First Amendment:
Colombian President Gustavo Petro signed the law on Friday that will allow his administration to start negotiations with all illegal armed groups, including defectors from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the National Liberation Army, to achieve the “complete peace” he promised during his political campaign.
Free way to negotiate. President Gustavo Petro passed Law No. 418, the legal framework for “Perfect Peace,” the first law passed by Congress during his administration that would allow him to begin negotiations with armed groups.
Petro stressed after the signing that “the regulation that allows governments to build negotiations with those outside the law has been renewed to achieve the dream of comprehensive peace in Colombia.”
The president explained that “there will be people who will negotiate with the judicial system about the possibility of a peaceful dismantling of the crime, and there will be people who will negotiate with the government the options for ending the rebel war, many decades ago., which must end once and for all, without echoes, so that Colombian society is The true owner of the country.
Law 418 gives the head of state the power to negotiate with guerrilla groups such as the ELN, ELN, or FARC dissidents, and opens up an alternative for hundreds of young people to offer social service as a supplement to compulsory military service. Among other things.
The legal framework was signed on Friday by Petro and Interior Ministers Alfonso Prada. Defense, Ivan Velasquez and Justice, Nestor Osuna, at the Hatogrande presidential farm in northern Bogota.
Since taking office on August 7, Petro has insisted on promoting a “comprehensive peace”, with which he seeks to negotiate with the illegal groups still operating in the country, and to reach an agreement like the one reached at this moment with the Revolutionary Armed Forces For Colombia, which involves some kind of legal agreement or submission to justice.
The law opens the doors to future negotiations
Minister Alfonso Prada, spokesperson for the national government, commented to the media that the negotiations will have a distinction according to which organization the government decides to sit with, and that they will be determined by a high-level panel made up of the Minister of Defense, the High Commissioner for Peace and the Director of the National Intelligence Directorate.
“The three of them constitute this very important example of total peace because it would qualify the type of organizations we would start with, or political dialogue (as is the case with ELN) or on the other hand, Prada emphasized that she classifies it as an organization with a significant impact on crime, which I knew criminal gangs, explaining that the latter will get justice.
Article 5 of the text states that “approaches” and “talks” can be made with high-impact illegal structures that “demonstrate a desire to move toward the rule of law.”
Even the law leaves open the possibility of negotiating with the so-called “peace deserters”, those who signed the 2015 peace accords and who decided to rearm, as in the case of Ivan Marquez.
Colombia is expected to start talks in November with the National Liberation Army, the oldest guerrilla group in Latin America. The meetings will be held in Cuba, attended by delegates from Norway, Spain, Chile and Venezuela.
Another novelty of this law is the creation of a social service, which will give Colombian youth the opportunity to choose to work with victims or on environmental issues, as well as the creation of special areas in La Paz and the National Program for Voluntary Delivery of Victims. arms.
In the first nine months of 2022, about 90,000 people were confined to their homes in Colombia as a result of the armed conflict, according to the United Nations, the highest number in a decade.
Another 75,000 people were forcibly displaced in the same time period, according to the organization, which added that thanks to the “Comprehensive Peace” initiative, the number has begun to drop dramatically since September.
with EFE
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