Keywords

1 Introduction

Consolidating peace is an objective of all the world’s countries and of humanity as a whole. The Colombian peace process has become a beacon for resolving complex internal conflicts that affect—and have affected—numerous countries across the world. The model of transitional justice adopted by Colombia in its transition to peace, guaranteeing the rights of victims to truth, justice, reparations and non-recurrence, is one of the most innovative aspects of the Peace Agreement signed in 2016 between the government of Juan Manuel Santos and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—People’s Army (FARC-EP). However, the transition has been far from smooth. The commitment and support of the international community has played an essential role in preserving the agreement and ensuring its implementation.

This chapter examines the political, technical and financial support provided by the EU to one of the institutions of the transitional justice system created as part of the agreement: the Commission for the Clarification of Truth, Coexistence and Non-recurrence (Truth Commission). The truth of the armed conflict is a prerequisite for the reconciliation process: reconciliation can only be possible by moving on from the void violence leaves in the spirit and by repairing the dignity denied to victims. Truth is essential for collective reflection on the types and quality of relations between people in Colombia, between State institutions and the public, between companies and the neighbouring communities, and between us, as human beings, and nature. It is the ethical imperative of truth that requires us to be mindful of the context of social structures and processes that are broader and span longer time frames and that are bound up with the persistence of multiple inequalities and linked to the political present. The EU’s understanding of the importance of confronting the truth in all peacebuilding processes that follows armed conflict, war or dictatorship led it to prioritise its support and assistance for the Truth Commission as part of its cooperation with Colombia during the post-agreement period. This was largely a result of the lessons learned from the continent’s own history.

2 Peace and Truth Do Not Come Easily

The title of the Truth Commission’s Final Report, dated 28 June 2022, was There Is Future If There Is Truth (Hay futuro si hay verdad). It reflects the underlying premise of the Peace Agreement signed in November 2016 between the Colombian State and FARC-EP, marking an end to the insurgent-counterinsurgency war that plagued the country for over six decades.

It also reflects the premise of the transitional justice at the heart of Chapter 5 of the agreement, focused on guaranteeing victims’ rights. The transitional justice model was designed for societies of legacies confronting large-scale and serious human rights violations and the task of building peace. Justice is focused on the rights and dignity of the victims as human beings and citizens. It seeks the recognition of responsibility, alongside reparations for the damage suffered, and paves the way for a renewal of the social contract and the path to reconciliation. In this sense, it aims to prevent repetition. As early as 2006, Louise Arbour, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights stated that “Transitional justice must have the ambition to assist the transformation of oppressed societies into free ones by addressing the injustices of the past through measures that will procure an equitable future” (Arbour, 2007: 3).

In other words, the mechanisms of transitional justice address the legacy of violations of human rights and international humanitarian law as part of the transition of societies recovering from armed conflicts or authoritarian regimes. It involves creating arrangements—legal or otherwise—to guarantee the “morality of the return to or progress towards normality” (Valencia, 2003). The return to morality comes in the form of guaranteeing the protection of fundamental rights and the basic principles of transitional justice—justice, truth, reparations and non-recurrence—in the context of serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law (United Nations Security Council, 2004).

Chapter 5 of the Peace Agreement signed in 2016 provides the foundations for the Comprehensive System for Truth, Justice, Reparations and Non-Recurrence (Sistema Integral de Verdad, Justicia, Reparación y no Repetición). It is based on the understanding that the journey towards stable and long-lasting peace implies the search for truth, justice and reparations, alongside efforts to shine light on the cases of disappeared persons that formed part of the armed conflict. One of the points that became clear during the negotiations was the need for a comprehensive system to search for disappeared persons, provide the country with a moral, historical and political truth, and a justice system that would avoid any impunity for crimes committed. This resulted in the agreement to create the Comprehensive System, which comprises the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, the Unit for the Search of Disappeared Persons and the Truth Commission. Truth was to be the gateway to a long and difficult peacebuilding process for the country.

In a speech to the United Nations Security Council in February 2020, the Jesuit priest and president of the Truth Commission, Francisco de Roux, highlighted how the Colombian system of transitional justice has been enriched by the coordinated work of the three institutions of the Comprehensive System in pursuit of three types of truth:

The first is the legal truth, the task of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, which is responsible for ensuring there is no impunity. It is a truth that legally declares the guilty parties and issues sentences […] The punishment is not an act of revenge but a means of providing restorations for the victims and those responsible […]. The second truth is the moral, historic and social truth, which corresponds to the Truth Commission. It is a truth that […] presents itself and cannot be silenced. It is the truth that begins with the testimonies of victims everywhere and that probes the reasons behind violent events and processes, calling for reflection in the pursuit of a common understanding of the tragedy in order to build a new future […]. It is a truth without political or economic interests and that seeks to be as independent as possible. It does not condemn anyone individually but establishes ethical public responsibilities. It also listens to the various parties to the conflict and weighs up their opinions and interpretations. It is not there to point fingers and stoke hatred but to overcome the social divides through a painful and liberating truth. Lastly, there is the third truth: the truth that is pursued by the Unit for the Search for Missing People that supports their families in coming to terms with the cruellest and most tangible form of crushing the human spirit: their disappearance forever […]. (De Roux, 2020)

As the Commission notes in the territorial chapter of its Final Report:

The public display of truth is not just an act of justice in itself with victims seeking explanations of the events, it also facilitates their emancipatory reparations for them. This transformation is only possible by clarifying the political, socio-economic and cultural situations caused by the violence and its persistence, and by identifying strategies and mechanisms for the transformation, thus promoting social justice and empowering excluded and marginalised sectors. (Truth Commission, 2022a: 21)

The Commission was designed to help Colombian society confront the truth of the tragedy that took place during the internal armed conflict. It sought to do so based on a commitment to prevent the violence continuing and happening again. Through the public recognition of responsibilities and the publication and communication of its Final Report, it aimed to contribute to efforts to create a transformative environment for the peaceful resolution of the conflicts and the broadest possible culture of democratic respect and tolerance (Office of the President of Colombia, 2017).

The Peace Agreement has profoundly transformed the Colombian State and society with the aim of consolidating democracy and peace. However, achieving peace or truth is not easy. The implementation of the Peace Agreement, the work of the Commission and the creation of peaceful coexistence have had to overcome major obstacles. These include the continuation of the armed conflict with the National Liberation Army (ELN) and other localised armed conflicts in which criminal dynamics prevail; the murders of leaders and ex-combatants; the failure of the government of Iván Duque to decisively back the implementation of the Peace Agreement; and a climate that, instead of encouraging reconciliation, has been marked by polarisation, including for the referendum to approve the agreement itself.

The agreement signed between the Colombian government and FARC-EP not only renewed hopes for peace and democratic openness in Colombia, it also brought encouraging transformations towards this goal. Bringing the country’s largest illegal armed group to the negotiating table and addressing historic problems that were at the root of long-standing violence (for example, the assignment of land ownership rights and distribution, political participation, drug-trafficking and paramilitary activities) was proof that the country had embarked on the path towards stable and long-lasting peace.

However, violence soon reappeared in parts of the country. Municipalities in which FARC-EP operated were captured by ELN, FARC-EP dissidents and deserters, and a new generation of paramilitary groups (Clan del Golfo, Caparros, Cordillera, La Constru, and Los Pechenca) vying for control of illicit economies, drug-trafficking and illegal mining. The struggle for political power at the national level no longer lies at the heart of the armed conflict in Colombia, insofar as actors are no longer challenging the State and pursuing its radical transformation or seeking to preserve the political regime. However, the relationship between politics and crime persists in certain forms (Gómez Buendía, 2021). A number of the armed groups that persist continue to meddle in elections and capture public funds. Moreover, some factions, especially ELN continue to fly political flags and implement strategies to build their base. Colombia is living through a traumatic transition, with the inertia of old conflicts and the emergence of organised violence and authoritarian projects linked to organised crime. Confrontations are concentrated in the geographic areas of illegal economies, where the presence of the State has historically been limited, negligible or non-existent. These include Catatumbo in the department of Norte de Santander, Arauca, Bajo Cauca Antioquia, the department of Cauca, the Pacific Coast and Putumayo. Other areas that have seen an increase in violence are the south of Córdoba, the south of Bolívar, the south of Cesar and the north and north-east of Antioquia.

Various factors explain the persistence of violence in Colombia: the limits of the Peace Agreement itself, which did not include all armed actors or address issues such as the model of security or high levels of inequality in the country; the continued prohibitionist stance in the face of the problem of drugs, which fuels trafficking and violent patterns of accumulation linked to organised crime; the failure of the government of Iván Duque to back the implementation of the Peace Agreement; the obstacles put in place by powerful political and economic forces in the country; “inherited hatred” and the inability to see peace as a national project; and, of course, the growing strength of armed groups, which continue to enjoy some legitimacy in certain territories and sectors (although these are growing fewer) due to social inequality, the continuity of anti-democratic and inequitable policies and the precarious presence of the State.

Despite Iván Duque’s repeated declarations, particularly at the international level, portraying himself as a staunch defender of the Peace Agreement, the agreement was nonetheless undermined by his presidency (Varela, 2022). During his four years of government, it suffered numerous attacks from Congress in an attempt to hinder its implementation. This took place against the backdrop of deteriorating security conditions, the COVID-19 pandemic and, above all, the Duque administration’s notorious attempt to halt implementation. The absence of a peace agenda in the government of Duque could be seen in many areas: the failure to assign sufficient funds; major corruption scandals, channelling funds away from the process for implementing the agreement and peacebuilding; hold-ups to key legislation in the agreement (for example, political reform, public participation and the regulation of protest, reform of the electoral court by the special transitory districts for peace); and setbacks to comprehensive rural reform.

In July 2022, the report No Enreden La Paz (Don’t Hold Up Peace) was published by supporters of the peace process in Congress (18 senators and representatives from different parties monitoring progress in the implementation of the Peace Agreement). The initiative was led by Juanita Gobertus, representative of the Green Alliance, and found that while 12,820 signatories to peace were active in the reincorporation process (94.1% of the 13,616 accredited individuals) and the political reincorporation of FARC-EP ex-combatants has been guaranteed by the fixed seats in Congress, 36.3% of ex-combatants still do not have a government-financed productive project and, more seriously, at least 315 have been murdered since the agreement was signed. In January 2022, this situation led the Constitutional Court to declare a State of Unconstitutionality due to the large-scale violation of the security guarantees for signatories to the Peace Agreement (Constitutional Court of Colombia, 2022).

These figures on the progress of the implementation must be seen in light of Duque’s continuous attempts to distance himself from the Peace Agreement. Just six months into his presidency, he received the statutory law for the Special Jurisdiction for Peace from Congress. A month later, he announced in March 2019 that he would object to six of its 159 articles (Office of the President of Colombia, 2019). Duque’s criticisms were centred on what he regarded as a lack of clarity in the obligation of perpetrators to provide comprehensive reparations to victims, cuts to the powers of the High Commissioner for Peace to verify the list of members of armed groups covered by the peace process, and the State’s renunciation of criminal action against war crimes and crimes against humanity. In May 2019, after two months of analysis, debate and headlines, the Constitutional Court rejected the Government’s objections and Duque had to approve without changes the law to allow the Special Jurisdiction to begin its work.

If Duque’s election as president was defined by objections to the Special Jurisdiction, the end of his term was marked by his absence from Bogotá’s Teatro Gaitán on 28 June 2022. There, after almost four years of investigation and having heard testimonies from over 30,000 victims, the Truth Commission presented its Final Report on Colombia’s armed conflict. Duque’s absence coincided with his declarations in an interview in Lisbon, in which he remarked that he hoped the report would not be a “post-truth report”. He then went on to add that:

truth cannot have biases or ideologies; it cannot have prejudices. It is objective. Truth must be incontrovertible and the reality of our history is clear: in Colombia we have had legal forces that provide order and that have defended the Constitution and the law, and we have had terrorism, which has sought to stifle and silence the voice of a democratic people. (RCN Radio, 2022)

These statements once again flatly denied the existence of the internal armed conflict. The election of the new president Gustavo Petro was fuelled by the social unrest that started with a wave of national strikes between November 2019 and February 2020. However, it also reflected his presence at the presentation of the Final Report of the Truth Commission, at which he pledged to implement the report’s recommendations on preventing repetition. Petro’s election renewed hopes that Colombia was taking steps towards consolidating long-lasting peace. However, not only did the work of the Truth Commission take place in a context of polarisation in which peace and the agreement formed part of political conflict, it was also carried out against the backdrop of persistent violence, marked by continued fears and preconceptions among sectors of society wounded by the war. In this context, the political support and cooperation of the international community, particularly the EU, have played a fundamental role.

3 The EU: A Partner for Colombia’s Truth Commission

In the complex context described above, Colombia’s implementation of the Peace Agreement, and transnational justice in particular, has faced at least three challenges: (i) carrying out its mission, while communicating progress effectively so the public understands its importance, building hope for a peaceful future; (ii) ensuring its methods guarantee the broadest possible access for the country’s victims to ensure the political legitimacy of its results; and (iii) guaranteeing there are sufficient resources for this to take place.

The EU has been a strategic partner of the institutions of the Comprehensive System, especially the Truth Commission. Its permanent political, technical and financial support helped the Commission address the negative messaging of President Duque and other political opponents of the Peace Agreement. It has also allowed the Commission to expand its territorial presence, making it more accessible to victims and ensuring plural listening, which formed the basis of the method for clarifying the truth and helped boost the impact of the communication processes on Colombian society.

3.1 Political Support

The international community’s support has been fundamental to the Peace Agreement. From the outset of the negotiations, the support of guarantor and supporter countries—Cuba, Norway, Chile and Venezuela—was key to creating trust between the parties and ensuring that dialogue continued at difficult points in the process. Similarly, the specific support of certain actors, such as the EU and the United Nations, gave the negotiations further impetus. The United Nations Security Council has also unanimously backed the agreement and supported its implementation.

The political and financial support of the international community has also been fundamental in the implementation phase. The United Nations, through its Multi-Partner Trust Fund for Sustaining Peace, and the EU Trust Fund for Colombia are clear examples. In 2019, the EU’s support allowed the Comprehensive System to boost its presence in regions throughout the country, despite cuts to national government funding of its institutions. The international community also played a key role in the face of President Iván Duque’s objections to Statutory Law 1957 of 2019 (governing the functioning of the Special Jurisdiction), which were supported by the US government. The United Nations Security Council, the various United Nations organs in Colombia, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and the International Criminal Court, alongside the embassies of the EU and various European countries all called on the government to sign the law. While the Constitutional Court ultimately ruled that the president must sign, political pressure from the international community was required to create the conditions for the correct operation of the Special Jurisdiction.

The EU’s commitment to Colombia’s peacebuilding process dates back over 20 years and includes programmes such as the Peace Laboratories (2002–2010) and New Peace Territories (2011–2016). However, while these have both made major contributions to post-conflict politics, its trust in the transitional justice model that forms part of the agreements represents a new landmark in European support for the Colombian peace process. The Colombian model has publicly been regarded around the world as an inspiration and example for other countries undertaking political transitions, both now and in the future. This has strengthened the internal legitimacy of the institutions of transitional justice and their activities in the face of persistent internal attacks. In 2019, the EU provided €4.5 million of technical and financial support to the Truth Commission. At the ceremony to announce the contribution, the EU ambassador to Colombia, Patricia Llombart, stated that the support for the Comprehensive System reflects its status as one of the “essential elements for guaranteeing the application of this innovative model of transitional justice agreed for peace in the country” (Truth Commission, 2019a). Similarly, at a meeting with leaders of the Comprehensive System, Federica Mogherini, at the time the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, stated that “the peace process remains at the heart of the EU’s commitment to Colombia,” adding that the Comprehensive System and its three institutions set “an example for future peace agreements” (Truth Commission, 2019b).

The EU has also shown its political backing through the presence of its ambassador and the ambassadors of European countries at various public events organised by the Truth Commission. At the first public event held to recognise the dignity of the victims of sexual violence during the armed conflict, My Body Tells the Truth (Mi cuerpo dice la verdad), organised by the Truth Commission in Cartagena on 26 June 2019, the Norwegian ambassador John Petter Opdahl read one of the selected testimonies. Similarly, at a public event called Truths that Liberate (Verdades que Liberen), organised by the Truth Commission on 23 June 2021 to recognise the responsibilities of FARC-EP for kidnappings, the EU’s ambassador to Colombia, Patricia Llombart, stressed that:

the path of transitional justice is innovative. It is a type of justice that aims to bring an end to a conflict not by forgetting the victims but by putting them at its heart […]. It is an approach that stands out from conflicts in other parts of the world. This is why the world is watching Colombia and learning from it. We are learning from you with every step you take, every step forward in the search for the truth, for justice, for reparations, to make sure it does not happen again […]. It is a bold system: it takes a lot of courage, energy, determination, humility, love and generosity to confront the truth after so many years of such a hard conflict, one that has left so much pain behind, and to do so through a series of new and innovative institutions. Over these years, I have watched the bodies of the system of transitional justice grow and mature. I have seen them reach territories, enter people’s homes, create space in Colombian society. […] Colombia’s experience is of vital interest to all of us who pursue peace, human rights and sustainable development […] recognition of the responsibility of the former FARC shows that peace continues moving forward […]. This is the first time that a former guerrilla actor has submitted to a court and has recognised and assumed responsibility for horrific crimes, rejecting all justification and, above all, expressing its desire to fully clarify the truth. (Truth Commission, 2021a)

The German ambassador Peter Ptassek appeared at a public event entitled Generations that Don’t Give Up (Generaciones que no se rinden), organised in Bucaramanga on 2 December 2021 to recognise the responsibilities for the effects of the armed conflict on Colombian public universities. Ptassek explained that his motivation for attending the event was

his love for the people of Colombia, who want to discover their past and who have the strength to confront the history, facts and events of the armed conflict. For those who have a thirst for truth, who are sick of not confronting, of denying and avoiding the question of guilt, pardon and preventing repetition. For his admiration of the victims and respect for the perpetrators who have come to ask for forgiveness today. For his admiration of the members of the Commission […] For the presence of the commitment to truth – the best and most valuable thing in the country at present. A truth with many faces, many nuances, many voices, with an immense underlying pain but above all the enormous force of hope […]. Germany took time to recognise the political value of memory. It is important to confront the past and accept it. Otherwise, a better future is not possible. Germany took a long time to do this. This makes the work of Colombia’s Truth Commission all the more admirable, on account of all it has achieved in such a short period of time. (Truth Commission, 2021b)

Other European ambassadors have also appeared in public spaces for the recognition of responsibilities, sharing similar messages of support and admiration in other parts of the country, including Valle del Cauca, the Pacific, Amazonía, Antioquia, the Caribbean and Huila.

In addition to the recognition processes, the EU has supported dialogues for the prevention of repetition. The dialogues are an initiative of the Truth Commission to provide spaces for conversation in society for the territories in which violence persists. Exchanges between individuals from different sectors of society have helped to understand the reasons why the conflict has persisted in these areas. At the sixth dialogue for non-continuity and non-recurrence on 5 December 2019, which was dedicated to understanding the murder of men, women and social leaders, the EU ambassador, Patricia Llombart, accompanied by the ambassadors of Germany and Austria, sent the following message: “We are here for the long term to support Colombia in a peace process whose implementation will be hard and will face challenges. Because of this, we know you will need friends […] In this specific case, our commitment is to contribute to ending the stigmatisation of leaders in society, to the fundamental role they play in a democracy and how they are helping to transform territories from the territories themselves, including environmental conservation. In a specific initiative from Germany, we have launched the We Defend Life (Defendamos la vida) campaign, which aims to work with leaders to highlight and make visible their work. This should be an objective of the country: a political consensus on the fundamental role they play in democracy” (Truth Commission, 2019b).

As a sign of the respect for the Truth Commission’s work, other dialogues to prevent the continuation of the armed conflict also saw the appearances of the ambassador of France, Gautier Mignot, at the dialogue in Catatumbo on 15 October 2020, and the first secretary of the ambassador of Switzerland, Mathias Zeller, at a dialogue in Bajo Cauca Antioquia on 20 November 2020.Footnote 1

When, after two years of the Commission’s mandate marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, victims and civil society organisations requested the Constitutional Court to extend the Truth Commission’s mandate, the international community played a key role during the Court’s evaluation of the request, particularly the ambassador of Ireland, backing the request in private conversations and through political influence, as well as in public declarations.Footnote 2

Towards the end of the Commission’s mandate and in reference to its Final Report, the EU ambassador to Colombia, Gilles Bertrand, remarked:

the report that the Truth Commission will publish on 28 June is fundamental to this step being taken by Colombian society towards preventing repetition and better understanding what has happened. The most impressive part has been the immense and extraordinary work of the Truth Commission, involving over 28,000 testimonies from people from all backgrounds, from victims, from perpetrators, from members of the Armed Forces, from groups on the margins of the law. And this work has taken place throughout the whole country. It has involved recognising the truth in all its complexity and proposing a series of recommendations as a starting point for a genuine dialogue, a national dialogue. (Truth Commission, 2022b).

As the EU ambassador to Colombia, Gilles Bertrand has spearheaded the call to the various institutions and embassies to finance and support the legacy of the Truth Commission and its partners, who will allow its work to live on once its official mandate has expired.

Through all these interventions, the EU has reaffirmed not only its support for the peace process but also for transitional justice in Colombia as a means to consolidate world peace, based on liberal democracy, human development and respect for human rights, which presuppose, above all, a capitalist economic model with open borders to trade. As Francisco de Roux, President of the Truth Commission, has noted, the EU—in particular Patricia Llombart, and with her all the European ambassadors—“saw from the outset that the peace process in Colombia, as they have stated, was the best international news in a sea of solutionless conflicts at the start of the twenty-first century”.Footnote 3

3.2 Technical and Financial Support

The EU’s political support to the Truth Commission was accompanied by technical and financial support. During the Commission’s mandate, the EU financed the development of three programmes to support the Commission’s territorial presence as part of efforts to make its institutions more accessible to victims, develop spaces for social dialogue that promote plural listening in the context of peacebuilding and the participation of various sectors of society in the process, and foster peaceful coexistence in different territories. These programmes also aim to make visible and promote the communication of activities and results to allow the country to understand the work and progress of the institution, thus strengthening its legitimacy.

  1. (a)

    Clarifying the actions of resilience and positive transformations

The first grant received through the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR/2018/403-346)Footnote 4 aims to identify, highlight and strengthen initiatives for peaceful coexistence in Colombia, as providing a potential basis for reconciliation in territories and as a means to build a “parallel narrative” to the one of the horror surrounding the events that took place during the armed conflict. With a budget of €196,000, the project sought to contribute to the clarification and recognition of examples of resilience and positive transformations by civil society and Colombian institutions in the context of the armed conflict. This is in line with the mandates in articles 12 and 13 of the law establishing the Truth Commission:

The Truth Commission has a mandate to clarify and promote the recognition of […] 12. Processes to strengthen the social fabric in communities and examples of individual or collective resilience. [and] 13. Processes of positive transformation of organisations and institutions throughout the conflict. (Office of the President of Colombia, 2017)

The Commission’s general mandate included not only clarification of the truth surrounding the atrocities committed as part of the armed conflict but also making visible the positive experiences and capacity of civil society and institutions in the territories and at the national level to overcome these events and survive, confronting the war and looking for everyday and structural escapes. This meant showing and understanding the positive initiatives, processes and changes at the individual, social, cultural, structural and political levels during the years of war, promoted by civil society or the country’s institutions, and which must now be taken into account as part of a transition process from war to peace. The overarching aim has been to ensure the dignity of the people behind the initiatives and decisions but also to use them as examples and building blocks for the peacebuilding process.

The EU grant had two specific goals: (i) develop a participative process involving key agents of change from civil society and institutions to gather examples of resilience and positive transformation; and (ii) contribute to the recognition and dignity of victims by making visible and communicating practices and experiences of resilience and positive transformation during the armed conflict. The project set out to provide a broad survey of all experiences documented and systematised in some way in recent years. These included those with greatest importance and impact, the most inclusive and diverse, and further examples that have yet to be covered by the process but whose content and knowledge are fundamental for analysis (for example, to make them visible, since they have not yet been recognised). The project also resulted in the identification of practical, innovative and strategic guidelines to promote initiatives, decisions and inputs for public policy designed to manage coexistence and prevent the repetition of violence in the territories of Colombia. The project provided inputs for the Truth Commission’s Final Report and allowed progress to be made in the design of communications strategies to support the clarification and making visible of the collective construction of truth by the Commission.

There were four main activities in 2019: (i) gathering documentation and systematising good practices in resilience and positive transformation that have been promoted and documented by universities, international cooperation, institutions and civil society organisations; (ii) review and comprehensive analysis of the various systematisations and documentation gathered; (iii) meetings to identify territorial experiences in the regions of Magdalena Medio and Orinoquia; and (iv) identifying common features to understand how the experiences took place and to allow their use as regional, national and international models for promoting coexistence and preventing repetition.

In 2020, activities were focused on ensuring the visibility and prominence of the common features of the examples of resilience and positive transformations. This was done in a number of different ways: events, audiovisual works, multimedia and transmedia, widely circulated works of art, writing and illustrations. The strategy was tailored to the specific contexts and key actors of individual regions, which were then presented at a national event. This ensured that not only did the process impact the participants at the meetings for the exchange of proposals but that it extended to the public as a whole. This process was complementary and took place in coordination with the other processes under the Truth Commission’s remit as part of its deployment strategy and territorial approach.

The project was important because it contributed to an aspect that has not commonly featured in other truth commissions. Processes for clarification and justice are normally focused on clarifying “damages”. Few commissions have called attention to the positive transformations and examples of resilience in the context of armed conflict.Footnote 5

  1. (b)

    Support for the national and territorial compliance with and performance of the Commission’s mandate

At the end of 2019, the EU ratified its support to the Truth Commission, with a contribution of €4.5 million. The funds were provided through a programme operated by the NGO Red Prodepaz, with a particular emphasis on supporting work in territories to guarantee the access of victims and ethnic communities to the entity, above all in the areas most affected by the conflict. This support contributed to the work of clarifying the events of the conflict and their impact on the population, especially children, adolescents and victims of gender-based violence.

This international cooperation programme was approved against the backdrop of the events of 2019, when the country faced a change of government and an incoming president, Iván Duque, who had been staunchly opposed to the peace process and agreement. It was a context of considerable distrust and pain, which was felt by society as a whole. There was also a climate of polarisation, which meant many people in Colombia failed to see the implementation of the Peace Agreement and its benefits as legitimate alongside the hope they offered. Moreover, the country was also experiencing a budget crisis and the resources for the implementation of the agreement had been cut, with a 40% cut to the Truth Commission’s budget in 2019 alone.

The Truth Commission started promoting the creation of public spaces for encounters and social dialogue in pursuit of coexistence and preventing repetition, with an emphasis on recognition and satisfying victims’ rights. However, despite the Commission’s work to safeguard progress in consolidating its institutions in a context of budget constraints and polarisation, it still had to boost public mobilisation and awareness of its significance and scope. This directly impacted the construction of the Commission’s legitimacy, which was crucial for ensuring broad, plural and inclusive social participation across territories in the clarification of truth and in creating the conditions for coexistence and preventing repetition. In this context, the project made a strategic contribution, since the funds gave the Truth Commission greater flexibility and helped to boost its territorial presence and public impact. The EU’s support and backing also helped to build confidence among communities and different parties, closing the gaps of polarisation and strengthening the work of the Commission.

The EU’s support to the Truth Commission pursued three specific objectives. The first was related to the territorial dialogue to ensure the public took ownership of the truth. The Commission’s work and its Final Report had to be the result of a joint reflection of many voices, with participation from different sectors of society and public institutions from various regions of the country under a territorial approach. What made this aspect so important was that, in addition to documenting the violence that took place and the factors that allowed the armed conflict to persist, the Truth Commission’s mandate also included promoting processes for reflection and dialogue at the political and social levels, as well as for cultural transformation. These helped ensure recognition of what had happened, while strengthening measures for coexistence and preventing repetition. This could only be achieved through broad and inclusive mobilisation and dialogue.

During the EU-funded programme, activities were funded for the recognition of the dignity of the victims and voluntary recognition of responsibilities, including preparatory spaces with victims and perpetrators and meetings between them. There were also public spaces, spaces for dialogue to prevent repetition of the violence (especially the murdering of social leaders) and lastly spaces to allow different parts of society to share their memory of the conflict. The programme was an important part of the Commission’s activities in numerous regions (the Caribbean, the Pacific Coast, Antioquia, Córdoba, the Coffee Axis, Surandina, Magdalena Medio, North-East, Central, South-East, and Bogotá). Work also took place in the ethnic territories (indigenous, black, Afro-Colombian, Palenque and Raizal communities).

The second objective of the EU support related to the investigation and knowledge management processes. The investigation was designed in response to the agreement reached in the consultation process with the country’s ethnic peoples. The violence they suffered as part of the armed conflict has specific sociocultural connotations that require conceptual, methodological and cultural adaptation of the Commission’s work to take account of and respond to these specific circumstances. The incorporation of an ethnic approach in the Commission’s work was considered from the outset a historic opportunity to recognise the country’s ethnic diversity, alongside the violence suffered by ethnic peoples in the Colombian armed conflict and their dignity and resilience. It was also a prerequisite for building a narrative of the armed conflict and peacebuilding that would ensure the visibility of the voice, perspectives and forms of analysis of ethnic communities.

The third objective of the EU’s support was to ensure society took ownership of the truth, going beyond people who sympathise with the process to reach those who with a more distant, sceptical or indifferent attitude towards the Peace Agreement. This was done through communication initiatives that went beyond institutional positioning, taking steps to create a contract of legitimacy with society as a whole. This helped build a form of communication that not only transmitted messages and information about the Truth Commission’s work and its progress but also made it possible to involve groups with a certain distance or indifference towards the process, making it part of their lives. This was done via content to raise awareness and generate interest in the violence of the past, the historic opportunity presented by the transition and, above all, the need for commitment among society to prevent repetition.

The star product of this strategy was the television programme In front of the Mirror (Frente al espejo), which was winner in the democracy category of the Latin America Television Awards in December 2021. The award recognised its role in stimulating public participation in public life, especially in the search for truth and the construction of a future that leaves the war behind (Truth Commission, 2021b). The programme also won the India Catalina award for best journalism and opinion production at the 37th Colombian Audiovisual Industry Awards (Capital, 2021). The EU programme also funded the production of the documentary After the Fire (Después del fuego), which premiered in Colombia on 30 October 2022, in addition to the television series The Event of the Truth (El acontecimiento de la verdad). These programmes complemented the Truth Commission’s national and territorial strategy, which included the regional television programme Let’s Talk Truth (Hablemos de verdad), a radio programme for regional, local and community stations entitled Voices of Truth (Voces de la verdad), and the podcast series Light of the Night (Luz de la noche), whose broadcasting was also financed by the EU programme (Truth Commission, 2021d).

These products used different registers and focused on young people. They have helped to construct different imaginaries and to reinterpret events. They have also produced emotional, personal and collective transformations with effects in the short term (generating interest in the report), as well as the medium and long term (commitment to preventing repetition). These processes and the products stemming from them have served two further purposes: on the one hand, to raise awareness among disinterested groups and communicate the history of the events to future generations; on the other, they represent a strategy to document not only the work of the Truth Commission but also the process of building and implementing a grass-roots policy that has contributed to clarifying the truth as part of the transition to stable and long-lasting peace.

  1. (c)

    Support for disseminating and fostering ownership of the Truth Commission’s Final Report and legacy

In January 2022, the EU reaffirmed its support to the Truth Commission through an 18-month programme that provided €2 million to support the communication of the Truth Commission’s Final Report and its legacy and foster ownership among society. The programme took place across the country’s 32 departments, which were divided into ten macro-regions based on cultural, social, economic, territorial and operational factorsFootnote 6: Caribbean and Islands (Atlántico, Bolívar, Cesar, Córdoba, La Guajira, Magdalena, Sucre and San Andrés); Pacific Coast (Chocó, Valle, Cauca and Nariño); Antioquia and the Coffee Axis (Antioquia, Risaralda, Caldas, Quindío and Norte del Valle del Cauca); Surandina (Valle del Cauca, Cauca, Nariño, Tolima and Huila); Magdalena Medio (Santander); North-East (Arauca, Casanare and Norte de Santander); Central (Cundinamarca and Boyacá); Orinoquia (Meta, Guaviare, Vaupés, Vichada and Guainía); Amazonía (Amazonia, Putumayo and Caquetá). Likewise for the ethnic territories (indigenous, black, Afro-Colombian, Palenque and Raizal communities).

The pandemic affected over a third of the Commission’s mandate, limiting its capacity to reach remote areas and communities and to build trust and dialogue with sectors that had distanced themselves from the process (for example, the private sector and the Armed Forces). Moreover, a resurgence of violence in some parts of the country, the daily killing of social leaders and human rights defenders, and the massacres and large-scale forced displacement that threaten entire communities, all of which disproportionately impact ethnic peoples and their territories, created additional challenges for the Truth Commission. The report’s publication date (November 2021) also overlapped with campaigning for the presidential elections. This was perceived to have limited its impact in terms of coexistence and reconciliation due to its use in political contests and debates. This combination of factors led civil society to request that the Constitutional Court extend the Commission’s mandate in order to allow fulfilment of the victims’ constitutional right to truth.

The court accepted the request and granted a nine-month extension of the Commission’s mandate, taking it to August 2022. The extension gave the Commission seven extra months (from December 2021 to June 2022) to complete its Final Report. This allowed it greater depth in some specific areas of the clarification process, allowing it to finalise the investigation, listen to more voices and hold private meetings and dialogues to draw up the recommendations for preventing repetition. It also provided extra time for the editing, proofreading and design of the Final Report and guaranteed its public reception after the election of the country’s new president, Gustavo Petro. The Commission also set up a Monitoring and Follow-up Committee, which would run for seven years after the expiry of the Commission’s mandate and was tasked with monitoring the implementation of the recommendations for preventing repetition. During the final months of the Commission’s mandate (July–August 2022), it worked with its national and international strategic partners to promote broad, plural and democratic debate on its findings, conclusions and, more specifically, its recommendations for preventing repetition.

In the context of the extension of the Commission’s mandate, the EU’s third grant focused on ensuring all the effort and work over the three years was brought to a successful conclusion and delivered to victims and the public, ensuring its long-term sustainability as a contribution to peacebuilding and the implementation of the Peace Agreement in Colombia. The grant allowed the Commission to make visible and position the Final Report as broadly, educationally, assertively and innovatively as possible (especially the conclusions and recommendations for preventing repetition) among the various target groups and sectors. It allowed support for the consolidation and transfer of its legacy as a strategy to ensure its sustainability upon completion, tied to the work carried out with the network of partners and the creation of the Monitoring and Follow-up Committee.

It is essential that the Commission’s final recommendations, which are oriented towards structural and cultural transformations to support peace building are implemented, since Colombia has seen a rise in the number of massacres and murders since the Peace Agreement was signed in 2016. Mobilisation among society in recent years, alongside the election of a new president and congress in 2022, have created a window of opportunity to build long-lasting peace, addressing some of the main factors driving the persistence of violence and conflict in Colombia and putting them on the public agenda. These include inequality, exclusion, racism, stigma and the denial of the internal armed conflict. All were analysed in depth as part of the Truth Commission’s work.

The Commission’s recommendations for preventing repetition mush reach the relevant parties, decision-makers and society as a whole, who must also take ownership of them. The structural and contextual factors that have allowed violence and armed conflict to persist in Colombia for decades must be addressed as part of an agenda covering the short, medium and long terms, promoting the transformation needed to create the conditions for reconciliation and sustainable peace.

This EU support programme also had three strategic objectives. The first was to contribute to the completion of the Final Report by strengthening investigation and comparison, alongside feedback for the findings, conclusions and recommendations for preventing repetition. The second was to contribute to large-scale and focused communication and promotion of the Final Report through communication and educational initiatives focused on victims, stakeholders in the taking ownership of the implementation of the recommendations for preventing repetition, decision-makers and the public as a whole. The third was to support the Truth Commission’s strategies to ensure the sustainability of its legacy.

The first of these objectives involved funding consultancy work for the completion and review of the Final Report. Here, the emphasis was on issues related to the recommendations for preventing repetition, alongside external reading and feedback on draft chapters of the report. Meetings and spaces with strategic parties and sectors were also financed to allow them to contribute to the conclusions and recommendations of the Final Report. Participants included members of the Armed Forces, the business community, universities, victims, civil servants and international experts. These activities took place at both the national and territorial levels.

For the second objective, the EU funded a tour of the members of the Commission in the ten macro-regions (32 departments of the country). This included public and private events to present the report, alongside meetings with decision-makers to ensure ownership and implementation of the report’s recommendations and conclusions (at the territorial and national levels). It also funded the design and communication of the communication campaign There Is Future If There Is Truth (Hay Futuro si hay verdad), which was broadcast on national and territorial television and radio stations, as well as in the country’s main airports and public sites in regions. The EU programme also funded the fourth season of the television programme In front of the Mirror (Frente al espejo), in recognition of its extraordinary success (Truth Commission, 2021c).

To help ensure the sustainability of the Commission’s legacy, the programme is funding the structuring of work plans and agendas agreed with partners, which will run until June 2023. It is also providing indirect support to partner-led initiatives to ensure the sustainability of the Commission’s legacyFootnote 7 and is cofunding the launch of the Monitoring and Follow-up Committee, alongside the phase for participative preparation and monitoring of the recommendations.Footnote 8

4 Conclusions and Lessons Learned from the EU’s Support for the Truth Commission

This chapter invites three main reflections on the EU’s support for Colombia’s Truth Commission as part of this collection’s broader analysis of its international cooperation for peace:

  1. (a)

    Processes for the transition to peace in the aftermath of internal armed conflicts are not easy, especially the clarification of the truth. This is particularly true of societies where none of the armed actors can declare itself victor or where peace agreements are followed by high levels of political and social polarisation around the agreement itself. In such contexts, permanent political support is required to complement technical and financial cooperation for the implementation of the measures in the agreement. Public interventions by ambassadors, their political and diplomatic advocacy on government decisions, and their participation in and support for the processes to implement peace agreements are fundamental. This political commitment to peace, alongside permanent references to the experiences of other countries, not only aids the implementation and financing of the agreement but also helps foster public trust in the peacebuilding process.

  2. (b)

    European cooperation with the Colombian transnational justice system exemplifies the international view that peacebuilding needs to be a comprehensive process that guarantees victims’ rights. Truth, justice, reparations and non-repetition are non-negotiable principles of processes for transitioning to peace. They are the cornerstone of the process to rebuild the social contract, which continues after the war is ended. Although the results of clarifying the truth are intangible and can be hard to capture in quantitative indicators, the EU has made an invaluable contribution to the national reconciliation taking place in the country by encouraging the State and society to come to terms with the truth of what happened during the armed conflict in Colombia: the pain, the tragedy and also the strength of resistance.

  3. (c)

    European cooperation with Colombia’s Truth Commission was based on three principles that underpinned the success of the programmes it funded: determination, a joint understanding of the key requirements and challenges, and a long-term, process-oriented perspective. Its continued and relevant cooperation across the Commission’s mandate spanning almost four years and its ongoing contribution to ensuring the sustainability of its legacy have helped consolidate processes that have been essential for delivering on its objectives. These include plural listening, with a territorial and ethnic approach as the basis for the investigation process for clarifying the truth and for ensuring the legitimacy of the Final Report. They include promoting recognition among society of the tragedy caused by the armed conflict and the responsibilities of the different parties involved. They also include fostering understanding of the processes of resistance and coexistence among Colombian civil society in the midst of the war, which provide a source of inspiration and learning in the peacebuilding process. Lastly, its strategy for communication and educating people about the progress of the Commission’s work laid the ground for the Final Report and underpinned its dissemination.

The EU has adopted a long-term view. It has supported the Truth Commission’s legacy and the establishment of the Monitoring and Follow-up Committee for the recommendations for preventing repetition, alongside civil society initiatives to ensure the dissemination, ownership and monitoring of the report and its recommendations. All this is proof of the EU’s understanding that peacebuilding processes go beyond the disarmament of combatant groups: they are long-term endeavours that require the effort of both the State and civil society.