Advances in peace talks between the government and FARC rebels have renewed hope that Colombians will finally learn the fate of tens of thousands of people who disappeared during the long conflict.
Representatives of President Juan Manuel Santos's government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, meeting for peace talks in Cuba, reached a deal on October 17 on ways to search for missing people.
The fighting has killed more than 220,000 and uprooted six million people since the mid-1960s. The conflict also involved right-wing paramilitaries, drug traffickers and other guerrilla groups.
"This is the news that we've been waiting years for," said Janeth Bautista, who traveled to Havana to speak to the negotiators. "I'm filled with hope."
The number of people missing ranges from 20,000 to 100,000, according to figures from the government and various Human Rights groups.
Bautista struggled for 16 years to recover the remains of her sister Nydia Erika. "They handed it to me in a garbage bag, as if it had no dignity," she told AFP, choking on tears as she recalled the moment.Bautista still knows nothing about her boyfriend, who was last seen in 1987.
The deal reached in Havana sets up a special unit to search for and identify remains. It will be supported by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Colombia's National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences.
Government and rebel negotiators agreed to share information about those missing, and where unidentified victims are buried.
With this agreement, Bautista said she believes that people searching for missing loved ones can reach a point of closure and finally end their mourning.
The humanitarian consequences" of the agreement "are countless," said Christoph Harnisch, head of the ICRC in Colombia.
The conflict toll includes victims of abduction, forced disappearance, massacres, and fighters killed in combat, according to Humberto de la Calle, the government's top peace talks negotiator.
- 'Accustomed to finding them dead' -
Also speaking to the negotiators in Havana was Teresita Gaviria, founder of the Madres de la Candelaria, a group of mothers who travel from town to town seeking information on missing people.
The agreement "is the best thing that could have happened to us," said Gaviria.
Since 1998, she has been looking for her son Cristian Camilo Quiroz, kidnapped at age 15. She has also lost her father, who was murdered, and her brothers, who are missing.
Over the past 16 years the Madres group has identified the remains of 110 missing people.
It is time for both sides in the conflict "to break the pact of silence," said Bautista.Ideally, she would like to find all the missing people alive, but "they've accustomed us to finding them dead," she said.
- Symbolic importance -
The agreement is highly symbolic for Colombians, who have suffered for decades over the fate of the missing.
"For public opinion, it is a very big advance because the associations of victims and the relatives took up the forced disappearances and kidnappings as their banner," said Ariel Avila of the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation.
For years, the groups have dramatized the cost of the conflict with their personal stories of missing relatives and friends.
Christian Voelkel, an analyst with the International Crisis Group (ICG), said the agreement shows that the peace talks are still alive "after weeks in which doubts surfaced."
The Santos government and the FARC began peace talks in Cuba in November 2012.
The FARC, which launched a guerrilla war in 1964, is today the country's largest leftist guerrilla group with an estimated 7,000 fighters.
One of the biggest obstacles to a peace agreement was settled on September 23, when negotiators agreed on how crimes committed during the conflict would be adjudicated.They agreed to form a special tribunal to conduct trials and hand out prison sentences for people found guilty of crimes against humanity, hostage taking, extrajudicial executions and sexual violence. However, there would be amnesty for political crimes.
Experts hailed the move as a milestone and president Santos vowed that a definitive peace deal could be reached within six months.
But the government pushed back over the agreement's vague wording, and rebel leaders hinted they would not abide by the six month timetable if the government backtracked on a signed agreement.
The special tribunal is important because "forced disappearances cannot be separated from the search for truth and justice," Voelkel said.
AFP
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