Colombia violates the peace agreement with the FARC, Constitutional Court says

1 min read
January 28, 2022

Colombia doesn’t protect the rights to life of former FARC members as hundreds have been assassinated since the peace agreement according to the Constitutional Court.

Colombia-FARC peace agreement
Juan Manuel Santos (left), president of Colombia in 2016 and Timoleón Jiménez, former commander of the FARC, signing the peace agreement. | © Presidencia de la República Mexicana , Flickr, 2016

The Constitutional Court of Colombia ruled that the country doesn’t protect former FARC members as hundreds have been murdered since they returned to civil life.

Former FARC combatants seized the Constitutional Court claiming the government of Colombia failed at ensuring the security of the FARC members who dropped their weapons as part of the Peace Agreement signed in 2016.

The Constitutional Court declared on January 27 the state of unconstitutionality, estado de cosas inconstitucional, because of a massive violation of civil rights and a humanitarian crisis due to the lack of security for the ex-terrorists turned civilians.

Former FARC leaders formed the Commons, a communist political party opponent to the current center-right president Iván Duque.

Omar Restrepo, former guerillero now congressman, declared on Twitter: “Iván Duque engaged into tearing off the peace agreement into shreds, and now, against his own and his party will need to fix it”.

According to the Observatory of Human Rights and Conflicts Indepaz, 299 signatories of the peace agreement have been murdered since September 2016, and 48 in 2021 alone.

The government has two months to implement protection measures and ensure the security of the ex-fighters.

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Clément Vérité

Clément is the executive editor and founder of Newsendip. He started in the media industry as a freelance reporter at 16 for a local French newspaper after school and has never left it. He later worked for seven years at The New York Times, notably as a data analyst. He holds a Master of Management in France and a Master of Arts in the United Kingdom in International Marketing & Communications Strategy. He has lived in France, the United Kingdom, and Italy.