Bogota, 15 December 2008

The event aimed at presenting the Observatory, a project on which CITpax has been working since 2006. The Observatory seeks to contribute to the compliance of the Justice and Peace Process in Colombia with standards of international criminal law, transitional justice, and victims´ rights to truth and reparation.

With this purpose, in a first stage, CITpax carried out an exchange activity with the Colombian Procuraduría General de la Nación, funded by the European Commission through FIIAPP-EUROsociAL. During this activity, a team of public policy experts developed a monitoring tool with indicators to follow up on the DDR process, truth-seeking initiatives, administrative and judicial reparation measures, as well as the prosecution of former members of illegal armed groups in the framework of the Justice and Peace Law.

In 2007, CITpax, with the support of the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation to Development -AECID-, established an office in Bogota, initially composed of three branches: DDR; Justice and Public Policies in transitional justice processes. The Observatory has recently started to set up, with the additional contribution of the Junta de Castilla-La Mancha, a specific branch on “Victims” (despite its nature as a cross-cutting issue already addressed by the other three areas), which collaborates with victims´ organisations to identify follow-up criteria that better define the interests and priorities of victims.

Based upon information received from public institutions and relevant organisations, the experts’ team drafted the report of the first phase, highlighting the achievements and the obstacles of the process, and including technical and policy-oriented recommendations for promoting international justice standards.

The Justice branch compiled the main conclusions, at both the operational and content levels, drawn from its attendance to fifty open confessions in Bogota, Barranquilla and Medellin. It analysed, among other issues: the role of the prosecutors, taking into account that the “scope of the process has exceeded the institutional capacity”; the judicial and defence strategies as well as the language used by the demobilised, and the self-representation techniques employed in the proceedings; the situation of the victims in the open confessions and the “setting up of spaces for the re-construction of victims’ dignity”, upon the initiative of the Justice and Peace Unit. Finally, it dealt with the technical and operational aspects of the open confessions, in particular those relating to putting in place adequate rooms for victims attending the confessions.

Based on interviews to local authorities, police officers and the Services Centres of the High Council for Reintegration, the DDR branch carried out a diagnosis of the demobilisation process and the local appropriation of the reincorporation process in the Caribbean region. It highlighted “significant steps forward, after the re-definition of the national strategy”. Nonetheless, the process still faces “challenges in the consolidation of the reintegration strategy at the local level”, such as the need for “support actions and assistance to local administrations for implementing the development plans”, the difficulties of the demobilised to find employment, and the importance of “involving other economic and social actors in the light of the deficient response of the business sector, the scarce acceptance by the reception communities and the limited results obtained in self-generated income projects”.

Finally, the Public Policy branch assessed the actions designed by the government and the legislative and judicial administration operators and analysed whether these actions strengthened or weakened the course of the process. It showed how, “paradoxically, the Justice and Peace Process has contributed to the re-institutionalisation of justice in the midst of a considerable level of institutional fragility”. It pointed out that the process “goes ahead while the debate remains open as to how much justice can be sacrificed in the name of peace or how much peace has to be offered to ensure that justice prevail as a supreme public good”. It also included a special analysis of the land policy in the framework of the Justice and Peace Law.

The event took place on December 15, 2008, at the National Museum of Bogota. The Director-General of CITpax, Emilio Cassinello, delivered the opening remarks. Following this, the Projects Director presented the methodology followed by the Observatory, and the Directors of the branches of Justice and Public Policy introduced the main findings of their work included in the report of the first phase.

The event concluded with a panel that was moderated by the renowned Colombian journalist, Felix de Bedout, and in which the following participants intervened: Shlomo Ben-Ami, Vice-President of CITpax and former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Israel; Baltasar Garzón, Magistrate of the Spanish High Court; and Pablo Parenti and Jorge Auat, Prosecutors of Argentine’s Prosecutors Unit for the Coordination and Monitoring of Cases on Human Rights Violations Committed during the State Terrorism Period.

Summary (only in Spanish)

Programme (only in Spanish)

Invitation