Colombian NGO MOVICE says it will challenge the Victims Law, which governs reparations for those who have suffered in Colombia’s armed conflict, following its approval by the House of Representatives on Monday, reports EFE.
The National Movement for the Victims of State Crimes (MOVICE), whose spokesman is Polo Democratico congressman Ivan Cepeda, said in a statement that it would take legal action against the bill to “guarantee rights to truth, justice, complete reparation and guarantees against repetition [of crimes].”
MOVICE objects to the decision of coalition lawmakers to exclude victims of the conflict in the 1980s.
“The paramilitary groups formed in these times, the first massacres took place and four presidential candidates were murdered,” said Cepeda, whose father, a congressman for the left-wing Union Patriotica (UP) party, was murdered in 1994.
MOVICE said that the law only serving victims of post-1991 conflict, left out thousands who had “the right to know … the truth of events since 1948,” when Colombia was plunged into a period known as “La Violencia” following the assassination of liberal leader Jorge Eliecer Gaitan.
The bill grants equal rights to victims of violence committed by illegal armed groups and state agents.
Before becoming law, the bill will have to be approved in a number of congressional sessions, and then be tested by the Constitutional Court.