Disappointing results for AUC Justice and Peace Law: Supreme Court
Disappointing results for AUC Justice and Peace Law: Supreme Court
Mar 6, 2014 posted by Luke Horswell
The Justice and Peace Law which was intended to bring truth, justice and reparation to the victims of paramilitary death squads has not achieved its goal, according to Colombia’s supreme court.
This Justice and Peace law was established in 2005 and helped facilitate the demobilization of paramilitary group, AUC. The law granted soldiers lenient prison sentences in return for cooperating with authorities, providing information about the group and revealing the full extent of crimes they had committed.
Vice president of the Supreme Court, Leonidas Bustos, told Caracol radio station on Thursday that leaders of the AUC have failed to divulge the full extent of their crimes. Bustos added that “not everything has been said” in relation to the groups ties with Colombia’s political class.
Less than a month ago Colombia Justice Minister Alfonso Gomez also spoke out against the “half-truths” brought by the law and that it failed to constitute justice for “truly heinous atrocities.”
The AUC were one of the primary actors in the civil conflict that still continues in Colombia today. They were allegedly responsible for thousands of civilian deaths, as well as for committing a host of human rights violations such as kidnappings, torture, extortion, and forcefully displacing tens of thousands of civilians from their homes.
http://colombiareports.co/disappointing-results-justice-peace-supreme-court/