Background Briefing

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IV.  Recommendations to Donor Governments:

1. The governments of donor countries should withhold all support—political and financial—for the demobilization process, unless the Colombian Congress passes a comprehensive demobilization law that meets the following conditions:

a. The law must create the necessary tools for the dismantling of paramilitary groups.  At a minimum, the law must:

  • Condition benefits on the group’s disclosure of information about its structure, illegal assets, and financing streams.

  • Condition benefits on each individual’s cooperation with the authorities in investigations, confession of his crimes, and turnover of illegal assets.

  • Condition benefits to paramilitary leaders on the group’s complete cessation of hostilities and abuses of civilians.

  • Provide for investigations of the structure, illegal assets, sources of financing, and past crimes of these groups.

    b. The law must create the necessary mechanisms so that paramilitaries responsible for violations of international human rights and humanitarian law are held accountable for their crimes.   At a minimum, the law must:

  • Require a thorough check of each demobilizing individual’s background against existing government records to determine not only whether he is already the subject of a conviction or prosecution for atrocities, but also whether he might be implicated in such crimes and should be investigated further.

  • Provide for punishment of perpetrators of atrocities in a manner proportional to the severity of their crimes.

  • Provide that sentences for atrocities include actual incarceration.

    c. The law must take into account victims’ rights to truth and reparation for the violations of human rights and humanitarian law committed by paramilitary groups.  At a minimum, the law must:

  • Establish mechanisms that will allow the government to uncover the truth about paramilitary crimes, including the location of bodies of the “disappeared.”

  • Establish procedures that will allow victims of paramilitary crimes to obtain information about and participate in the proceedings involving them.

  • Condition benefits for demobilization on each individual’s payment of reparations to the victims of his crimes.

    2. Assuming that the above requirements are met, donor governments should condition any aid for the paramilitary demobilization process on the Colombian government’s vigorous implementation of these legal requirements.




    <<previous  |  indexJanuary 2005