. “The paramilitaries came to the village, the Public force and the guerrilla and asked us to help them. We had to do all the kitchen and cleaning work for them, and it was very hard because I had my small children and one had to go out to the market with violence in broad daylight and continue to carry out the tasks of caring for them. ”. Laura Beltran, political scientist from the Paz area of Diverse Colombia, affirmed that they hope that the Final Report recognizes the discrimination of people of diverse sexual conditions as a central fact in the development of the war and not as an accessory or a minor matter. “It must be understood that the LGBTIQ+ population was useful to the armed groups for the development of their goals, such as punishing them in front of the entire civilian population and thus sowing terror in the rest of society. They were used.”
He also says that they hope that within the recommendations of the Report there will be one aimed at understanding how the armed conflict separated and atomized this population from the rest of Colombian society and they also hope that there will be a detailed contribution on how they should be repaired.
the pain of exile
the commissioner Carlos Martin Beristaina Spanish doctor and psychologist, was in charge of the exile chapter, one of the most innovative in a truth commission in the world, which seeks to explain the phenomenon of exile as the last exit of many Colombians after experiencing multiple victimizations in the context of the conflict. According to Beristain, they managed to collect more than 2,000 testimonies from Colombians abroad in 27 countries.
This chapter, according to the commissioner, contains information about which little has been discussed and investigated in the country. “For example, the truth about justice in Colombia: there are judges and prosecutors who know, like no one else, cases of human rights violations, public and private corruption, who, because of that knowledge, had to go out and keep that truth to themselves until today.” This section was consolidated with a different methodology from the rest: it was the same victims who, in other countries, compiled the testimonies of their compatriots to deliver them to the Commission, through workshops that supported various embassies and social organizations to train 240 interviewers around the world.
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It is the opportunity to measure the territorial and cultural uprooting, the frustrations to the life project and other types of affectations that Colombians live abroad. According to Victims Unit, there are 25,643 refugees, exiles or asylum seekers due to the internal armed conflict. One of them is Carlos Echevarriwho has been in exile for 18 years after receiving threats after on September 17 of that same year the paramilitaries, with the help of the Administrative Department of Security (DAS), they will assassinate Alfredo Correa de Andreis, prominent university professor Barranquilla who was branded as a “guerrilla ideologue.”
His story is the protagonist in the documentary “Deceased Peace”a feature film he directed Juan Pablo Mendez, Colombian filmmaker who lives in Argentina who wanted to pay homage to the people who have had to leave Colombia in exile because of the war. The exile chapter of the Truth Commission It is an opportunity to gather these testimonies and give dimension to this victimization of which there is little documentation in the country.
For example, John Jairo Romeroexiled in Spain, who is part of the National Table of Victims As a representative of the victims abroad, he says that there is a constant in those Colombians who long to return, but assure that they do not have the security guarantees to do so. “I met at least 38 families of Colombians in exile who returned after the signing of the Peace Agreement, but twelve of those families had to leave the country again for their safety.”
The impacts to the ethnic population
commissioners Leyner Palacioslawyer, native of Bojaya (Choco) Y Patricia Tobon Yagari lawyer, embera indigenous native of the resguardo Carmatarrua (Antioquia), They were in charge of the Ethnic chapter of the Truth Commission, which analyzes the impacts of the indigenous, Afro-descendant, Palenquera and Raizal population of Colombia who have experienced the ravages of war on their populations and territories. This chapter, among other things, is part of the implementation of the ethnic approach of the peace agreement between the State and the FARC, which would cut across the entire post-conflict transition process.
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It is the first time that a Truth Commission in the world delves into the differential impacts of ethnic peoples in a war, especially because this population, after the Peace Agreement, has continued to experience all kinds of victimizations in its territories. For example, hea Pacific Interethnic Truth Commission delivered this year to the Truth Commission a report that focuses on explaining the ethnocides caused by armed groups and the damage to the communities’ own spirituality.
One of the women who has worked the most on this issue is Uriana Remedies, Wayuu feminist leader who has documented several cases of human rights violations in indigenous communities. She was one of the women who championed the cause of abortion in various reservations in La Guajira and explains that one of the historical debts of the State is education on sexual and reproductive health in those areas of the country.
Mariana Ardila, lawyer of Women’s Linksaid that one of the expectations they have regarding the Final Report is that it addresses the victimizations of indigenous and black women differently, “and that there be specific sections in the recommendations on the importance of education and pedagogy in gender issues and peace in the ethnic peoples of the country”.
The Raizal population, concentrated specifically in the archipelago of San Andres and Providence, also has a section in the Final Report that talks about the more than 600 disappeared and 290 people killed on the islands. One of the challenges of Truth Commission it will be to be able to spread his Report in the most remote territories of the country, so that his legacy reaches the communities that also contributed to the process.