NATIONAL RECONCILIATION COMMISSION GETS UNDERWAY

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 BOGOTA 009087

SIPDIS

NOFORN

E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/31/2015
TAGS: PGOV PHUM SOCI CO
SUBJECT: NATIONAL RECONCILIATION COMMISSION GETS UNDERWAY

REF: BOGOTA 8550

Classified By: Ambassador William B. Wood; reasons 1.4
(b) and (d)

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Summary
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1. (U) Colombia's Justice and Peace (J&P) Law, created to
process demobilizing illegal armed fighters and compensate
victims, directed the GOC to create an institution to manage
the National Reconciliation and Reparations Fund. Vice
President Francisco Santos structured the National
Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (CNRR) with
representatives from government and civil society to address
four issues: reparations, reconciliation, institutional
strengthening, and administrative support. CNRR will meet
regularly over the next eight years. So far, the GOC has
selected the five members from civil society: Eduardo Pizarro
Leongomez, Ana Teresa Bernal Montanez, Jaime Jaramillo
Panesso, Patricia Buritica Cepedes, and Nel Beltran. Two
representatives from victims' groups will be selected by
September 26. End summary.


2. (U) According to Article 52 of the J&P Law, the CNRR is
responsible for (1) guaranteeing victims participation in the
judicial process; (2) ensuring follow-up and verification of
reintegration and reparations; (3) submitting a report on
victims' reparation progress; (4) recommending criteria for
victim compensation; (5) promoting national reconciliation;
and (6) overseeing regional offices. It will operate for a
period of eight years.


3. (C) A representative from the Vice President's Office
estimated that the group would require at least USD 1.4
million over the next seven months for administrative costs
and an additional USD 652,000 for the Reparations Fund.
These are conservative figures that the GOC has already
budgeted to cover CNRR expenses. The Vice President's Office
is trying to attract private sector financial support for
CNRR. Five main trade associations have expressed a
willingness to contribute.

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Who is Represented?
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4. (U) Representatives from the Vice Presidency, Prosecutor
General's Office (Fiscalia),Ministry of Interior and
Justice, Ministry of Finance, Human Rights Ombudsman's
Office, and Social Solidarity Network will form part of the
Commission. In addition, President Uribe has chosen five
civil society members: Eduardo Pizarro Leongomez, Jaime
Jaramillo Panesso, Bishop Nel Beltran, Ana Teresa Bernal, and
Patricia Buritica. He will also select two representatives
from victims' groups by September 26.

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Others Named to CNRR
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5. (S) Eduardo Pizarro Leongomez, CNNR President:

-- Pizarro is an academic expert on conflict. He has
extensively researched insurgent groups and violence in
Colombia and called the conflict a "chronic insurgency." In
1987, Pizarro was one of the members of the Colombian
National Commission on Violence, which published its report
"Colombia, Violence and Democracy." According to Semana
magazine, Uribe recently offered Pizarro the Colombian
Ambassadorship to Canada.

-- Pizarro's brother Carlos was a leader of the M-19
guerrilla movement killed in 1990 after demobilizing and
becoming a presidential candidate. His other brother
Hernando was a leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia (FARC) guerrillas' dissident movement "Ricardo
Franco" and involved in the murder of 164 fellow members
suspected of being infiltrators. He was assassinated in

1995. Eduardo Pizarro was reportedly interrogated and
tortured by Army intelligence in January 1979 following the
M-19's theft of weapons from an Army arsenal in Bogota.

-- Pizarro has written books and articles published
domestically and abroad analyzing Colombia's conflict and
democracy in the Andes. He has an undergraduate degree from
the University of Paris and a postgraduate degree from the
Colombian Institute for Advance Studies for Development and
is working towards a doctorate from the University of Paris.
He has been a visiting professor at Columbia, Princeton and
Notre Dame in the United States, Tubingen University in
Germany and at the University of Paris.


6. (C) Ana Teresa Bernal Montanez:

-- Bernal is the director of Colombia's National Network of
Citizen Initiatives Against War (REDEPAZ),an organization
advocating peaceful solutions to the national conflict for
over twelve years. Bernal also directed the 1997 "Mandate
for Peace," a non-binding referendum in which almost 10
million Colombians voted in favor of a ceasefire with
insurgent groups, respect for human rights, and a negotiated
solution to the conflict. The Pastrana Administration
showcased the initiative and began talks with the FARC in

1998. Bernal won national recognition in 1997 for her role
in laying the groundwork for negotiations with the ELN in
Germany.

-- REDEPAZ sponsors an annual Peace Week to gather civil
society and government actors together to discuss peaceful
solutions to Colombia's conflict. Bernal has been an
outspoken supporter of peace communities and encouraged other
areas to make a commitment to peace. She has stated publicly
in the past that Plan Colombia would destroy the peace
process and has criticized Uribe's more militaristic approach
to resolving the conflict. In her acceptance letter for the
position on the CNRR commission, Bernal stressed that she
would prioritize victims' rights in her work.

-- Bernal was forced to leave Colombia after receiving death
threats in 1999 and spent three months in the United States.
She joined a leftist movement as a teenager but decided that
violence would not resolve Colombia's problems. She is the
mother of two, both adults, and is 47 years old.


7. (C) Jaime Jaramillo Panesso:

-- Jaramillo is the director of the Antioquia Peace
Facilitating Commission and a well-published political
analyst. He has written on the peace process and advocated
both the paramilitary negotiations and 2004's discussions
with the ELN mediated by Mexico.

-- Jaramillo is cited on several paramilitary websites for
questioning Carlos Gaviria's bid for reelection; for
criticizing the ex-presidents' Ernesto Samper and Alfonso
Lopez Michelsen insistence on a "humanitarian exchange"; and
for warning the FARC against entering areas abandoned by the
paramilitaries. Jaramillo also agreed with Uribe's
assumption of emergency powers in August 2002 in response to
the FARC's attack on the Casa de Narino (president's
building).


8. (C) Patricia Buritica Cespedes:

-- Buritica is the Director of the Women for Peace Initiative
(IMP),a Bogota-based NGO that she helped found in 2002 in
response to the perception that women's concerns were not
being addressed by the GOC's approach to the peace process.
IMP's goal is to include women, particularly victims of the
conflict, "at the negotiating table" on the issues of
demobilization and peace. While IMP is generally supportive
of the demobilization process, it is critical of the Peace
and Justice Law for its failure to provide justice and
reparations to the victims of the conflict. In particular,
IMP faults the law for failure to provide to the families of
person killed or "disappeared" by armed groups full accounts
of what happened. IMP sponsors a project to collect
testimony from women and children affected by the conflict.

-- Buritica has been a well known advocate for organized
labor since she was a student. For the last 14 years, she
has been a member of the National Executive Committee of
Central Unitaria de Trabajadores (CUT),the largest, and
politically moderate, labor federation in Colombia. She is
credited with incorporating gender issues into the CUT's
platform and for organizing a women's labor movement within
the framework of CUT.

-- While Buritica has written articles (published on labor
websites) critical of Plan Colombia and the IMF, she is a
staunch advocate of strong democratic institutions as
necessary for peace. Buritica is one of the group of one
thousand women nominated in January for the 2005 Nobel Peace
Prize. She is the mother of two children, speaks English
fluently, and has visited the United States.


9. (C) Bishop Nel Beltran:

-- Beltran is the Bishop for Sucre Department and oversees
all congregations in the "Montes de Maria" area of Northern
Colombia. In June, one Colombian Navy commander estimated
that Beltran's area had roughly 1,000 insurgents. Beltran
has worked to bring international attention to the plight of
displaced Colombians and paramilitary massacres that
terrorized citizens for almost eight years. In 2001, Beltran
wrote several editorials demanding that the Pastrana
Administration either secure a peace with the FARC or take
away the demilitarized "despeje." He claimed that the GOC's
actions were giving the FARC an edge and weakening the
government's ability to help citizens.

-- In June 2005 during a United Nations visit to the area,
Bishop Nel Beltran hosted meetings with victims and NGOs in
his residence. He told the delegation that the illegal armed
groups had shifted from conducting massacres to carrying out
individual assassinations targeted against the military or a
rival terrorist group. Beltran opined that the illegal
groups avoided direct clashes with rival groups and focused
their aggression on the local population. In a private
meeting, he told the group that AUC Commander Salvatore
Mancuso had saved his life by advising him against
criticizing narcotrafficking in the region. Beltran said the
Catholic Church was allowed to criticize illegal armed groups
in general, but raising the drug trade in Sucre could prove
fatal.
WOOD