The Ombudsman’s Office rejected the threats made against the men and women who signed the Peace Agreement who turned their backs on violence and took refuge in the ‘Mariana Páez’ Territorial Space for Reincorporation (ETCR), in the municipality of Mesetas (Goal).
These are 200 families, 86 female heads of households and 80 children, including people with disabilities and the elderly, who were threatened with being killed if they did not leave the area that became their home within a month. For the Entity, it is urgent that they be protected and remain safely with their life projects in society.
In response to the statement in which the reinstated persons denounced that they had to “… abandon the land that welcomed us in the transition, our Territorial Space for Training and Reincorporation (ETCR), which we affectionately call ‘Mariana Páez'” the Ombudsman’s Office, through of the Meta Regional Office and the National Directorate of Attention and Complaint Processing, are in the territory and will seek the action of the local and national authorities to activate the alert and rapid response mechanisms.
The entity also offered its support to carry out actions aimed at mitigating the risk they face and respecting their rights, and called on the National Protection Unit to order the reinforcement of protection measures for that population, seeking the necessary resources for the implementation of technically recommended measures and addressing the special vulnerability of ex-combatants, with a gender and differential approach.
Likewise, in his speech during the Annual Assembly of the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (Ganhri), held in Geneva (Switzerland), the Ombudsman described it as “an attack on the core of the peace process and its implementation”. , threats and violent actions against people in the reincorporation process.
For the Ombudsman’s Office, the order to leave the ETCR implies the violation of the rights to life, integrity and personal security of the population and openly violates respect for human rights and the basic principles of International Humanitarian Law.
The forced displacement of those who live in the ETCR would cause the abandonment of the productive projects that the signatories have been undertaking for six years through associative forms, and reduces their possibilities in their process of social reintegration and normalization of their economies.
For minors, it implies the interruption of their school cycles and for the collective, once again facing the uncertainty of being uprooted, added to the stigmatization that remains in groups of the population that still perceive the terms of the Peace Agreement with suspicion.
The Entity once again urges the actors in the conflict to ensure that their actions are consistent with the purpose and objectives of Total Peace and what was agreed in the Peace Agreement; that leave aside the civilian population and much more if it is about People in the Reincorporation Process (PPR) who are looking for new personal, family and economic beginnings.
Source: Ombudsman