Colombia’s Interior Minister, Alfonso Prada, has clarified that while the government’s recently approved ‘total peace’ law will be used to initiate negotiations with political armed groups, with criminal organizations, including FARC dissidents, it will be used to bring them to justice.
Prada explained that in the case of criminal organizations «there is no negotiation», but a dialogue so that they submit to the Penal Code. This «will have a path of justice, a legal path,» he stressed.
This is not the case of the peace process with the guerrilla of the National Liberation Army (ELN), due to its marked political character. The negotiation, he said, will be «very similar» to the one that took place a few years ago with the now dissolved FARC.
Prada said that as soon as the Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, signs this legislation, under the official name of Law 418, «in the next few days negotiations with the ELN will be activated», reports RCN radio station.
The Colombian minister has put in value some of the «very novel figures» of this ‘total peace’ promoted and promised by Petro during the whole electoral process that finally took him to Casa Nariño, such as that of an alternative ‘social service’ to the compulsory military.
«We have very novel figures that will create a culture of peace in Colombia», highlighted Prada, for whom this ‘social service’ will give young people alternatives beyond weapons, focused on «training, education and quality of life that generates a decent job» and the possibility of «a scenario of human dignity».
