Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro said Sunday that he is willing to meet with former paramilitary leaders in order to discuss the peace process.
Petro said that the former military leaders who have served their sentences and who have publicly expressed their willingness to meet should explain »to what extent» the »peace process has been truncated or if it can be completed and finalized».
I have seen with concern how many of the haciendas that the paramilitaries had in (the region of) Urabá are today occupied by front men or by the Gulf clan. Hence the need for a specialized police force to take care of these assets and a review of the final phase of the Justice and Peace law,» he said.
Thus, the idea proposed by the president during the Commemoration of the National Day of Memory and Solidarity is to make an inventory of assets by the National Land Agency for agrarian reform, in order to »increase the pace» of collection and compensation of victims.
He has also pointed out that there was a re-victimization from the State and that corruption, which provided benefits for some former public officials, was a determining factor for the failure to comply with the reparation of the victims.
In this sense, he has invited the victims to a social movement for peace. »The victims in Colombia are millions, if these millions of people could organize themselves, we could have the first social movement in Colombia whose objective is to achieve peace», he said.
It seems to me fundamental that the victims’ organizations, of all kinds, of any origin, become a Social Movement for Peace», he said, indicating that the memory center should »accelerate as far as possible the processes of land restitution, the processes of compensation of victims and even the judicial processes that have to do with the truth».
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
