“The expectations for us are immense”, admits the Jesuit priest Francisco de Roux (Cali, 78 years old).
The president of the Truth Commission of Colombia, arising from the peace agreements sealed by the Government of Juan Manuel Santos with the extinct guerrilla of the FARC, spoke at the Hay Festival in Querétaro about his expected final report, with which he they propose to leave “an open, irreversible, strong road” to overcome a convoluted armed conflict of more than half a century that has left more than nine million victims.
That document, of undeniable historical weight, will have an introduction of about 30 pages that should "produce a positive shock for this country," said Roux's father this Friday in conversation with Jan Martínez Ahrens, director of EL PAÍS América.
"We want it to be really very moving (...) that it can put in evidence what we have lived," he reasoned, anticipating that it will also have a chapter of recommendations to tackle the entrenched dynamics of war, as well as segments dedicated to "deep findings." that touch the guerrillas, the paramilitaries or the army, but also businessmen or journalists in a country that has taken an extraordinary effort to turn the page on violence.
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The Hay Festival Querétaro begins for the first time with a hybrid format
Despite being one of the most respected people on peasant issues and peacebuilding in Colombia, as president of the Commission he has had to navigate in the midst of political polarization. “I am concerned about the life of our team”, both in the territories they visit and in Bogotá, he was sincere when he recalled that as founder and director of the Magdalena Medio Development and Peace Program, he received the funeral of 24 collaborators. "It was the bravest moment of the conflict, and yet no one backed down" in his peaceful resistance, he recalled. He has studied theology, philosophy and letters at the Javeriana University, as well as a master's degree in Economics at the Universidad de los Andes, another at the London School of Economics, in London, and a doctorate at the Sorbonne, in Paris, with the purpose of understand the profound inequalities in Colombia.
The event, led by Martínez Ahrens, is one of the conversations that EL PAÍS promotes as part of the different editions of the Hay Festival on the continent with some of the most relevant voices in the public debate.
More than 170 guests from 19 countries participate from September 1 to 5 in the sixth edition of the Hay Festival Querétaro, which for the first time is held in a hybrid format due to the pandemic.
"I am absolutely convinced that the war on drugs is useless," said De Roux during the talk.
"I believe that several things must be combined simultaneously, one of them is legalization," but "Colombia needs something much more profound," he clarified when invoking the Comprehensive Rural Reform contemplated in the peace accords, which has not yet been put into practice. .
"They are transformations of that depth," he stressed.
The Truth Commission, together with the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) and the Unit for the Search of Disappeared Persons, is part of the Comprehensive System for Peace that emerged from the dialogues in Havana, which were opposed by the Democratic Center , the government party founded by former president Álvaro Uribe, the most fierce critic of the agreements that President Iván Duque must now implement. "We could not expect enthusiastic support," De Roux said about his relationship with the Executive. "I would say that the government respects us but does not trust us."
The entity has been working in recent times with a frenetic pace, supported by virtuality and resuming face-to-face events, to deliver its final report in November after three years in office, although a lawsuit by victims' organizations before the Constitutional Court could prolong its period. It is one of the institutions that emerged from the peace agreement that has been most affected by the pandemic, which has limited its territorial deployment, the lawsuit alleges. The president of the Commission was in favor of an extension of his mandate so that his conclusions land at a more propitious moment, after the presidential elections of May 2022 have passed.
Even amid the restrictions of the pandemic, the Commission has managed to carry out various events, with victims and perpetrators from all sides. Last Tuesday, former President Andrés Pastrana (1998-202) became the last of the five living ex-presidents to appear voluntarily, as Ernesto Samper (1994-1998), César Gaviria (1990-1994) and Juan Manuel Santos (2010-2018), while Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010), despite his objections to the peace agreement signed by Santos, received the commissioners at his estate. That day, Uribe launched the idea of a general amnesty that seems untimely. Asked about this controversial proposal, De Roux was convinced. "We have something much better in Colombia, which is transitional justice," he said."My conviction is that this must be protected."
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