The peace process opened in Colombia between the government and the guerrilla FARC must not contemplate “pardons or amnesties” and must take into account the civilian victims of the ongoing internal war, said on Wednesday Todd Howland special envoy of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay.
Howland said that the peace to be achieved through dialogue and scheduled to begin next month in Oslo, Norway must be accompanied by a “transitional justice” process which has as its main axis the rights of the thousands of victims of the Colombian armed conflict.
“The UN is very clear in this and how far criminal law must be applied”, said Howland, “which means appealing to several mechanisms of transitional justice” to ensure that a “true and lasting peace” is reached.
According to Howland, the UN believes that if the process between the Colombian administration of president Juan Manuel Santos and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC, is successful “there will be a deep transformation of the Colombian society and thus the emphasis that there should not be an amnesty for all crimes committed”.