A senator of Colombia’s Liberal Party said Thursday that if the country’s largest guerrilla group, the FARC, fails to apologize to the victims of the war, the peace process is doomed to failure.
Senator Juan Fernando Cristo on Thursday said at a forum on transitional justice in Washington where he called the leaders of the rebel group currently engaged in peace talks with the government “stubborn and mean.”
“If the FARC don’t ask, if they aren’t willing to ask forgiveness, if they are not willing to repair, the process in Havana will have no viability,” said the senator whose party does support the peace negotiations.
Unless the FARC show remorse and compensate their victims, the peace process “will have neither ethical nor political legitimacy for the Colombian society,” Cristo said, adding that “you can not even think about legal benefits for members of the guerrilla group” unless they make concessions towards their victims.
So far, the FARC has refused to take responsibility for crimes committed during the rebel group’s half-a-century war against the government to the dismay of victims.
MORE: Others must take responsibility for conflict: FARC
Moreover, the FARC’s chief negotiator “Ivan Marquez” said that he and other leaders refuse to go to jail over war crimes committed under their command.
MORE: We will not go to prison: FARC Secretariat
The FARC are accused of thousands of human rights violations and war crimes, including the use of child soldiers, laying anti-personnel mines, kidnapping and killing political opponents. The rebel group has been in peace talks with the government since November last year.