Megan Gunn-Millen, USA Office of Transition Initiatives. I was raised on February 20, 2011 in 2013. June 1, hope and rational research. This is.  I'm not a good boy. I don't have a question for that much. Of course you do. But Cooperation Therapy, I'm sorry. I'm Maria Sutton, USAID. I'm a retired Navy and International Security Consultant for Resolution Research and Investing. Alex? Can you guys wait for me to check that? Is it a really national democratic decision? Excuse me. If you could use the microphones now, we think they're working. Okay. Excuse us. Jesse Liefer, International Presses Group. For the microphones to work, I'm sorry. If they work, you have to press down to speak and then press down when you're done. Jesse Liefer, International Crisis Group. Jesse Liefer, International Crisis Group. There we go. Channel 5. Channel 5. Is it Japan? Yes. Is it Japan? Yes. Miriam Ruder. I live in Colombia. My husband moved for AID. Brian Rudert with a USAID Colombia land project. I'm Alex Fraser with the U.S. Department of State. Ari Basson, U.S. Department of State. Daniel Messi, Embassy of Colombia. Catalina Rodriguez, Embassy of Colombia. And at the front table. Good afternoon to all of you. Good morning. I'm Liliana Avila from the Interacletal Commission of Justice and Peace. Good morning to all of you. I'm Mario Ortegonosorio from the Collective of Justice, Salvea Restrepo, Colombia. Good morning. I'm Franklin Castañeda from the Solidarity Committee with the political prisoners and the Colombian-U.S. coordination. A platform that groups more than 250 human rights defenders in Colombia. Thank you. Is everybody able to hear the translation at this point? No. No. There's still problems. Okay. One minute. Lisa? Where did Lisa go? Okay. Well, perhaps I will introduce our guest who will be welcoming today's presentation. George Lopez is the Vice President of the International Conflict Management and Peacebuilding Academy here at the U.S. Institute of Peace. He has a longstanding commitment to the issue of human rights and has been an educator of many, many years coming to us most recently at the end of last year from the Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice at the University of Notre Dame. We're delighted to have him here. And I appreciate the support that he's given for this event today. And invite you to come to the podium to make some welcoming remarks. Jenny, thank you. And thanks to all of you for being here and for your patience with some of our technological challenges. I want to welcome you to yet another session of the Columbia Peace Forum. This forum, which we established last year with... Okay. It's working. It's good. He says, no, it's not working. I think you can hear me if I don't... Oh, he can't hear me. That's right. Thank you. Okay. We're good. So the first thing I'd want to say is welcome. And the second is thanks for your continued patience with our technological challenges this morning. I'm sorry. Have them use the Japanese challenge for Spanish. I'm sorry. The system won't ever change it. That's right. And the system needs to be on the Japanese channel for the Spanish interpretation. So it goes from Washington to Bogota to Tokyo back to Washington is the way it seems to go. This is another session of our Columbia Peace Forum with Jenny and USIP launched last year to bring together the kind of marvelous collection of you here today. That is people from US governmental agencies in town concerned about this issue, non-governmental people from the US and international, and certainly Colombians to discuss themes related to peace and the internal challenges in the peace process that are emerging as it goes forth in Columbia. It's part of a broader range of activities we try to undertake here at the United States Institute of Peace where our challenge from Congress, which funds us and from the wider spectrum of US agencies, which we deal with and with local partners, asks us to be helpful in dialogue, education, training related to preventing, mitigating, and when necessary, helping to solve violent conflict. In the case of Columbia, Jenny and other colleagues here have been working for years to try to support local peace processes, to support civil society capacities, to build for peace, to work when necessary with the government in their efforts, and in particular, in this case, to blend the search for peace with the protection for human rights. That's why we're so excited about today's program, which brings together our colleagues committed to human rights advocacy who are here in Washington, D.C. for the meetings of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which are being held at the OAS. We're grateful that they're taking time in this busy, busy visit to Washington to share with us their insights and their work today, and I think it'll be a stimulating conversation. I won't say very much given that we've lost some time here. What I want to do is to point out for you our interest in this, both given long-standing contacts in Columbia, but also our own study of peace processes tells us that unless there's a successful dealing with human rights issues at the table, then there can be no serious and stable peace. This varies from country to country context, particularly because the longer the conflict, as we've seen in Columbia, the more likely that all sides have been guilty of atrocities. And the dynamic of how to bring peace with justice, how to deal with impunity and accountability, how to deal with a process that not only gets you to the peace the first day, but can stay as an ongoing set of arrangements over time is critical. I know we'll deal with this in many respects today, and we at USIP applaud these efforts and thankful to Ginny. One personal note, I didn't get a chance to meet Alejandro at the beginning, but my own association with Columbia from 97 to 2001 was through the Colombian Commission of Jurists and Gustavo Guyan and many good colleagues there. Please convey my best wishes. We hope for the best for your continued great work and for the work of others in this room. Welcome to USIP. We hope you have a very, very successful forum today. We're delighted to be part of it. Ginny, thank you. Thank you so much, George. I want to echo George's welcome. We have with us a stellar cast of human rights advocates from Columbia, and I'd like to welcome them warmly to USIP and to the Columbia Peace Forum. They and the many human rights organizations that have emerged over decades of war in Columbia have been the canaries in the mine in Columbia, risking their lives to alert the world to the realities of war and seeking us to protect and defend the lives of others. We're grateful to have them here today. Today's event, the peace process in Columbia, challenges, opportunities, and strategies for the protection of human rights, is organized in conjunction with the Latin America Working Group Education Fund and Peace Brigades International, two groups that have worked tirelessly to keep human rights on the agenda of US policymakers and the international community. I'd like to acknowledge in particular long director Lisa Hogart and PBI director Moira Briss over there for their work to ensure that Colombian human rights advocates in particular are heard in Washington. I'd also like to thank the various USIP staff and teams that have made today's event possible, the technicians without whom we couldn't start the program, the public affairs office, the congressional liaison office, the academy, especially Natalia Ojola and Vicky Hudspeth, and a final word of thanks to Charlie Roberts for interpreting for today's events. Hi, Charlie. Columbia's internal armed conflict has lasted half a century, and repeated efforts over the years have failed to bring peace. Yet today, the prospects for peace are more promising than they have been in more than a decade. In late 2012, peace talks between the Colombian government and the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces, the FARC, Columbia's largest insurgent group, opened in Norway. Progress has been steady, though with presidential elections on the horizon, the pressures on the peace table continue to be intense. The parties are now in their 22nd round of discussions in Havana. Two preliminary agreements have been reached on rural agrarian development and political participation, and the parties are hammering out the terms of a third set of agreements on the issue of illicit crop cultivation and drug trafficking. A comprehensive peace accord with the FARC and hopefully a similar agreement with the National Liberation Army, ELN, Columbia's second largest insurgency, that addresses the root causes of Columbia's conflict, as well as the factors that perpetuate it, will be the first step to staunching violence in Columbia. All sides have put their share of lives and perpetuated violence against others. The facts are chilling. The Historical Memory Commission reported this past year that between 1958 and 2012, armed actors produced at least 220,000 deaths. More than 23,000 selective assassinations have occurred. More than 6.6 million hectares of land have been usurped, causing the internal displacement of more than 5 million Colombians. 27,000 some kidnappings have been carried out by the year of 2010. More than 10,000 deaths or amputees have been documented from anti-personnel landmines. An illicit recruitment of children has numbers at about 6,400. There are other patterns of human rights violations as well, forced disappearances, sexual violence, and extrajudicial executions. As the peace talks have advanced over the last year, we have witnessed an important transformation in the willingness of the conflict parties to accept responsibility for their actions. President Santos has spoken publicly of acts of commission and omission of state organs in association with illegal armed actors and has called for, quote, recognizing the errors of the past in order to build a more just and peaceful country. Likewise, the guerrillas have publicly begun to recognize their own wrongdoings. In August, FARC leader Ivan Marquez, Rodrigo Grande and Pablo Catatumbo spoke about this. With Catatumbo's long considered one of the FARC's hardliners, noting, we have made mistakes some serious indeed and expressed the FARC's willingness to ask forgiveness. These acknowledgments of responsibility for wrongdoing are merely the beginning. They're a key ingredient to arriving at a place where the truth can be revealed and all of the parties become willing to make amends and contribute to the restoration of the social fabric. Only one of the items on the agenda in Havana explicitly addresses the issue of victims, yet each of the agenda items is nonetheless inextricably linked to the theme of human rights and justice. The introductory preamble to the framework agreement outlines general areas of consensus between the parties. It recognizes that respect for human rights is a goal that must be promoted by the state. It establishes that economic development with social justice in harmony with the environment will guarantee peace and progress and that social development with equity and well-being for all will allow the country to grow. The document also acknowledges the party's commitment to deepen democracy as a condition for securing a solid basis for peace. The first item on the agenda, agrarian development policy, calls for agreement on measures to increase integration of the rural and urban areas and enhance equitable social and economic development. A second agenda item, political participation, includes security guarantees for the exercise of political rights, including the right to dissent, and measures to increase the participation of the citizenry, particularly the most vulnerable populations in local, regional, and national politics. The issue of illicit drugs currently under discussion includes the need for integrated development and environmental recovery plans drawn and carried out with the participation of the communities in the affected areas and drug prevention and public health measures. The agenda item related to the end of the conflict considers the question of a definitive bilateral ceasefire and cessation of hostilities, disarmament, and the reincorporation of the FARC into civilian life and the situation of political prisoners. It also entails discussion of national commitments to end criminal organizations and networks and to reduce corruption and impunity, especially for those organizations responsible for homicides and massacres, or that have attacked human rights defenders, social movements, or political movements. A fifth agenda item, the one that explicitly addresses human rights, notes that respect and compensation for the victims is at the center of a peace accord between the government and the FARC. Here, negotiators at the table will address the issue of human rights of the victims and questions of truth and will also address the phenomenon of paramilitarism. In the final point of the agenda, implementation, verification, and endorsement of the agreement will be established. The agenda is an ambitious one that promises reforms that will lead to improved prospects for the protection and promotion of democracy, peace, and human rights. Of course, as they say, the devil is in the details and it remains to be seen how these agenda items will be addressed in the final peace accord. The issue of human rights intersects the peace process in a multiplicity of ways and today's event will explore some of these issues. So now, without further ado, let us turn to our speakers. You have copies of their bios available outside and I'll introduce each of them as they speak. We'll begin with Joe Murray, or Ortegon, who will discuss the challenges for the administration of justice in the general context of human rights work in Colombia today. Joe Murray is a lawyer for the collective de Abogados José Alvear Restrepo, a lawyer's collective that's very well known for its human rights defense work and among the issues in particular that she has covered are extrajudicial executions and social and economic rights. So I turn it over to Joe Murray. Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much to Virginia and the Institute of Peace for the invitation to discuss this important issue, the process of peace in Colombia. Yesterday it was published the report of the United Nations Office for Human Rights in Colombia, the report of the High Commissioned Office, some of the figures of concern that records the report are the ones that are in the presentation. And for the first time since 1996 that the Office of Human Rights in Colombia publishes a peace report. So I think I'll invite you to read it so we can discuss some of the issues that are being worked on there. On today's day, we would like to talk about the challenges for justice in this process of peace. Since the year 2003 approximately it began to speak in Colombia of a term that is unknown in the world, which is the term of transitional justice. Our assessment is that at this time in the year 2003 it began to be very badly used and it reached the point that in Colombia transitional justice was sacrificed in the times of peace. And so a framework was formulated that was the framework of the law 975-2005 the framework of the so-called law of justice and peace that today we are nine years old and in this nine years of implementation of the framework and in front of this framework we would like to express lessons learned and from there some challenges that would involve the new process of peace. The first thing I wanted to share with you is the so-called law of justice and peace did not guarantee neither justice nor peace for the Colombians. This process was based on a system of criminal benefits for members of paramilitary groups for this period until the day of today about 45,000 paramilitaries were dismantled and the balance in matter of justice is devastating. Approximately a number of 32,000 paramilitaries received criminal benefits that is, none of them was submitted to justice an approximate number of 3,000 was submitted to justice to the framework of the law of justice and peace approximately 1,000 paramilitaries appeared in a judicial process. Finally during nine years of application of the law of justice and peace only 14 judicial sentences were produced 14 sentences in front of 45,000 paramilitaries dismantled. That is, the contribution to justice was so nimble that at this moment we can confirm what we announced as movement of criminal victims of state several years ago and it is that this process of the law of justice was not going to guarantee justice for the victims. Additionally last year the law of justice and peace was reformed by the law 1592 of 2012 this law disappears in preparation for the victims of the law of justice and peace that is, the victims who presented the procedure of the law of justice and peace waiting that at the end of the law they could find an integral repair they could not do it what the law 1592 does is submit to another procedure which is the one of the law 1448 we are going to talk about it in these nine years of application of the law of justice actually 10 cases came to the repair incident 10 cases is a very small number of victims who could aspire some kind of repair finally the other great aspiration of the process of the law of justice and peace is to contribute to the dismantling of paramilitarism but different organizations, entities academic institutions that have followed what some call neoparamilitarism other new paramilitary groups the government calls them Bacrim but in all of them there is a coincidence that today is a very widespread phenomenon the presence of these paramilitary groups in almost the entire country so without a doubt we can confirm that this procedure did not contribute to dismantling paramilitarism a second framework which is the framework of the law of victims the law 1448 was the second framework in which it also began to talk about transitional justice I'm not going to refer to it because it will probably be Alejandro in his presentation however we would like to point out that the same information of the United Nations talks about 277 sentences of restitution that have been produced in these years of application but this is more or less the 1% of the land to be restituted so what would you demand today? a peace process so that we don't talk about a peace process with impunity some reflections these are reflections of the collective social media lawyer Restrepo still in construction and it is the presentation that we are going to do today what is the proposal of justice that we have been discussing starting with a question that is like a question that we have been asked and it is if a peace agreement with the guerrilla de las farques that eventually with the LLN what many of us aspire is what would happen with human rights violations our question is if a peace agreement or a more determined agreement would end human rights violations and our response is that possibly not possibly not because in the figures that Virginia presented we believe that it is important to start making distinctions and it is for example the report is enough that it points out the many violations that have been committed in Colombia it points out as if they were committed armed and there is everything if one makes a distinction it could indicate that approximately 80% of the violations that have been committed in these 50 years are attributable to the Colombian state Colombian state and paramilitarism this means that the most important and this is the proposal that we are making is that it can be advanced in a formula that not only guarantees the demobilization of guerrillas but it can also be used as a counterfeit because that will be the center of a negotiation agreement with guerrillas but additionally it contributes to the adoption of guarantees of non-repetition and the dismantling of state crime so that we can talk about a overcoming of human rights violations it is important not only to think about the crimes that the guerrilla committed military in the framework of the armed conflict but above all in those that would continue to be produced beyond a possible agreement so for that our first proposal is and in it we add to the movement of state crime victims to think about those formulas that allow the adoption of guarantees of non-repetition there is a work that presented last year the movement of victims with these proposals some of them I will quickly share which is the effective dismantling of paramilitarism, the purification of armed forces but also of other state institutions committed to paramilitarism the revision of the manual regulations, legislation that promote visions inside armed forces according to which there would be an internal enemy these are the social movements of human rights, revision and purification of intelligence which will also be referred to by Liliana Abila in her presentation and other proposals that tend to strengthen the law to strengthen justice and in general to strengthen new institutions the second element which is the central aspect of our proposal is a court of justice for peace a universal court in the sense that it should be submitted in our proposal all the actors we are not only armed actors army, guerrilla, paramilitarism but also all those actors who have contributed have benefited from the armed conflict for the commission of crimes of human rights let's think for example we think in these 5 million 6 million victims of the dispute of this dispute they have benefited industrial, they have benefited economic companies, they have benefitted of course, politicians so we believe that a peace process would require to think about also the dismantling of these economic, political structures that benefited from the commission of crimes the second element of our proposal is the asymmetry the symmetry between the state's responsibility and the responsibility of the guerrillas for us as representatives of victims the responsibility of the state is main the state as responsible the principal responsible to protect human rights respect them and guarantee them but also in their position of guarantee this would imply that there would be an asymmetric treatment in the sense of considering how the third article is established as one of the Geneva convenions a wide range of amnesties and indulges for the members of the guerrilla that are beneficiaries of the agreement on the side of the guerrillas and on the side of the members of the public force the submission to a justice court where they respond to the crimes now in the case of crimes of guerrillas and crimes of that humanity called the international court in the case of the guerrillas we propose equally the submission of this court but of the public force they should submit a court we consider that peace cannot be circumscribed the demobilization of the armed forces the peace that requires Colombia implies the deep deprivation of the public force the dismantling of the new paramilitary structures the submission to the justice of the economic and political powers that have sowed and benefited the violence in the country in addition to the differentiated responsibility we consider that there should be a change in the way in front of the law of justice and peace there should be an incentive system to identify who are the most responsible that our judgment does not happen in justice and peace and that allowed the continuity of paramilitary and thirdly a system of differentiated penalties and in that we do not have this definitive but we do believe that the regime of sanctions should be higher than the one that established the court of justice and peace we do not believe that we think that justice is an obstacle for peace but all the contrary that to think in the future in the consolidation of peace the basis of justice in front of human violations and infractions in the humanitarian that is why our proposal is that there are maximum penalties of the double at least of what was established in justice and peace so that there can be a greater range of a system of benefits that differentiates levels of responsibility in the sense of differentiating between maximum responsible and executors and crimes of that humanity for them we imagine two wings that allow to establish differences between members of the public force and other actors and members of the guerrillas and finally that all of them is structured in function of the consolidation of guarantees of no repetition it is a complex proposal no definitive we know a lot of the proposals but also of the ones that are presenting the guerrillas although the proposals of the guerrillas have been changing of the guerrilla de las farcas has been changing and is already accepting the submission of a court of justice we do not know a definitive proposal but we believe that we all have to point out that crimes of war, crimes of that humanity cannot be left in impunity and finally we believe that as this is the year in which this issue will surely be discussed in Havana it is important to insist that the voices of the victims are heard, neither the government nor the guerrillas are the legitimate representatives of the victims that is why the call is that all of you support the broadest participation of the victims in that process in a direct way thank you very much thank you very much a question I understand that these are ideas and proposals that are being developed now is there anything that the collective has published that lays out this proposal no it is not yet public because it is not definitive but it is present in different spaces to listen to opinions and be able to present the next year a definitive proposal great thank you very much next we will turn to Franklin Castañeda Franklin is the president of the foundation of the committee in solidarity with political prisoners foundation an organization that was founded in 1973 to protect the rights of those detained arbitrarily the committee continues to monitor arbitrary detention, prison conditions and violations of political rights as well as covering other principal human rights problems in the country Franklin is also in DC as a representative of Colombia Europa, United States a coalition of 245 Colombian human rights and non-governmental organizations so I will turn to Franklin I will tell you and to those who organized this event I will not mention it to save time the second is taking into account your presentation I thank you because I think I will transform a little my speech of this conference and maybe I will take advantage of it as a kind of cable station and instead of talking a little about the situation in depth I will not take advantage of the opportunity that I am sure many of those who are many and many of those who are here can collaborate I will focus on three points of intervention the first is the need to defend the process of peace the second is the need to impulse a process with the National Liberation Army and the third is the need that we have in Colombia that it is impulse with this process a real transition to peace and democracy I will try to be very specific in each of these points the first of them is to defend the current process of peace defend it why and who they have presented themselves in Colombia a series of attacks can be said to this process attacks that come from where attacks that come from ultra-right in Colombia very powerful sectors but attacks that also come from military forces Colombians in that sense we should I must point out that we have come we have come to observe sectors or centers of power military forces in Colombia not only have they had a public voice proclaiming the sabotage of the process but they have acted in an irresponsible way and I think in a very planned way to produce adverse effects to the process situations like revealing the coordinates where one of the chiefs of the FARC so that the government will transfer it to Havana clearly put the process at risk situations like the scandals in which the Colombian army has been seen immersed among which other revelations became known how the army is intercepting its own voicers of the national government in the Havana process clearly put the process at risk aggressions of the public force in Colombia in the framework of the social protest aggressions to the human rights defenders aggressions to the opposition clearly put the process at risk the worst of all is that many times we observe that the Colombian government seems to not have enough force to oppose those sectors of the Colombian army and sectors of the Colombian ultra-right and to be able to safeguard not only its government but its main bet as is the process of peace and in that sense comes my first message because I understand that here there are several Ivarias that can help us we believe that the United States can play a fundamental role in this if there is a country that can be allied with the Colombian government of the Colombian society at this moment to take back the military that are behind this kind of facts and to send a clear message in the sense that it will not be connected with any kind of facts that prevent the decision of the Colombians to make a transition to peace that country is the United States and we believe that for different ways to get that message to the military in Colombia is a message that we need and even is a message that needs the government of Juan Manuel Santos right now that I am totally convinced the message that implies that the United States will not back any kind of acts of sectors of the military that are going to sabotage the process of peace and that is my first message that I wanted to leave there that is the need to boost a peace agreement with the National Liberation Army why do we do it? because it is a guerrilla that not only has 50 years of participating in the conflict but has presence in about 20% of our country imagine that in the United States in the 20% of the United States there is a guerrilla with military capacity not to overthrow Obama but laterally to civil institutions should or should not negotiate with that guerrilla I would believe that yes, after 50 years of trying to defeat it militarily the Colombian government and the army have been able to therefore its capacity to stay in the war is there and today we have an opportunity I think that as it has not been presented in many years and it is an opportunity that we should not take advantage of the fact that we are then a greater impulse for both the Colombian government and the National Liberation Army to be motivated and to do what they have announced publicly many times it is now that a table is already installed with the National Liberation Army why do we have to boost this besides for a reason that is also simple I think that we have to learn from the mistakes we have made and the failure of demobilization for the military to have one and it is that it was not able to destruct everything that means the apparatus for military everything that means that mafia apparatus destructed only what it has to do with its apparatus or share the military apparatus but not its political structures not its economic structures and not the totality of those military structures military sorry today what do we have? today we have these economic structures and the military part that survived ended up cutting the demobilized and ended up cutting many other people and re-editing the paramilitary phenomenon so the government calls it criminal gangs the question is do we want in a peaceful process where there is a demobilization or there is a re-incorporation of many of the combatants but for us it is clearly not and we are convinced that if the National Liberation Army remains there it will not only have the capacity to grow but it can also have the capacity to re-incorporate men who do not demobilize and that would imply necessarily that the Colombian conflict continues to extend and that is why we believe that many of those who are here can help us with this message to Colombia and above all to the government that it is necessary that we advance in this dialogue process with the LLN and my third message or my third theme in this is we need to promote a transition to peace and democracy because I say it in both ways because necessarily peace has to be understood as a very complex issue peace is not the silence of the rifles in Colombia there have been violations of human rights and violence related to the conflict in our country there have been violence phenomena related to the crime of the state social-political violence phenomena related to sectors of society that in order to get rich have displaced people have murdered those who oppose their interests but there is also the drug trafficking phenomenon there is also of Central America and how in the post-conflict process there are more dead in Central America than in the same conflict process I think that of all of that humanity has to learn and in Colombia we necessarily have to learn and in the United States that has been one of the historical allies of the Colombian government necessarily we would have to talk about the possibility that it is impulse that the end of the process of the armed conflict in Colombia necessarily leads us to a transition to peace and a transition to democracy and we simply want to touch or make some comments the first of them is transition to democracy why because Colombia is a country where politics cannot be done freely because Colombia is a country where despite the fact that the paramilitaries said to have been demobilized continue to have a wide power in the regions continue cutting the state and use the state not only to defend its economic interests but to live directly of the economic funds of the Colombian state that is given in few parts of the world but corruption in Colombia is such that the resources of the state perfectly serve so that many corrupts can live happily and can live directly of the public funds that come not only from the Colombian taxes but from the international economic aid that type of mafia must be ended and those mafias must be ended so that the institutions of the Colombian state can fulfill with their legal mandate can promote work can promote health can promote education if those mafias do not end if we do not democratize the country Colombia will continue being like today in many regions a failed state you can go to Bogotá and you can find it very beautiful but it can also be put in Colombia deep where the state simply does not work if we do not take advantage of this great opportunity that gives us history we will surely continue to have millions of Colombians in that same situation of course it is necessary as a consequence of the mafias the mafias that are in justice and that add to the country's impunity the mafias that are in politics that live from politics and that have been those who have organized the paramilitary groups many times the mafias that are in the army that steal weapons and give them to the paramilitary groups that capacity paramilitary groups that even sell weapons to their enemies like insurgency but that also deal with drugs and that also have a power that is fundamental to a government as it is in this case the process of peace if we are not able to destruct those mafias in Colombia the process of peace will never lead us to the end of violence and will never lead us to a country in democracy and finally we need that there is a real transition to peace the more understood peace as the silence of the rifles needs a consequence a peace that implies the end of the socio-political violence in Colombia that is a peace that implies that clearly decreases the violations of human rights in Colombia that is a peace that serves so that the Colombian people live in tranquility after more than 50 years of war and conflict those are our needs and we believe that the United States has a fundamental role to play as a strategic ally and that is why we need that there is a focus we celebrate some speeches that have been given by the Colombian government in that sense and we also celebrate that we are thinking about decreasing the military cooperation and hopefully that cooperation can go precisely to the cooperation towards democracy and peace and let me know that I have finished and I leave you with those messages thank you very much I am going to change the order I don't know if Alejandro if you want to go Liliana, you have a powerpoint no, well then I... I will move to the side so we'll start the next presentation by Alejandro Malambo from the Colombian Commission of Jurists thank you very much Gini, thank you very much for all the present here in this table of the things I am going to refer to address the issue of land restitution, I would invite those who want to go deeper into the web page of the Colombian Commission on Jurists, www.coljuristas.org, the second report is about the process of land restitution in Colombia. So, regarding what I would like to mention, the following, according to different statistics that have been done regarding this issue, the percentage of lands that have been disposed in Colombia corresponds between 6.8 to 10 million hectares. In 2011, the law of land restitution entered in Vigencia, the 1448, where a normative land restitution would allow this right to be fulfilled and to be able to implement the same. However, the existence of this legal land restitution, from the Office of the High Commission of the United Nations, was manifested and several Colombian organizations have done so, regarding that if it was not applied impartially and effectively, this normative land restitution more than looking for a process of reparation and guaranteeing rights of the victims of land restitution, could have a redictive effect and become an instrument of legalization of the dispute instead of providing justice for the victims. Regarding the land restitution framework, some repairs have been made. In the first place, regarding the existence of a transaction contract that promotes that the victims are subscribed, always and when they give up on the possibility of obtaining an economic reparation for the judicial life. Similarly, another aspect that has been criticized regarding this normativity has to do with the absence of measures to guarantee the reparation of the disposed heritage, since only in the first place, the law contemplates the restitution of the land, but in front of those goods that were disposed of to the victims that should leave their land, it is not mentioned absolutely anything. And another aspect that I would like to highlight is the limitation of the material restitution effective in case that in the lands that were disposed of, projects are presented agro-industrial in the lands of the victims, which, as has been mentioned, the general control of the nation can derive in the fact that the beneficiary of the restitution ends by accepting the terms that establishes the third and therefore leads to a situation of re-victimization. I would like to focus on this presentation in two aspects, out of those that I mentioned today and as a manifesto, they are developed widely in the report that is published on the web page of the Colombian Commission of Jurists. The first has to do with guarantees of non-repetition in the matter of land restitution, so here we can find that there is a serious situation of unprotection in which the victims who have demanded the restitution of land, who have demanded the evolution of their land, and that from the beginning, the organizations, both national and international, we warn that if they were not given full guarantees for that claim, indeed, they would be constituted in a very complicated, very difficult scenario that would make it impossible to demand this right. In respect to Human Rights Watch, it has documented that more than 60 cases of threats between 2011 and 2013 in Bogotá and in eight departments in the country. And in front of that schedule, an aspect that we would like to criticize and that we would like to highlight are the fallacies that the State Protection Program has in this matter, since its concept is only based on the mitigation of the risk, the mitigation of the individual risk of people, but it does not point and it will not go beyond observing causes and factors, generators of precisely that risk. Everything focuses on personal security, but not in the context, in the scenario in which the sources that produce that threat are developed. So, therefore, it becomes an incomplete reading of the reality that allows abortion and that allows them to handle precisely those factors and that they are understood as such and acted in that way. For example, the wrong reading that is made of the dismantling of paramilitarism, paramilitarism still exists in Colombia, it has been mentioned and changed by the name of criminal gangs, but indeed they behave the same criteria of the supposed groups that were mobilized in the process of the previous government and therefore they are given a different treatment when they are necessarily studied and awarded as such as paramilitary groups and that wrong reading of the reality is the one that does not allow protection to be omnicomprensive and simply reduces those personal aspects of security and only limits itself to the delivery of chalets, the delivery of communication teams, the delivery of discounts, but does not allow precisely the factors that produce that situation. Another relevant aspect also in the face of the guarantee of non-repetition is in terms of the impunity that has existed in terms of the processing of forced displacement for us it is supremely serious that one of the main causes regarding the conflict, such as forced displacement crime, is practically absolute impunity. The sentences that have been given regarding it do not exceed 0.202% of the cases, which gives us a percentage equivalent to 98% of absolute impunity in terms of this crime and despite the fact that the prosecution has made great efforts to build a team, a special unit in terms of displacement for the judgment of this process, which in total we have for the last year was 30,544 cases, only 87 sentenced sentences have been obtained and only 27 captures for this fact, therefore the challenges are immense, but the instruments to address the processing and the judgment of this crime are minimal and if you really think about guaranteeing a restitution of effective lands is indispensable for sanctioning and punishing those who have been the main perpetrators of more than 4 million people, approximately 10% of the Colombian population have been forced out of their origin. Another relevant aspect is in terms of the impunity that exists in the face of crimes related to land claimers, of those people who have been threatened and murdered for exercising that right, which supposedly from the law 1448 2011 it was going to be possible and it was going to be possible to exercise it. Here we want to highlight that the 49 cases of land claimers murdered have only been preferred in 8 cases and have been imposed charges, that is, an accusation has been made in 7 cases. The restants continue in absolute impunity, continue in stages of investigation and do not have results in respect. Finally, I would like to highlight the process of land claim in itself, concerning the level of solicitudes that are made about this brand and the responses that have been made about it. Here the process of land claim is unfortunately limited according to the conditions of security imposed by the National Security Council where two areas have been prioritized for the land claim and that area is under which the land claim is carried out. I explain to you a person, for example, in Los Montes de María, if that area is micro-focalized in the United States of America, it is simply to be there on a list, and if it is not within the framework that has defined that National Security Council as a micro-focalized area, it is in response until it is decided by that body that the conditions are given to undertake that process. A number about this can show us the magnitude of this challenge and we have that on June 2013, 43,590 solicitudes of registration of land claim, of which 40,295 were directly presented by the victims, including 34,010 previous, with an extension of approximately 2,800,000 hectares. The previous ones have not been located in the areas of macro-focalization, that is, those that have not been defined by the government to act, to start to commit the land claim, that means 35,223 solicitudes that have not been transmitted, practically on the number of land claims, that is, more than 70%. In this state of things, the law of victims does not contemplate any alternative mechanism for these cases, that have not been, that do not understand those macro-focalized areas, that, for example, through the economic compensation or an administration. For this reason, it has been manifested that continuing this procedure would take more than 100 years to complete the restitution of land claims in Colombia, to do it in the process of definition of areas, of restitution one-to-one, of waiting for the sentence, it would take more than a century to achieve the resettlement of that right. I would like to finish, since I have little time, to present some challenges to respect, so that they can, in the discussion and seeing the quality of the participants of the hearing. First of all, the requirement of the Colombian state to fight impunity in matter of forced displacement and crimes of lands laws. This is the only effective way, beyond the chalecos, the escorts, of the communication lines that provide the state to guarantee that they do not repeat those crimes in matter of restitution of lands. And the only way is that people can return in conditions of dignity to their territories. Second of all, to ask for an acceleration to the current process, because to follow that procedure in terms of the request and resolution of the same, we would definitely not achieve this life, and I think another more, to be able to see and materialize the restitution of lands in Colombia. But for this, we have to have political will. And that political will can only be faced with those who have effectively benefited from all this tragedy of the armed conflict to increase their economic powers, to increase their political powers. As my colleagues have said, if there is no effective dismantling of all those structures of power that have benefited from more than 50 years of the armed conflict in Colombia, I think that little or nothing can be achieved with the fact that there is a peace process and there is a demobilization of one of the armed actors, but without effectively being able to change that model that has perpetuated this state of things and that does not effectively allow us to enjoy the rights of the victims. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you to 1130, technically. We do have the room until 12, so we can stay beyond that for discussion. Hopefully, I'm very sorry about the technical issues we had. I think it really cut into our discussion time. So I'll turn it over to Liliana. Liliana and I'd ask you five, no more than five minutes if you can, because I think many people here probably have questions they'd like to ask, so I want to, I hate to cut you, cut you down, but I think I'm going to have to ask you to thank you. Bueno, muchas gracias. Very well. I'd like to thank the colleagues who have spoken before me, and I'd like to thank you for coming this morning to hear us. I would like to share a few thoughts with you on the importance of the right to truth for victims in Colombia and the contributions which that U.S. citizens can make to building peace in our country. And we start with the right to truth as a right of victims but also as a mechanism for constructing a lasting peace and a country with peace, or rather with justice and equity, vis-a-vis the causes of the conflict. Within the victims' movement, we've had this debate for many years. Why a truth commission, what for, what would its mandate be, what would the objective be? More than seven years ago, or for more than seven years in Colombia, there's been an ethical truth commission operating made up of several prominent persons from different parts of the country who have in more than 18 visits heard from victims and victimized communities. And that has been the starting point for undertaking some reflections with respect to how and why an ethical commission should be set up and a proposal. And based on these analyses, we've been able to reach points of consensus and conclusions in terms of what for and why a truth commission in Colombia. The first, why is it important for there to be historical clarification and to have a national narrative of sociopolitical violence identifying the causes, the many causes, the reasons, the absurd reasons, the doctrinal and legal frameworks, the consequences for human, social, economic and environmental aspects, and the participation of various national and international actors and their responsibilities. And in addition for the purpose of developing mechanisms for recognition of responsibility with victims and persons impacted by human rights violations and likewise the development of hostilities, it derived from violations against human dignity. We believe that a development of the truth commission or developing a truth commission could contribute to memory, the truth, justice and full reparation, picking up on victims' own initiatives for defining policies to preserve memory, to make institutional adjustments to the judicial apparatus as well as policies of health, education, culture and communication in the nature of reparation in a transitional democracy. Likewise, we think that the truth commission can foster the symbolic and psychological public ceremonies to acknowledge responsibility and to give impetus to mechanisms of reparation such as monuments and other initiatives that victims have undertaken. Of course, it is a proposal that is under construction and that would entail major debates in terms of the how and why and what of the truth commission. But a point in the consensus is the analysis and the importance of analyzing the doctrines and methods that have been used to further the armed conflict. This would be essential for that knowledge to reveal the structures and mechanisms that go beyond the conflict itself and that can help overcome the conflict. In this regard it is necessary that the truth commission issue conclusive observations about how each of the parties to the conflict set up its armed bodies and its forms of combat, how it set forth objectives, tactics, strategies for the medium and the long term and also how one can draw legal and ethical distinction between the responsibility of the state and the insurgency in the same time way the effects and impacts of the war on society and on the country. The criteria for assessment used cannot be limited to public documents. That's to say laws, general precepts or curative policies but should be expanded to what has been classified and kept secret by the armed forces. Many of the manuals used by the military forces and the insurgency are secret documents. They need to be revealed and we need to see who created them and why they created them. That's important in order to learn the truth. In addition, documenting through our experience in litigation and in accompanying victims, we have been able to conclude that the magnitude of violence used by state security agencies the Colombian state reveal the clear existence of a concept of internal enemy and the strategic uses of war. This is why in order to be able to talk about violence, dynamics of violence, dirty war answering to a doctrine that was strategically evolved, it's necessary to know where those doctrines come from, how they operated, who created them and with what objective in mind. It's in this context that two tasks need to be carried out that we consider essential. First, know the tools by which the official forces might commit abuses to determine whether the phenomenon of paramilitarism is or is not a strategy designed by the state as has been indicated in reports and in judgments by courts in Colombia. Where did the idea come from to create parallel armies of civilians to counter the advances of the social movement and to commit serious human rights violations? In addition, it is necessary to declassify and open up access to information for the right to truth and for the work of the ethical commission. Our internal conflict has permeated our borders, but it also is related to international security policies. Declassifying documents and having access to them, therefore, is something which corresponds not only to Colombia. It's recognized that security strategies have been evolved that imply other states, intelligence agencies and security agencies. In that regard, the commission would have to open up its field of investigation and get into the participation of international actors in the development of the armed conflict. In this context, the truth commission should focus on international agreements with the area of security, the existence of secret and public secret agreements and determine to what extent the guerrilla movement and other movements have interacted with other countries. At this point, we'll need third countries that have been involved in one way or another in the development of the conflict to contribute to the truth commission security documents and documents showing support for the official services likewise with the guerrillas. In order for the country to embark upon a democratic transition, it is essential that the dimension of the war be fully acknowledged, the experience of access to these classified documents has been key to resolving armed conflicts, for example, in the Guatemalan context. In this regard, it's important that Colombia also undertake an effort to clarify just what those documents are that would make it possible to clarify the causes of the conflict and it's fundamental to have access to the versions of drug traffickers and paramilitaries who have been extradited to the United States. You know that many of the persons who committed grave human rights violations and who were commanders of paramilitary groups have been extradited and have been in the United States for the last four years. It is important that they contribute to the construction of truth and that there be full guarantees for that to effectively happen. This is why the contribution from your work is fundamental for carrying out the mandate of the Truth Commission and for making contributions to help construct the truth and to be able to usher in a new country in Colombia. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Liliana. Off the final speakers. But the official program is over if people have to go, if you've counted on leaving at 11.30. But we'll continue on for the next half hour for those that would like to stay for the discussion. So if there's anybody that needs to rush out, please do so and we'll continue on. I may ask Moira and Lisa as co-sponsors of this event if they have any initial questions that they'd like to throw out. And if not, we'll open up to the floor. Lisa. I just want to follow up on the Truth Commission issue. I think you made a very important point about the need for declassifying documents within Colombia and from the international community and there is certainly lots of precedent here in the United States about that. But how are you seeing the structure of a Truth Commission? How do you think that would best work? Are you also considering alternative Truth Commissions as well? What's the sort of vision you have about what kind of structure would be sufficiently independent, would work for the victims to really be heard? And I might throw in an additional angle on that in terms of the difference that you see between what the Historical Memory Commission has already done. How would the Truth Commission build on the work of the Commission or complement the work of the Commission? We will take from Moira as well. Sure, thank you. Also, Peace Brigades International our focus is on protection of human rights defenders and so I wanted to ask any of the panelists who want to respond, but what you see as the potential situation for human rights defenders and the security of human rights defenders in the case of an agreement, I know in other countries we've seen spikes in violence in those moments, so you can talk a little bit about what the situation is like now and how that might play out in the case of an agreement. Thank you. Franklin, would you like to come up to the table as well? I'll stand on the side. Thank you for your question, Lisa. Yes, there are major debates within the organizations that make up the victims' movement for establishing the mandate and just how a Truth Commission would operate, but some points of consensus thus far, well, first of all, it would have to be made up of national leaders but also international figures and it would seek to support the initiatives for the Truth and would have the monitoring of the national and international community. We also believe that this has to be part of developing a national agreement but it should also include the guerrilla forces negotiating Havana but also the new groups or the groups that we hope also become involved in peace talks with the government. We also think that it is essential that there be a presidential decree so as to give the presidential and state backing to its creation and to its mandate that it not just be an offering up of wills or a consensus of desires but rather a law of the republic so that it can have the strength for enforcement. The idea is that there also be national coverage that it not be a commission that would be dispatched from Bogotá but rather that it be able to get to know and travel to different regions of the country and become familiar with the dynamics of the conflict that occurred in those different parts of the country and that after a constructive dialogue among all it could establish the relationship between the conflict in the given region and elsewhere in Colombia. And to answer your question, Ginny, the creation or the way in which it would be established would distinguish a truth commission from the historical memory commission as constituted in Colombia thus far because they've also been initiatives of the state. There's not been a consensus with the victims to also promote truth strategies and to have a lot to say about what is understood by truth justice reparation and what the mechanisms of victimization have been for those who've been victims. For example, the victims' law created mechanisms of groups of memory made up of representatives of civil society but the victims' movement never considered that it was integrated into that initiative. This is why, of course, the integration of the victims and their movements is the first point of departure for it to be a mechanism that would actually restore dignity to them. Moira's question is very important because it leads us to the point of the difference between an agreement to end the conflict and a peace process. So an agreement to end the conflict would mean diminishing violations of international humanitarian law that are committed day after day in the context of hostilities. So an agreement to end the conflict would certainly mean a diminution or elimination of infractions of this sort. Now, a peace accord should contribute to reducing human rights violations. This means that if there is not an end to the armed conflict plus laying the bases for a stable and lasting peace, the response to the question is that the situation is not going to change. It's not going to change at all. And this has to do. Now, what are we talking about when we're talking about a peace process? We're talking about, as Franklin said, changing the political model, deepening democracy, transforming the economic model. And this means a profound analysis as who have been the beneficiaries of the armed conflict. So we go back to the question of dispossession of land. Columbia is the country with the largest number of displaced persons. Alejandro already mentioned we're talking about 6 to 10 million hectares of land that has been stolen. Now, at this time, we are circulating a document from one of the human rights coalitions in Columbia about the consequences of the mining model, mining and extractive industries in Columbia. This is Columbia's future. The proposal in the National Development Plan at this time is to make Columbia into a mining country. It's like seeing us as a big mining pit and as a result, there would be no turnaround in the mining force displacement. Violations related to many human rights would continue, including, of course, environmental rights, including, of course, the rights of women and children because we know that in context of high levels of militarization, certainly private militarization but public as well, as we see in Central America, Peru, well, that's where we're headed if we're not able to make progress in setting peace by changing the economic and political model. In addition, we believe that it's important to highlight figures of recent years. According to the Somos Defensores Program, 78 human rights defenders were assassinated last year and we're talking about 23 union members and that's why one of the points on the labor plan of action. So for us, the situation is not going to change until certain things are transformed and there also needs to be a change in a doctrine that is deeply encrusted in the armed forces and that's the doctrine concerning the internal enemy. So until they stop seeing us human rights defenders those who engage in social struggles, environmentalists, land restitution leaders, trade unionists until they stop viewing us as the internal enemy, the situation is not going to change. So I would invite you for us to think beyond the agreement and the armed conflict and to think about consolidating the bases for peace for defenders, for us human rights defenders to not have to do this work actually if we do have to do it, well to be able to do it with the best possible guarantees. Thank you. I have one here, oh I'm sorry, Franklin. Franklin and one here, I see others. I have a question. Well no, I just want to make a remark on the Truth Commission. I think the major challenge we have today is guaranteeing that that commission should be so legitimate that other Truth Commissions not be necessary. I think that from civil society we are fully willing to go hand in hand with the government and the armed actors to push a single process for constructing the Truth in Columbia with a single Truth Commission. But that requires that that Truth Commission offer real guarantees, genuine guarantees to victims to Colombian civil society that its work is not just going to be an organ that does a little bit of publicity and clarifies a few things, but rather that it have solid bases in the regions that the victims be heard in which the victims can contribute and that it be a Truth that is useful for change in Columbia. That's the major challenge we face. If we can work on it then no doubt in coming months or years we will have a single Truth Commission. Now if the Truth Commission does not give us the guarantees then unfortunately from civil society we'll have to create alternative and parallel organs and continue in a process of confrontation, of course not an armed confrontation but it would still be a confrontation as regards the history of the conflict and the history of Columbia. There are a series of another round of questions and comments I'm not sure how much time we'll have to actually give responses but we'll do the best we can, yes. If you could identify yourselves please. Thank you very much. My name is Carlos Guiza. I have two questions that are quite separate. The first is for Joe Mari and the second is for Alejandro for Joe Mari. My question has to do with paramilitaries the proposal that you're making if the paramilitaries are responsible for a large part of the violations committed in the context of the conflict in Columbia it's also well known that many of these crimes have been committed in the context of orders that they get from various political sectors. So my first question for you has to do with how that part fits in the proposal that you're doing at the table at the peace talks in Havana. And my question for Alejandro is a little different from the standpoint of public policy and this obviously has to do with the land law at this time how does the land law connect with or face off against policies having to do with hydrocarbons, royalties with Joe Mari touched in and incentives for extensive crops such as African palm, sugar cane and oxygen markets. Thank you, Jim. I think that you have highlighted the great challenges that exist that stand in the way of reaching a lasting peace in Columbia. It seems to me I might be a bit naive but the greatest challenge is cultural and starting from that premise I wonder what is or what could the role of the Catholic Church be the church, not in Columbia, is well the church is a national institution at least horizontally speaking I'm not going to speak about the vertical aspect of that but I ask what could one do to help prepare the terrain to get people to change their mindset and support a peace process and anyone could take that. Donny? Yes, I have a question for Alejandro as well on the issue of restitution in the law and restitution it strikes me that you've mentioned the question of non-repetition guaranteeing non-repetition. The question of impunity in the face of forced displacement I think that it's very important to draw a distinction in terms of violation of rights between persons responsible for forced displacement and persons who have just possessed others of land or stolen their land. Oftentimes they're not the same. I'm not trying to speak in favor of those who provoke displacement of course but it's very important to bear in mind that there are other forces who may have been behind displacement may not have been but who were then able to take the land so my question is how could one strengthen or help ensure that those who've stolen lands not remain in impunity and we know that the law on land restitution that its process is focused on micro-targeting or macro-targeting of regions where there's not public order issues but we also have to make sure that in its implementation what's being resolved through the judgments are the easiest cases. They're not the cases where you have the large economic powers that are behind the dispossession. So I'd like to hear your opinion on that. Are there any other questions? I think all of the panelists mentioned corruption and the sort of mafia structures as a major driver of conflict and a potential obstacle to adjust peace. What role do you see for civil society in Columbia in mobilizing against the purveyors and the sources of corruption in the country? Thank you. It's a great bunch of questions. I know we're not going to have time to address them all but I'll just give each of the speakers a last hit at whichever questions or whichever parts of the questions they want to address or if there's something that you haven't said that you want to really put on the table before we close. Who'd like to start? I'll try to be as clear as possible since there are so many questions. Our proposal aims to something that can be questionable but to think that among the armed forces there is a democratic sector and a democratic sector that does want peace. There's another sector that isn't interested in submitting itself to the justice system for the reasons that I've mentioned because they believe that they're complying with a need to strengthen the democracy and that they don't have any responsibility outside of that. They're complying with orders in a function of the state. So we're appealing to another different sector. We're saying to and this is something we're going to have to even go to some of the jails where some members of the military are detained. Those responsible for those who committed extracurricular executions as known as false positives. Other kinds of human rights violations as well as members of the armed forces. Some of them have we have to go and convince them that they recognize that they committed human rights violations and in a way that hasn't actually happened in much of the justice system. Many soldiers come to a justice strategy have denied their responsibility and denied that these crimes count as human rights violations. But of course it's not only those directly responsible for these human rights violations to have to respond but those who are involved with designing such a strategy and of course they're not just the armed forces that are part of that structure but also the involvement of politicians economic interests and this is where our proposal is aimed is that those who someone doesn't help to this tribunal and get benefits from that but they have to then participate in helping to dismantle the structures that have contributed to and benefited from the conflict. I'll refer to the two questions that they were directed at me in terms of the political policy around land institution and specifically related to agro industrial projects or intensive agriculture. There are a lot of difficulties because the vision of the government is a development model that assumes that that agro-business is going to be responsible for development in the countryside and there's a critique that we have in this model because when you're proposing to carry out large-scale agriculture projects in areas that have been where there's been massive displacement land-grabbing and you're essentially inviting the person who is responsible for the land-grabbing to then participate and be responsible for the development project there and that's problematic for us and that political vision and development vision is very concerning to us and the fact that it doesn't seek to help small-scale farmers to help peasant farmers but rather to benefit agro-industrial projects and companies and that of course obviously is problematic for what small-scale farmers and peasant farmers are expecting from the land restitution law. I also wanted to add if this vision isn't changed then restitution isn't going to work for those who return to their land or have any tools with which to work their land or security for staying on their land and what is needed are transforming reparations that transform that assist in farming projects that allow them tools with which to carry out their work but that's not what the government proposal is really seeking is to support agriculture the agriculture industry excuse me rather than seeking to re-establish the conditions in which the small-scale farmers originally worked their land we also believe that again as Joe Marty said that peace isn't just about silencing weapons but there also has to be a comprehensive understanding of the arm structures and the structures that led to and supported the armed conflict and those that benefited from the armed conflict and benefited from land grabbing for us the crime of displacement and land grabbing is directly related directly is intimate related for example in the case of the Udubba region it's quite clear it's quite evident that that forced displacement served so that economic interests arrived to that region and carried out monoculture projects, large-scale agriculture projects or infrastructure projects like the Pan-American highway or the America's highway in the sense for us there should be both those who were responsible for the forced displacement as well as for the land grabbers who benefited from the displacement that issue should be looked at and they should be judged and submitted to the court processes and investigations so not just those who were directly responsible for the displacement but also those behind the land grabbing and who benefited from it and for that reason I think that there should be a differentiation between those who displaced and those who stole land that's the only way in terms of the justice system that you can guarantee that these kinds of crimes don't continue don't repeat themselves and if this doesn't happen then those who benefited from the land grabbing and displacement will continue and will continue to commit those kinds of crimes okay I'll take 40 seconds the first is about the role of the church and the corruption peace should should take us to a transition towards greater democracy a process in which the justice system has to act there should be cultural changes as well these cultural changes without any doubt are going to need need work and support of all of the sectors in the commune society the church the state the social civil society the work in various aspects the culture of violence that we have in Colombia which is impossible in the case of 50 years of violence but the justice system also needs to participate in Colombia we need to end corruption we need a state that's capable of holding people to account and a state where it's clear that corrupt individuals who think that that they can rob and steal don't have that possibility in Colombia it's easy to steal from the state and this is one of the issues that we're going to have to work really strongly on in the peace process and strengthen our justice system and make it independent and very vigilant and so it's going to be important that that various institutions like the Catholic Church can help us in that respect also to add to that response regarding regarding the role of the church we talked about it with Joe Marty about the important influence of the Catholic Church in Colombia and the work it's done the sort of regular focus in Colombia responding to the to the work that the church does in Colombia it's important that the church does it evaluates itself to you about the role that it had in the conflict the experience that I have is working in an organization that's interfaith has allowed us to have a sort of ambiguous vision of the role of the church in Colombia in some cases it's been it has participated or at least been aware of some of the some of the crimes that have been committed in Colombia or in other cases at least silence about some of the crimes that was committed and so in this sense I do think it's important that the church has a does an internal reflection about its role and of course also external in terms of participating in contributing to to the construction of of a justice in the country truth in the country I'd like to thank you all for coming to today's event and I'd especially like to thank all of our panelists Alejandro, Joe Marie, Liliana Franklin, reconocer Irene Lopez who has just arrived who had another appointment and couldn't be on the panel during the original time but is probably available if anyone wants to talk with her from the Corporation Yerecastro so thank you again and this is just the beginning of conversations about human rights and the peace process it has not come to the table yet it's sure to be a very conflictive issue when it comes we've only touched the surface today there are many many other questions that we've not moved over to to discuss but I think many of the issues that have been raised are really important and we'll begin to set the framework for us to be thinking about these issues thank you again


I want to begin the reflection on addiction by understanding from the standpoint of the 12-step recovery program for addiction what the turning point is in the life of the addict. And the turning point is the point at which they hit bottom. And the hit bottom is for them a crisis in which they're able to see for themselves the bankruptcy of their strategies that they don't really have a problem that they can handle it but they get out of it it isn't and they just see that's completely false. And they're able to see for themselves that this addictive use of the substance they're addicted to is destroying them. And they can also see that they're powerless to stop. So the crisis is for them kind of an existential crisis. That is if this is up to them they're finished. They're finished. So if they don't resort back to denial they're only faced with despair if it's up to them. Unless there's another way. Unless there's another way. And the other way is that maybe it isn't ultimately up to them at all. That maybe there's a power greater than themself that can achieve in them the freedom from the addiction that they by them by their own powers are powerless to achieve. That's the other way. And so the very beginning then is a kind of a faith. And really the faith is freedom from the addiction of the perception of oneself is absolutely isolated all on one's own having to make it on one's own terms. And this faith kind of begins to break open that addiction to this radically different way of experiencing themself. That I'm in a relationship with the mystery greater than myself. That the mystery greater than myself is in a relationship with me. And my hope lies in that relationship. And this relationship with the mystery greater than myself in order to be in order for it to be actualized. I have to hand my life over to the care of that I can't have a both ways. I can't say theoretically there is this presence but I'm still going to try to make it. I have to hand my life over to the care of the higher power who can achieve in me what I can't achieve. And so this starts them on this path they concretize that through a fearless inventory through the making of amends is concretized in the faith community of recovery that they bear witness that this is real. They move through it. It gravitates toward the 11 step of increasing conscious contact with God. And in that process the person says to their higher powers they go through this painful messy process. They say to their higher power. I don't know who you are. But I do know who you are.  And I don't know who I am. I do know you're the one I've saved. And so there's this intimate radicalization of how one experiences one's life and brings one to this new state of consciousness for which one is immensely grateful and wants to pass it on to others. So we might say that's the first level of what we could think of as the spirituality of freedom from addiction.


Color was great, but still, you know, I started, a lot of my graphic work was in black and white and there's something old looking about it. But here you see the variety is incredible and that's what got me right off was the amount of depth in the show and the huge variety from one piece to another. In our main floor gallery, we're showing it's black and white. It's an exhibit that involves more than 30 local artists and the color palette is very dynamic because it's solely blacks and whites. Well, color definitely is my passion. So to not use the yellows and the reds and the blues was limiting, but not for too long. And I went back to my studio and got my blacks out and my whites out. All blacks are not created equal. Some of them were blue or some of them were browner and I saw that there's a whole lot of tones between black and white, so it was fun. In the second floor gallery, we have our 2014 silent auction to benefit Studio Place Arts programs. Bidding starts now and concludes at our bash scheduled for May 9th from 7 to 9 p.m. On our third floor gallery, we're showing a fiber arts exhibit assembled by 14 members of the Surface Design Association. It's called Tangents, Fiber Diversified. Love to do is find unusual fabric and then honor it in my work. What I'm really interested in is the play of light, the beauty of the colors. Art can be a haven or a refuge and that's one very, very important aspect for me. Even when I'm in a beautiful place, I still need to feel that I can take it with me, keep it a little longer. Our bash, The Big Artie Spa Happening is scheduled for Friday, May 9th from 7 to 9. We hope you'll attend, call us soon and get tickets to the bash. Studio Place Arts is located at 201 North Main Street in Berry, Vermont. Our website is www.studioplacearts.com. We look forward to seeing you soon.


This is the topic for this session. The construct of social capital is interdisciplinary in nature which mainly covers and deals with the behavior of human beings on the basis of social interactions and relations. Some social scientists describe social capital in different ways. While distinguishing social capital from other forms of capital that is cultural and economic, it is argued that social capital is an arrangement of relations among and between the individuals of a society. That is to say, we can consider social capital in such a way that among the people in the society, there will be a lot of harmony between the people and they will be able to properly pursue their social interests with the interests of the state and in a more efficient manner. So, social capital is the networks of relationship among people who live and work in a particular society enabling their society to function effectively. Social capital means that it involves the effective functioning of social groups through interpersonal relationships. A shared sense of identity, i.e. the people whose identity is common on any basis, on their language, on the basis of their nationality, on the basis of their cultural identity, a shared understanding or for a specific purpose, their understanding of the specific purpose they want to achieve. Then shared norms, then shared values and trust, cooperation and common beliefs. Social capital is a measure of value of resources, then both tangible like public spaces, private property, and intangible like actors, human capital and people. Now, obviously, what are the things in intangible? People do not know who is guiding them, they do not see things in front of them, but they get together for a purpose and then they make a collective effort to pursue their goals. So, the impact of this relationship is that when resources are met with it, people's personal lives are also improved and collectively, in the society, a better situation is seen and ultimately, overall, we can say that if a larger group is generally seen as a form of capital that produces public goods for a common purpose. That is, if we see that in some places, people's situation is not good, and some people understand collective responsibility as a kind of activity that promotes, for example, that area where there was a group, where there was a collective effort and no work is done. Or for people's situation to not change, a proper activity, a skilled development is done, especially the political sociologists, they see that social capital is a process that cannot be completed in one day. For this, there is a proper, continuous process where as many people are involved in it, the


So, as it is pretty clear, it is easy to win against such a hand-designed value optimizer. Why? I simply cannot enumerate all the things that can be good or bad about a position. In fact, the history of software packages that play games such as Stockfish or Deep Blue is full of people pushing a lot of human knowledge into such systems. They generally didn't produce systems that were all that good at playing. AlphaZero, on the other hand, doesn't even need to be taught the rules of the game. It's not full of human knowledge about it, and this human knowledge is not actually all that useful. And in fact, that's the history of machine learning. As we keep going, more and more we realize that replacing human knowledge, human biases with things that we learn from the real world leads to systems that work better. So now we have a subprime of game playing where deep learning clearly feels like the right answer, which is estimating value. But before we start, how would you solve such a problem?


This systematic review examined the efficacy of extracorporeal shockwave therapy, ESWT, for treating rotator cuff tendinopathy. Nine studies were included in the analysis, four of which demonstrated statistically significant improvements in pain and function following treatment. Overall, ESWT appears to be an effective treatment option for rotator cuff tendinopathy. This article was authored by Eruj Fatima, Haydar Darain, Syed Amir Jilani, and others.


In 1999, just a couple years short of becoming president, George W. Bush bought a 1,500 acre hog farm known as Prairie Chapel Ranch and then completed developing the property by 2001. These days George's getaway property is anchored by a customized and quite modest single-level three-bedroom main house as well as an adjacent two-suite guest house hidden in a grove of trees. Located about halfway between Dallas and Austin, the natural beauty of this incredible land is exactly what drew George and his wife Laura to the area. No wonder.