Colombia’s President Ivan Duque is dismantling the peace process that sought to end armed conflict in his country, hundreds of human rights organizations reported Thursday.
In a crushing report for the European Parliament, approximately 500 organizations said that the government is “stagnating” and “simulating” the implementation of the 2016 peace deal with former FARC guerrillas.
Duque’s post-conflict adviser, Emilio Archila, responded that the government has not dismantled or replaced any of the elements of the peace process, according to newspaper El Espectador.
Duque’s lie detector test: is Colombia’s government implementing peace deal?
The NGO’s disagree through and provided Duque and Archila engage in “doublespeak.”
On the one hand, they assure that the Peace Agreement is being complied with, but on the other they try to impose an agenda different to Comprehensive Rural Reform, crop substitution, and attention to victims.
Social organizations
For example, the organizations said the government had changed the policy that sought to implement development in war-torn regions that have long suffered state neglect with a policy that seeks to increase military presence.
The program to substitute coca crops to which 100,000 families registered was put on hold the day that Duque took office. The government officially resumed this program, but has neglected to effectively implement it.
Additionally, instead of taking part in the National Commission of Security Guarantees that would implement policies to cut ties between politics, the private sector and death squads, the government came up with a “Timely Action Plan” to respond to the mass killing of human rights activists and community leaders.
Basically, Duque “stopped the implementation of the Peace Accord, not only because he stopped promoting the projects that were already in process, but also because he did not present any bill to Congress aimed at the implementation of the Peace Accord.”
The president’s far-right party is a fierce opponent of the peace process that seeks to end more than half a century of armed conflict and political violence in Colombia.
