• Live
    • Audio Only
  • google plus
  • facebook
  • twitter
News > Latin America

Ex-FARC Members and Social Leaders Ask UN to Mediate with Govt

  • UN General Secretary Antonio Guterres in Mesatas on Sunday.

    UN General Secretary Antonio Guterres in Mesatas on Sunday. | Photo: EFE

Published 14 January 2018
Opinion

The meeting took place in the town of Mesetas, in the Meta department, to tour a center where FARC ex-guerrilla fighters prepare for their reintegration into society.

Ex-members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, now converted into a legal political party, need more guarantees for the reinsertion into civilian life, said Sunday the National Council of Reincorporation in a meeting with UN General Secretary Antonio Guterres.

RELATED:
Nations Urge Colombian Gov't and ELN to Resume Peace Talks

The delegation of former FARC guerrillas and community leaders insisted on the general feeling of uncertainty that affected the former rebel group, as over 2,500 ex-fighters had still not received the credentials required so they could access various social and economic benefits included in the peace accord signed with the government.

The delegates also told the Portuguese diplomat that more than one year after the deal was signed in Havana, Cuba, 636 ex-fighters remained in Colombian prisons, even if they would be entitled to fundamental rights as agreed in the peace accord, because the Colombian government had still not updated its database.

Moreover, the council —created on a presidential decree to monitor the peace accords— expressed great concern over the more than 140 social leaders and 47 ex-guerrilla assassinated so far up to the date, urging the UN to accompany the peace process more closely.

“As guarantors and promoters of human rights, we respectfully ask them to mediate so the Colombian state fulfills its duties,” said the council.

As for the socio-economic security of the thousands of ex-FARC members, often campesinos before they became rebels, the representatives also condemned as “completely incoherent” the lack of political will to ease the access to lands for productive projects and housing.”

They reported that 42 cooperatives had been created so far in the 26 transitional peace zones.

Guterres arrived Saturday in Colombia for a two-day visit in support of the ongoing peace process which ended a 52-year-long struggle between the government and former guerrilla fighters.

Guterres' visit was announced just after the Colombian government suspended talks in Ecuador with the National Liberation Army (ELN), blaming them for three attacks on oil pipelines as the agreed ceasefire expired on January 9.

Comment
0
Comments
Post with no comments.