Statement on recent developments in reintegration in the Territorial Areas for Training and Reintegration in southeastern Colombia

7 Sep 2018

Statement on recent developments in reintegration in the Territorial Areas for Training and Reintegration in southeastern Colombia

Bogotá, 06 September 2018. In recent weeks, six leaders of four Territorial Areas for Training and Reintegration (TATRs) and one new regrouping point (NRP) in the Southeastern region of the country decided to leave these Areas and abandon their responsibilities to approximately 1,500 ex-combatants residing there.

Mission personnel charged with verification of these Areas are closely monitoring this situation and have confirmed that, despite the departure of these leaders, the ex-combatants and their families continue to live, study and work there, and remain committed to the reintegration process.

Regardless of the reasons that led these former commanders to make this decision, they are in breach of their obligations under point 3.3 of the Final Peace Agreement which commits them to “actively contribute to ensuring the success of the reintegration process”. In addition, at this time of transition, they are generating uncertainties with regard to the reintegration process when FARC members and leaders continue to place their faith in the peace process despite the multiple difficulties that they have faced along this way.

The Mission highlights that in these southeastern Areas, former FARC-EP members and their families have developed more than 40 productive projects, most financed by themselves, with the support of some universities, non-governmental organizations, the international community and businesses in the region. The success of these projects remains fundamental to the effective reintegration of these individuals. 

Today, more than ever, renewed Government support for productive reintegration is essential.  The Government of President Ivan Duque, aware of the shortcomings to date, has committed itself to ensuring a more dynamic and effective reintegration.

On 27 July, the United Nations Security Council publicly affirmed “the importance of the full political, legal and socio-economic reintegration of the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (FARC-EP) members, including through continued work by the National Reincorporation Council (NRC) to ensure access to land and to establish productive projects for former FARC-EP members”.

At the same time, the Mission calls upon the NRC and on its departmental and local working groups to resume with the necessary urgency their efforts on behalf of access to land and the formulation, financing and implementation of productive projects with a community-based approach.

 

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