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Crisis in Colombia:
What You Can Do
Sample Letters
- Write to Commander Marulanda of the FARC-EP expressing your concern about the violations of international humanitarian law being committed in Colombia by the FARC-EP. Stopping these abuses and ensuring that international humanitarian law principles are enforced is a necessary foundation for any peace in Colombia. Click here for a sample letter. En Español.
- Write to the Eight Foreign Ministers representing countries assisting the Colombian peace process urging them to raise this issue directly with Commander Marulanda and press him to adopt measures that would ensure that the forces under his command respect international humanitarian law. Click here for a sample letter.
Resources for Action
Recommendations
Human Rights Watch calls for immediate action by Commander Marulanda and the FARC-EP to cease all activities that violate international humanitarian law and adopt effective measures that allow the supervision of a policy to prevent these serious abuses from continuing. In particular, Human Rights Watch would like Commander Marulanda to issue orders and take effective steps to ensure that FARC-EP forces:
- cease all extrajudicial killings of civilians;
- release immediately and unconditionally all hostages held by FARC-EP forces, with guarantees of their safe return to their families;
- cease using child soldiers, establish mechanisms for the immediate demobilization of child soldiers, and instruct all FARC-EP forces that child soldiers should not be recruited or deployed as combatants in the future;
- cease holding so-called trials, which lack minimal due process guarantees;
- ensure that all captured combatants, including police, soldiers, and members of paramilitary groups, are afforded humane treatment, including appropriate medical care, and are permitted regular access to and visits from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), whose mandate is to promote compliance with and the interpretation of the Geneva Conventions;
- cease all use of indiscriminate weapons, such as gas cylinder bombs;
- cease all attacks or threats against medical workers and facilities, including ambulances, hospitals, and clinics.
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