Colombian transitional justice: the need for prioritizing local voices in peacebuilding.
The term ‘transitional justice’ encompasses a wide range of initiatives and mechanisms to address legacies left by human rights atrocities committed amidst situations of armed conflict or in transitions from autocratic to democratic rule. Mechanisms like the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, The International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda or the Former Yugoslavia (ICTR/ICTY) or Timor Leste’s Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor (CAVR in Portuguese) are among some of the most internationally known transitional justice processes. In this blog post Dr Louis Monroy-Santander explains the need to prioritise local voices in peacebuilding.
In the case of Colombia, through the 2016 Peace agreement between the FARC guerrilla and the government, an ambitious transitional justice framework was agreed, which included mechanisms like a criminal tribunal known as the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP in Spanish), a Truth and Clarification Commission (CEV), a Unit for the search of Missing Persons (UBPD), complemented by a reparations system and a range of memorialization and remembrance initiatives initiated in previous peace and justice processes.
This transitional justice framework, known as the integral system for truth, justice, reparations, and non-repetition (SIVJRNR) has been praised by academic, policy and practitioner circles for its holistic intent, its participatory and inclusionary spirit together with the transversality of its gender dispositions. Yet, as Colombia still struggles with violent conflict with armed actors like the National Liberation Army (ELN), Farc Dissident groups, criminal bands as well as paramilitary and drug trafficking structures like the Clan del Golfo, these promises for inclusion and sustainable peace have been severely hampered.
Colombian civil society leaders, peacebuilders at the grassroot level as well as human rights defenders seem some of the most at risk populations in the country from the violence that continues escalating in the country. According to Human Rights Watch’s 2024 World Report, more than 1200 human rights defenders and civil society leaders have been killed in Colombia since the signing of the 2016 peace agreements. Within such context, grassroot voices from regions deeply affected by conflict can help identify the critical areas where transitional justice needs strengthening and prioritizing.
Research conducted for Impunity Watch (2022), supported by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with victims and survivors of armed conflict, particularly with women-led associations and gender-focused NGOs, has shown some key concerns regarding the challenges surrounding peace and security in Colombia’s post-agreement scenario. The findings of this research highlight that:
Victim and survivor associations express disappointment with the absence of interinstitutional coordination and an understanding of their situation. Transitional justice, with its highly technocratic and bureaucratic processes, distances itself from addressing victim and survivor’s needs to a point where historical mistrust against institutions in remote areas of Colombia coupled with this sense of disconnection and distancing severely affects the work of these institutions. For many, transitional justice is distant, costly, and difficult to understand.
For Indigenous and Afro Colombian communities, institutional practices are often embedded in the type of structural racism and discrimination they have endured for decades in their activism. Cultural and linguistic barriers have been historically denounced by activists coming from indigenous and afro Colombian sectors, which have hampered their access to justice, truth, and memorialization initiatives, fostering a sense of exclusion and institutional discrimination against them. Despite the adoption of ethnic perspectives on the work of Colombia’s transitional justice mechanisms, the legacy of institutional racism and discrimination also affects their work.
Victims and survivors constantly facing revictimization through practices from state institutions limits their faith in transitional justice work. From feeling neglected and misunderstood by officials at public institutions, to dealing with their constant staff turnovers, victims and survivors are tired of having to retell painful stories of their affectations, fostering in some a sense of futility when accessing some of the truth, justice, and reparation mechanisms. In the case of women and LGBTQI+ communities, revictimization adds to the structural forms of discrimination and inequality they have historically endured and have campaigned against for decades.
Continuing violence from conflict actors not only hampers prospects for a peaceful and stable transition but also makes peace and human rights activism a risk for social leaders working in urban and rural settings. Threats from paramilitary groups, criminal bands and guerrilla dissident groups affects the everyday operations of many activist organizations, forcing them to keep a low profile, to be silent about their work or to discontinue their activism altogether. As forced displacement is often a consequence of threats and violence from armed conflict, it forces activists to concentrate their efforts and resources on their own survival rather than on addressing the peace and development needs of their communities.
Further information:
You can find out more about the IMPUNITY WATCH study that this article forms a part of here: https://www.impunitywatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Final-EN-Colombia_Report-Colombian-victim-and-survivor-leadership-and-participation-in-informal-transitional-justice.pdf
Doctor Louis Monroy-Santander is a Research Fellow at the College of Social Sciences, University of Birmingham. He can be contacted at l.f.monroysantander@bham.ac.uk.