The implementation of what has been agreed between the Colombian state and the former FARC guerrillas is taking a winding, bumpy and uneven path that is limiting its progress. Such difficulties are of concern to the victims of the armed conflict, who are calling for greater speed. The balance, five years on, is bittersweet. This is what this series of articles reveals.

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The silence of the guns was short-lived

With the peace process, communities in the regions dominated by the now defunct FARC were able to live in peace for a time. However, before the promises of post-conflict, new armed groups arrived and violence returned.

The SJP moves forward, despite opposition

In less than four years, the SJP has taken more than 50,000 judicial decisions, including 17,489 judicial decisions taken in the Amnesty or Pardon Chamber and 19,641 judicial decisions taken in the Chamber for the Definition of Legal Situations. These results contradict the criticisms levelled against it by adverse sectors.

Colombia, in the mirror of truth

For more than 50 years, this country suffered a bloody armed conflict between the security forces, paramilitary armies, subversive groups and organised crime networks. The toll was death, pain and destruction across the length and breadth of the country, with the civilian population bearing the brunt. The Truth Commission has the challenge of clarifying what happened so that it does not happen again.

Search Unit still does not fill the disappearance gap

Relatives of victims consider that in order to achieve greater results, its internal organisation, the requirements to carry out explorations and exhumations, and to act beyond the search requests, must be modified. In the meantime, the entity is grappling with two constraints: the Covid-19 pandemic and the intensification of the armed conflict.

“The ultimate goal is reconciliation, and it is achieved with a solid truth”

Jesuit priest Francisco De Roux presides over the Commission for the Clarification of the Truth, an entity to which the Peace Agreement assigned, among several tasks, to produce a report that gives an account of the causes of the armed conflict in Colombia and the impacts it produced over half a century, with the aim of not repeating this tragic chapter.

The unfinished business with women and the LGBTI community

One of the most applauded points of the Peace Agreement with the FARC is its focus on gender. Despite being the first peace pact in the world to include it, five years later there is little to celebrate as only 20 per cent of what was agreed has been implemented.

The Ethnic Chapter is confined on paper

After overcoming multiple obstacles, Afro-descendant and indigenous communities managed to include a set of guarantees in the Peace Agreement to protect their rights and ensure that their territories would not be affected by the implementation of post-conflict policies. Five years later, with few exceptions, there has been practically no progress.

Implementation of the Peace Accord proved lethal for social leadership

Various sectors are calling for a halt to the violence against those dedicated to the defence of human rights. Around 700 people have been killed in Colombia since November 2016, an alarming figure that has grown without much state containment and in the midst of impunity.

Security of ex-combatants: a debt that has claimed 290 lives

Since the signing of the Peace Accord, on average, a member of the former FARC guerrillas who laid down their arms and were in the process of reincorporation into legal life has been murdered every six days. They gambled on reconciliation, but the state, critics say, failed to protect them.

Journalists

  • Luciana Rodríguez
  • María Camila Paladines
  • Santiago Díaz Gamboa
  • Carlos Mayorga Alejo
  • Andrés García
  • Juan Diego Restrepo E.

Editor

  • Andrés García

Podcasts

  • International Protection (IP)

Translation

  • Beatriz A Ortiz Velez

Director

  • Juan Diego Restrepo E.

Web development

  • Digital Cocktail