The Duke is kidding with the peace agreement | President…

Colombian President Iván Duque has announced proposals to change transitional justice resulting from the peace agreement with the former FARC guerrilla. The President has thus opposed six articles of the law governing the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), created to judge crimes committed during the armed conflict. The announcement was rejected by more than a hundred people defending the peace agreement, which sent a letter to the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, expressing his concern.

"I decided to oppose six of the 159 articles of the CEP law for reasons of embarrbadment and to invite the Congress of the Republic to discuss it constructively," M said. Duque in a televised address Sunday evening. The so-called statutory CEP law, approved by the Congress in November 2017 and sent to the presidency on February 11 for its sanction or objection, is part of the model of justice agreed in Havana between the government of Juan Manuel Santos. and the former FARC guerrilla.

The President's objections concern the future of repeat ex-combatants after the signing of the peace agreement, the possibility that the prosecution will continue its work while the justice of the peace renders its decisions, the treatment of crimes against humanity and the extradition of persons for criminal behavior subsequent to the signing of the final agreement. In this last aspect, the former head of the Farc Jesus Santrich, arrested in Bogotá since April 9 and sought by the American justice extradition, who accuses him of drug trafficking, a crime that the Office of the Prosecutor allegedly committed after signing peace, which took place on November 24, 2016.

On the other hand, Duque announced that he would present a constitutional reform excluding from the CEP the cases of badual crimes against minors, the loss of benefits for those who relapse into criminal activities and the competence of the prosecution of crimes committed before December 1, 2016 and continue to run. Since the presidential campaign that brought him to power last August, Mr. Duque and his godfather, former President Álvaro Uribe, have opposed the agreement reached by Santos. However, the president on the right said that the objections are aimed at correcting the agreed text without seeking to polarize. The special jurisdiction for peace has been in force since the beginning of 2018 and has opened seven major processes to date. Among them, a case of kidnappings against the leaders of the former FARC and another on the murders of civilians presented as combatants by the Colombian army. Following the announcement of Duque, CEP President Patricia Linares said in a video that the entity would continue to operate fully, fully exercising each of its powers and functions, while waiting for 39, a final decision on the law.

For its part, the leader of the former guerrilla Rodrigo Londoño responded a few minutes later in his account of the social network Twitter. "The call more than ever is to defend the peace agreement, our commitment concerns all Colombians in all regions of the country," he wrote.

The concern for the future of the CEP and the peace agreement was also transmitted yesterday to Guterres, through a letter signed by more than a hundred personalities. Among the signatories were members of Colombian government delegations and guerrillas who drafted the pact – as chief negotiator of Santos, Humberto de la Calle, and Farc, Londoño – the former presidential candidate of the left, Gustavo Petro and the former center candidate, Sergio Fajardo; legislators; former government officials; victims of the conflict; leaders of civil society organizations; academics and intellectuals, among others. "Those of us who subscribe to this communication express their deep concern over attempts to seriously undermine the implementation of the Agreement, the structure and operation of the CEP, as well as the fact that 39 to the system designed to respect the rights of victims, "they wrote.