Members of the leftist Colombian party Comunes, created after the peace agreement with the terrorist group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), have acknowledged their responsibility on Monday for the kidnappings carried out in the framework of the Colombian armed conflict.
“The group of those appearing, members of the extinct FARC-EP guerrilla, have recognized the kidnapping as an event that should never have occurred in the Colombian internal armed conflict and that caused deep pain to the victims and their families,” reads the Press release belonging to the signatories of the peace agreement and published by Comunes.
The members of the ex-guerrilla have spoken after hearing the conclusions of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) on the sentences that must be imposed on the members of the FARC, requesting between five and eight years in prison for the accused.
The Defense of Innocents Foundation, which brings together former hostages of the FARC from Valle de Cauca, has assured that the JEP’s conclusion “does not correspond to reality” and “has caused great disappointment among the victims.”
“On behalf of the victims we represent (…) we reiterate our deep disappointment at this decision by the JEP,” they stated.
“We are talking about extremely serious crimes committed by members of the FARC Secretariat, such as the kidnapping and massacre of the Valle deputies; and in this case, in which the Fundación Defensa de Inocentes participates as a representative of the victims, we have to express that there has not been a detailed, full and exhaustive truth on the part of the former members,” reads the organization’s statement.
The victims have criticized that there have been half-truths and manipulation of the truth. “It has been an exhausting legal fight to prevent the perpetrators from lying and rendering rigged and manipulated versions,” they have assured.
The Foundation has regretted these actions, which “in any case offend the dignity of the victims, who, in addition to enduring the murder of their loved ones, have had to listen to lies and incomplete and distorted versions of the events that victimized them.”
“It hurts us that a peace agreement, which filled Colombia with expectations and which has positive elements such as the claim and delivery of land for peasants and displaced persons, but, in terms of JEP, we reiterate, there is complete inequality and violation to all the rights of the victims,” they have expressed.
With information from La Gaceta