COLOMBIA-REBELS Colombia says agreement on the missing brings conflict with the FARC closer to its end

Record ID: 135404

  • Title: COLOMBIA-REBELS Colombia says agreement on the missing brings conflict with the FARC closer to its end
  • Date: 19th October 2015
  • Summary: HAVANA, CUBA (FILE) (REUTERS) MOMENT WHEN COLOMBIAN PRESIDENT, JUAN MANUEL SANTOS, AND FARC REBEL LEADER, RODRIGO LONDONO, KNOWN AS TIMOCHENKO, SHAKE HANDS ALONG WITH CUBAN PRESIDENT RAUL CASTRO DELEGATES APPLAUDING
  • Embargoed: 3rd November 2015 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Cuba
  • Country: Cuba
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA1J56AHC08L9DEB1UIIRUIASWV
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Humanitarian agreements between the Colombian government and leftist FARC rebels to search for and locate more than 45,000 people who have disappeared over 50 years of war is an important step to reaching a peace agreement between the factions, Bogota said on Monday (October 19).
    The agreement, reached late Saturday (October 17), addresses a key issue at the negotiations, which reached a major breakthrough in September when then two sides vowed to sign a deal by March.
    The two sides agreed to create a "specialized unit to search for people who are considered disappeared," according to a joint statement between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or the FARC.
    On Monday, the government's lead negotiator, Humberto de la Calle, called the agreements an important step toward securing a peace deal.
    "We have not lost our way. We are walking. We are making progress. We are moving forward and these two agreements are an important sign of what lies ahead as possible. We want to reiterate... we've said it many times before, peace is possible and every one of these agreements that we reach get us closer to the end of the conflict," de la Calle said.
    Colombia's attorney general estimates 52,000 people have disappeared during Latin America's longest war, which has killed some 220,000 people and displaced millions.
    Victim groups say between 70,000 and 100,000 people may have gone missing.
    The director of the Unit for Attention and Reparation of Victims, Paula Gaviria, said the new agreements would help them know the extent of victims affected by the conflict.
    "Another thing we are also looking at with this tool, with this unit which will be created, is to know the magnitude of the phenomenon. It is to know the magnitude of all the people listed as disappeared where as part of this magnitude is already in the Victims Registry of 45,000 people," Gaviria said.
    Some captured and demobilized former rebels have already cooperated with authorities to locate remains in exchange for lighter sentences, a task complicated by the rural jungle or mountain locations of many unmarked graves.
    Human rights advocates and families of the disappeared have warned that unless more bodies are located, exhumed, identified and returned to their families, Colombia risks handicapping its post-conflict development.
    Forensic investigators in the Andean country often struggle with large case loads and lack of training, funding and equipment.
    The unit, separate from judicial investigations, will provide families with official reports on information obtained about their missing family members.
    The government and rebels will also furnish the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) with information about the missing, so the charity can help design search plans.
    "To truly do information analysis, contact the families (of disappeared victims), because the families are at the centre of this… supplement the information with victims' associations, associations with the families of the missing, to get the best possible information so that we can do the work of searching (for the victims)," Christoph Harnisch, head of the ICRC's delegation in Colombia said on Monday.
    Under the agreement, the remains of identified victims would be returned to their families once they are located.
    Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said the agreements brought the government and the FARC one step closer to ending the decades-long conflict.
    "The agreement reached yesterday on the issue of the disappeared allows us to see, even clearer, an end to the war. The agreement to share information so the victims know what happened to their loved ones, where they might be, is already a firm step towards ending the war. This is how it has worked in other instances. This is very important, with this proposition to put the victims at the centre of the solution to this conflict," Santos said.
    The government and FARC have been in peace talks in Havana for nearly three years. They recently set a deadline of March 23 to reach a final agreement, which would then be put before Colombian voters for ratification.
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