In its latest attempt to frustrate efforts to find out the truth about Colombia’s armed conflict, Colombia’s ruling party voted to prohibit the Truth Commission’s from accessing classified information.
The initiative came from the ruling Democratic Party of President Ivan Duque and his political patron, former President Alvaro Uribe, who is set to appear before the Supreme Court on charges related to his alleged involvement in the formation of a paramilitary death squad that left thousands of victims in his home province of Antioquia.
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The rest of Congress, which has been more ambiguous about the Truth Commission, will first have to vote on the proposal of House Representative Oscar Dario Perez.
The Democratic Center would be most affected by the Truth Commission and the War Crimes Tribunal as the party represents the interests of land thieves that stole an area the size of Belgium during the war with the FARC.
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Father Francisco de la Roux, the president of the Truth Commission, has rejected the proposal and has said that the proposal violates victims’ rights to know the truth about the decades-long war that victimized them.
The highly respected Jesuit priest said he found “that they oppose decisions made by the Constitutional Court…that created the Truth Commission and gives all all the faculties that gave security to the truth, the right to dignity of victims and citizens who want to tap into the knowledge of what happened,” De la Roux was quoted as saying by newspaper El Espectador.
Father Francisco de la Roux
The Truth Commission came into force earlier this year to investigate what really happened during the conflict.
Decades of war propaganda and distortion in some of the country’s most popular media, whose owners are linked to land theft and other war-related crimes, have left many Colombians oblivious to the reality of the country and what is happening in their country in general.