Truth is a fundamental element in the satisfaction of victims’ rights, and it is under Under this premise, that the fifth session of the CAPAZ-led international inter-university chair ‘Continuing the Road to Peace: The Legacy of the Truth Commission of Colombia‘ was held at Universidad Autónoma de Bucaramanga. This space was used to analyze the processes and contributions in relation to truth, justice, reparation and non-repetition of the mechanisms that make up the Integral System for Peace.

In the Small Auditorium of the El Jardín headquarters, students, teachers and professionals from the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) and the Truth Commission (CEV), presented the territorial deployment of each mechanism in the department of Santander to bring society closer to the Comprehensive System for Peace. They also analyzed the challenges for citizens to prevent violence from continuing in the territories that have experienced armed conflict for decades.

Foto: Universidad Autónoma de Bucaramanga (UNAB)

Universidad del Rosario professor Camila De Gamboa analyzed the importance and the need for a “much more complex view of justice, to understand what happened and to analyze the factors that gave rise to the conflict and perpetuated it.

Carolina Rubio, JEP territorial liaison in Santander, affirmed: “The JEP’s invitation is that restoration is not only the responsibility of the participants. Restoration is not only a right of the victims, restoration, the guarantees of non-repetition are an exercise for the country when it comes to peacebuilding”.

Gustavo Mendoza, who was the territorial liaison in Santander of the Truth Commission, called for consultation of the Final Report, stating that: “Only 4% of the people killed during the armed conflict were combatants who died during combat. This raises a question about the nature of the armed conflict. Society must be interested in knowing what happened and how we can address it. We must understand what we need to change to prevent it from happening again”.

Our next session…

The sixth session of the CAPAZ-led international inter-university chair, entitled “Methodology: How was the truth constructed in the Truth Commission?”, will be held at Universidad de Caldas on Friday, September 16 at 10:00 a.m., and will be broadcast live on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfMFED7IwA0