Tag: Colombia

Colombia’s Angela Merkel moment

February 10, 2021

Colombian President Iván Duque earlier this week announced that as many as 1.7 million Venezuelan migrants currently in Colombia will now be authorized to live and work legally in the country for ten years.

As humanitarian gestures by world leaders go, it’s hard to find something on this scale in recent history.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s fateful “Wir schaffen das” (We can do this) decision in 2015 allowed up to one million refugees to apply for asylum. Duque’s move, by contrast, welcomes nearly twice that number of people to stay for at least a decade.

https://www.gzeromedia.com/colombias-angela-merkel-moment

 

Colombia’s peace tribunal issues a crushing judgment against the FARC ($)

February 9, 2021

A system established to achieve “transitional justice” proves its mettle

The jep’s revelations show that Colombia’s unique “transitional-justice” system can succeed. Most such tribunals have been established by international bodies, such as the un. The jep is the first such body for prosecuting war crimes and crimes against humanity to have been created by the warring parties through a peace accord. It adjudicates such crimes through “restorative”, rather than retributive, justice. This seeks to reconcile victims with offenders, mostly by uncovering the truth. The tribunal talked to more than 2,500 kidnapping victims. Colombia’s ordinary justice system had not done that when it tried some farc members in absentia during the war. The jep took testimony from the hostage-takers, who under the peace agreement are obliged to confess. Some spoke for 16 hours.

https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2021/02/02/colombias-peace-tribunal-issues-a-crushing-judgment-against-the-farc