The role of Human Rights defenders in the implementation of the Peace Accords and the Peacebuilding in Colombia.

Gernika Gogoratuz has participated in this report eleborated from Colombia en 2021, four years after the Final Agreement signing for the termination of the armed conflict and the construction of a stable and lasting peace, signed between the FARC-EP and the national government, in the Colón Theater on the 24th day of November 2016. It is written in a rather complex internal and external context. Inside the country, there is the action of a national Government distant from the agreed peace and transitional justice approach, and with clear evidence of non-compliance and distortion of what was agreed for the peacebuilding in Colombia. The return of armed violence to the rural and urban territories of this country; the systematic massacre of former FARC-EP combatants and of leaders who defend rights, life and their territories; the increase in corruption of public institutions, etc. In the international context, we find ourselves in the midst of the pandemic generated by Covid-19, with the consequences that we will witness during the year 2020, not only in Colombia, but also in various parts of the world.

The Report has been developed with the objective of documenting and making visible the work of human rights defenders in Colombia. The starting point was the need to triangulate with primary documentary sources and with the life testimonies of the defenders’ own work, without whose voices it would not have been possible.

INDEX

• Presentation.
• Methodology.
• Colombian context: the paradox that evidences violence and at the same time strengthens hope.
• Worrying data in a country committed to building peace.
• Processes that encourage hope and motivate pacifist actions.
• Conclusions and recommendations.
• ANNEX I. Interviews.
• Bibliography.

Report prepared within the framework of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs project and Ibero-America and the Caribbean, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation of the Government of Spain.

Coordination: Ana Barrero Tiscar
Authors: Adriana Anacona Muñoz, Ana Barrero Tiscar, Gloria Cuartas Montoya, María Oianguren Idígoras, María Ovidia Palechor Anacona
Transcription of interviews: Clara Acuña Rodríguez and Berta Álvarez Paz