Bogota, Colombia – A coalition of Colombian advocacy groups yesterday sent an open letter to the President of the United Nations Security Council warning of threats to the country’s peace process.
As the 2016 landmark deal with FARC rebels marks the 10th anniversary, the letter on behalf of “peoples and campesinos” draws attention to the many threats to the peace process, including the political and security situation.
The letter was sent less than a month before right-wing President-elect Abelardo de la Espriella, who opposed key principles of the peace process and pledged to launch an all-out war against the rebels, took office.
At the Security Council, where a meeting on Colombia is scheduled to take place on July 15, the letter’s signatories encouraged the UN’s “active engagement” with Afro-Colombian, indigenous and peasant communities most affected by the conflict.
The letter to Zénon Mukongo Ngay, interim president of the UN Security Council, begins by expressing the signatories’ concerns about deepening polarization in Colombia. This has historically led to political violence in Colombia.
The deep divisions in Colombian society are evident in the presidential election, in which centrist candidates received less than 10% of the vote. De la Espriella, a far-right populist, defeated leftist senator Iván Cepeda by less than 1% in the second round of voting.
The letter did not mention de la Espriella by name but condemned “repeated attacks by important political sectors on the peace agreement and its key aspects.”
De la Espriella calls for the abolition of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), the body that investigates crimes committed during the conflict, calling it a ‘multiple tribunal’.
He also announced this week that he plans to abolish both the peace commissioner position and the Presidential Office for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law.
The promise has raised concerns that victims of the conflict could be denied access to long-awaited justice.
The Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) is one of more than 200 organizations and individuals named in the letter.
Gimena Sánchez-Garzoli, WOLA’s Regional Director for the Andes, said: Latin America Report Signatories aim to leverage international support for the peace deal to block domestic political attempts to derail it.
She said the strategy had precedent, citing failed attempts by former President Ivan Duque, who took power in 2018, to follow through on his promise to dismantle aspects of the peace deal. “He couldn’t do that because the international community, especially foreign countries, were too behind the scenes,” Sánchez-Garzoli said.
Nonetheless, President Duque has been able to impede the peace-building process through his opposition to the JEP and other provisions of the 2016 agreement, which many analysts say has contributed to a resurgence in armed violence in recent years.
According to Sánchez-Garzoli, along with de la Espriella’s election, Donald Trump’s second term would present another political blowback to Colombia’s peace process.
Since his election, the mission of Colombia’s UN verification mission to monitor the peace process has been scaled back.
The ethnic chapter of the peace agreement, designed to ensure representation and oversight of indigenous and Afro-Colombian social organizations, no longer falls under its remit.
Sánchez-Garzoli said. Latin America Report It is said that this happened due to pressure from the Trump administration.
“Peoples, peasants and victims of conflict should be the first to benefit as a result of the implementation of the peace agreement,” the letter asserts, noting that these sectors have suffered the most as a result of the insufficient implementation of the peace agreement.
These include “illegal mining, conflict (between armed groups), increased use of drone-dropped explosive devices” and the recruitment of minors.
The letter therefore urges UN leaders to work with African and indigenous groups to re-center the experiences of these communities when evaluating peace processes.
Sánchez-Garzoli believes this is especially important because the verification mission’s new head, Slovak diplomat Miroslav Jenča, has not yet developed “a nuanced understanding of the complexities of the peace process and the importance of African and indigenous issues.”
“They (the UN) need to reach out and listen to those communities.”
