Bogotá, 23 de septiembre de 2015 CD.
1. No jail:
The incumbent Colombian Government just accepted that wrongdoers responsible for atrocious crimes will not go to jail on condition that they confess their crimes.
Social work and freedom restrictions, but no jail, are mentioned for self-confessed ringleaders.
That ordinary guerrillas are exempted from jail is acceptable, but the fact that ringleaders responsible for atrocious crimes benefit from such an exemption is both a bad example that may encourage further violence and a way to take deterrence against criminals away from restorative justice, thus depriving victims from the main reparation: their right to no repetition of violence.
2. Colombian Armed Forces are being put on the same level with terrorists:
The incumbent Colombian Government just accepted to apply the same justice to both terrorists and Colombian Armed Forces, although the latter have respected democracy and not intended to support any dictatorship, contrary to other armed forces in other countries. Colombian Armed Forces, as guardians of our nation who are not “in ‘conflict’ with terrorists,” need to be treated with dignity and independently from criminals.
Based on this accord, all Colombian soldiers and police officers included in the “conflict theory” would be at risk of being forced to “confess” crimes they did not committed or going to jail.
3. Civil society is being put on the same level with terrorists:
The incumbent Colombian Government just accepted to put civil society on the same level with terrorists, thus seriously insulting Colombians who, based on this compromise, just became victimizers, although Colombians have been victims of kidnapping and murder by narco-terrorists for 50 years.
Thus, Colombians are now exposed to the risk of being forced to “confess” crimes they did not committed as a condition of not being sentenced to jail.
4. This compromise does not exclude drug trafficking from the scope of what can be considered to be a political offense. This compromise is not conclusive in excluding kidnapping from the scope of what can be considered to be a political offense:
The incumbent Colombian Government, the President of the Supreme Court of Justice of Colombia, and the Attorney General of Colombia have beforehand allowed kidnapping and narcoterrorism to go unpunished by considering these crimes to be connected with political offenses. This is an award for crimes against humanity, such as the Bojayá massacre, the car-bomb at El Nogal club, or the mass murder of representatives from the department of Valle del Cauca. Drug trafficking, as a terrorism-financing means, has never been a political offense; instead, it has been an atrocious crime that may never be pardoned.
5. The incumbent Colombian Government just accepted to give terrorists the chance to participate in politics, without excluding those responsible for atrocious crimes.
6. The incumbent Colombian Government has not demanded money from terrorists for reparation to victims. Instead of demanding that weapons are decommissioned, the incumbent Colombian Government just accepted the word “abandonment” that implies that terrorists may keep their weapons and use them whenever they want.
7. It is outrageous that leaders from the Venezuelan tyranny are posing as peace-brokers:
We reject the presence of members from the Venezuelan dictatorship that yesterday bombarded hundreds of Colombian families with genocide-type actions and today announced further border closures.
8. Both the unlimited powers given to the Colombian Government, a sort of Chavist-style enabling act, and the supersession of the Colombian Constitution to please terrorists are a new way of dictatorship accepted by the Congress and backed up by terrorists’ guns and explosives.
9. The Centro Democrático party continues to be committed to understand and express the ideas of millions of Colombians who wish a stable peace – that is to say, one based on true justice –, who want the compromises to be endorsed by Colombian people under current regulations – instead of under a dictatorial plebiscite –, and who will never accept this coup d’état that is planned against democracy by opportunistically using the time of elections, as it happened during 2014 elections.
Álvaro Uribe Vélez
Former President and incumbent Senator of Colombia
Bogotá, September 23, 2015