# Apex (Declaración + Hallazgos y Recomendaciones) — Digest

> Digest of the two framing volumes of the Colombian Truth Commission's (Comisión para el Esclarecimiento de la Verdad, la Convivencia y la No Repetición — CEV) final report *Hay Futuro Si Hay Verdad* (Bogotá, 2022): **Tomo 1 — Convocatoria a la paz grande** (the Commission's Declaration) and **Tomo 2 — Hallazgos y recomendaciones** (official Findings & Recommendations). Mandated by the 2016 Havana Peace Accord between the Colombian State and the FARC-EP.

## 1. Identity & purpose

The CEV was an autonomous, constitutional State entity (not subordinate to the Presidency, Congress, or judiciary) created by the 2016 Final Peace Accord. With the **Unidad de Búsqueda de Personas dadas por Desaparecidas (UBPD)** and the **Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz (JEP)**, it formed the **Sistema Integral para la Paz**. Its mandate: in three and a half years, *esclarecer la verdad* (clarify the truth) of a 60-plus-year internal armed conflict, dignify victims, secure voluntary recognition of responsibility by perpetrators, foster *convivencia* (coexistence) in the territories, and formulate viable recommendations for **no repetición** (non-repetition). Its truth is historical/ethical/political, **not** forensic — the JEP handles individual criminal responsibility; the CEV establishes *collective* historical, ethical, and political responsibility.

Eleven commissioners served, presided by **Francisco José de Roux Rengifo** (Hallazgos volume directed by **Carlos Martín Beristain**; recommendations by **Leyner Palacios Asprilla** and **Patricia Tobón Yagarí**). Two commissioners died in service (Alfredo Molano; María Ángela Salazar, of COVID). Method: more than three years of *diálogo social* — 30,000+ victim testimonies in 28 **Casas de la Verdad**, exile testimony in 24 countries, 1,000+ civil-society reports, 500+ social-dialogue and recognition events. The Constitutional Court extended the mandate by seven months (pandemic recovery).

## 2. Central thesis / message of the report as a whole

**"Hay futuro si hay verdad"** — there is a future only if there is truth. Recognizing the truth heals victims, transforms perpetrators, and opens the path to building the future together. The conflict persists because Colombia's **structural problems were never confronted** (inequality, racism, colonial treatment, patriarchy, corruption, narcotrafficking, impunity, *negacionismo*, "security that gives no security"). The country lives in **"modo guerra"** (war mode) — a way of relating that cannot conceive of the other thinking differently, turning opponents into enemies to be eliminated. The core demand: **No Matar** (Do Not Kill) for any reason, **take the weapons out of politics** (*sacar las armas del espacio venerable de lo público*), and undertake the social/institutional transformations of the Accord by democratic means. The report is meant to be "a stone falling into water" whose ripples disturb Colombia's numbed surface.

## 3. Structure

The full *Informe Final* spans **11 tomos in 24 volumes** (No Matarás — historical account; Hasta la guerra tiene límites — DDHH/DIH violations and collective responsibility; Sufrir la guerra y rehacer la vida — impacts; Cuando los pájaros no cantaban — testimonial; Mi cuerpo es la verdad — women & LGBTIQ+; No es un mal menor — children; Resistir no es aguantar — ethnic peoples; La Colombia fuera de Colombia — exile; Colombia adentro — 14 territorial volumes). The two apex volumes:

- **Tomo 1 — Convocatoria a la paz grande**: the Declaration. Two "steps of clarification": (a) *acoger la realidad de las víctimas* (embrace victims' reality) and (b) *la explicación* (the explanation — why, who, with what interests). Closes with ~18 numbered calls/messages and "El desafío de la reconciliación."
- **Tomo 2 — Hallazgos y recomendaciones**: the **Hallazgos** (La Colombia herida; Por una democracia sin violencia; DDHH/DIH violations and responsibilities; Insurgencias; Paramilitarismo; Narcotráfico; Modelo de seguridad; Impunidad; Paz territorial; Cultura y conflicto) followed by **67 numbered recommendations** in 8 thematic blocks.

## 4. Key findings (headline conclusions)

- **A massive, intolerable, and prolonged human catastrophe**: more than **9 million victims**, of whom **90% were civilians** (the Declaration frames non-combatant civilians as ~80% of victims). One of the longest, most brutal humanitarian crises on the planet, met by **indifference from large sectors of Colombian society**.
- **No right to war**: there was a genuine internal armed conflict (DIH applies), but all armed actors committed war crimes and crimes against humanity against the civilian population. "*Hasta la guerra tiene límites*" — even war has limits.
- **Differentiated responsibilities**: those who held/defended State power were bound to obey the law and human-rights obligations without the conflict excusing them; those who took up arms denied the State's legitimacy. The State **acrecentó** (amplified) crimes through its **alliance with paramilitaries**.
- **Ordering of lethal victimization**: most non-combatant dead were killed **first by paramilitaries, then by guerrillas, and finally by State forces**.
- **The "falsos positivos" as a crime of State**: thousands of young men extrajudicially executed and falsely presented as combat kills — "an immeasurable moral damage to the nation."
- **Narcotrafficking as a central protagonist and persistence factor** — entangled with the economy, politics, and the State; the **war on drugs itself** is a driver of the conflict.
- **Impunity as a structural persistence factor**: scarcity/fragmentation of investigation, judicial cooptation, attacks on judges and prosecutors, military *fuero* shielding crimes.
- **A democracy wounded by war**: persistent presence of arms in politics, the **"enemigo interno"** doctrine, and political stigmatization culminating in the **genocidio político de la Unión Patriótica**.
- **The peasantry (campesinado) was the principal victim**; ethnic peoples (Indigenous, Black/Afro, Raizal, Palenquero, Rrom) bore the war **more destructively and persistently**.
- **The economic model** (extreme inequality, land concentration, exclusion) must change or the conflict will recur.

## 5. Statistics & data

Core integrated dataset: **Proyecto JEP-CEV-HRDAG** (integration/analysis of 112 databases; statistician Patrick Ball). Headline universe (lines 8200, 17051):

- **More than 9 million victims; 90% civilians.**
- **Homicides / deaths: ~450,664–450,666** (the report states both figures).
- **Forced disappearance: 121,768** (1985–2016).
- **Kidnapping / hostage-taking: 50,770** (1990–2018).
- **Child/adolescent recruitment: 16,238** registered (1990–2017; estimated higher with under-registration).
- **Forced displacement: 7,752,964** (1985–2019, JEP-CEV-HRDAG; RUV registry gives **8,273,562** as of May 2022) — the Declaration's "**ocho millones**."
- **Exile: more than 1 million** Colombians forced out of the country (1982–2020).

Other violation magnitudes and responsibility shares:

- **Selective assassinations (asesinatos selectivos)**: CNMH records **179,076 victims (1958–2021)**. Attribution: **42% paramilitary groups, 16% guerrillas, 3% State agents, 35% unknown authorship** (line 5938). "The elimination of those considered 'enemies' was the most widespread way of making war in Colombia."
- **Massacres**: **more than 2,000** events (Declaration); CNMH analysis attributes most to **paramilitaries with support of the Fuerza Pública**.
- **Sexual violence**: at least **32,446** persons registered (RUV); **92% women and girls**.
- **"Falsos positivos" (extrajudicial executions)**: the JEP made public the figure **6,402**; the Commission considers there may be many more — implicating soldiers up to several generals, in nearly all brigades, concentrated **2002–2008**. The crime ceased immediately across all brigades once the President/Minister expelled **26 military (3 generals)** plus 10 more officers.
- **Forced disappearance** context: searchers' figure exceeds **110,000** (Declaration); ongoing since at least **1982**.
- **Post-Accord violence**: **315 FARC-EP ex-combatants assassinated and 27 forcibly disappeared** (to 25 March 2022, UN Verification Mission); **1,327 social leaders/human-rights defenders killed** since the Accord (Indepaz); 723 (2017–2021, Somos Defensores).
- **Most intense period**: **1996–2010** produced **75% of registered victims** of the half-century; the 14 years **1996–2010** saw both FARC-EP and the Military Forces reach the peak of war effort and the highest peak of DIH violations; massacres peaked **1998–2002**.
- **Land**: the war dispossessed campesinos of **8 million hectares**; Colombia among the **10 most unequal countries in the world** in concentration of income, wealth, and land.
- **The State's security apparatus** is described as possibly the **largest, most expensive, and best-trained on the continent** (after the US) — and it "**has not achieved security**."

## 6. Explanatory factors / why the war persisted

The Commission rejects single causes: violence emerged from an **"entramado complejo"** (complex web) of political, institutional, economic, cultural, military, and narcotrafficking interests. Principal factors:

- **Las armas en la política**: Colombia is distinguished regionally by the persistence of weapons in political life — normalized over six decades, mixed with narcotrafficking, killing presidential candidates, congresspeople, and culminating in the **UP political genocide**.
- **El enemigo interno**: a mutually-held doctrine (the Communist Party and allies for the far right inside and outside the State; the bourgeoisie/elites for the revolutionary far left) that makes the other an enemy with whom one neither negotiates nor tells the truth — rooted in generalized distrust.
- **Land and the violent agrarian counter-reform**: 20th-century gains in agrarian struggle reversed into a violent counter-reform; dispossession (8M hectares) feeding displacement and the urban margins.
- **Structural exclusion, inequality, racism, colonial treatment, patriarchy**: an excluding society that never confronted these with political will.
- **The economic model**: under-taxation of the wealthy, corruption draining public funds, failure to redistribute, regional inequality, abandonment of the countryside; private investment that **excluded the popular and rural population** from markets, requiring "aggressive security."
- **Narcotrafficking**: makes Colombia the "world monopoly of cocaine"; a "perverse solution" the Colombian model tacitly accepted for exclusion and inequality — financing armed groups, buying electoral campaigns, capturing public administration, spreading corruption. The conflict was **not originally a narco-business war** (narcos bribe and kill to protect business; they do not "die for the common good"), but **the guerrilla entered narcotrafficking for financing and narcos entered the war to legitimize the business**. The **war on drugs / prohibitionism** (glyphosate, forced eradication) is itself a persistence factor.
- **Weak/absent and contradictory State**: protected some and abandoned others; delegated public order to the military; created/legalized civilian armed groups (**Convivir**) that evolved into instruments of massacre and displacement.
- **Impunity**: a structural persistence factor enabling cycles to repeat.
- **Tercero / civilian-economic actors**: business initiatives that **paid paramilitaries** to displace and dispossess communities for agro-industry and mining, financed armed groups as "transaction costs," helped create the Convivir, bought dispossessed land via *testaferros* (front men), and are complicit in the killing of hundreds of unionists.

## 7. Differential dimensions (who bore the war)

- **Campesinado (peasantry)** — "the principal victim of the internal armed conflict"; expelled, tortured, killed, kidnapped, extorted, forcibly recruited, criminalized. "Their battlefield is the body of the peasants" (Tomás Eloy Martínez).
- **Ethnic peoples** — Indigenous, Black, Afro-Colombian, Raizal, Palenquero, Rrom: war was "more destructive and persistent" against them; confinement, near-extermination of some peoples, racist violence by both guerrillas and paramilitaries; deep historical debts of exclusion and racism. A **Dirección de Pueblos Étnicos** and a *consulta previa* (prior consultation) were undertaken.
- **Women and LGBTIQ+ persons** — bodies "used as a battlefield" to consolidate patriarchal domination; sexual violence, torture, forced abortion in the ranks, sexual slavery; normalization and social complicity.
- **Children & adolescents** — **more than 30,000** linked to the armed struggle at age 15 or younger; recruitment, indoctrination, sexual abuse; killed in combat by the Army aware they were children.
- **The displaced** — 8 million internally; 1 million-plus exiled; over 4 million were minors and over 5 million women.
- **Social leaders, defenders, unionists, judges/prosecutors, students, spiritual leaders** — *"protagonistas a todo riesgo"*, killed for unarmed defense of dignity, rights, labor, and integrity.
- **Combatants** — soldiers, police, ex-guerrillas, ex-paramilitaries maimed and blinded by mines; "morir por la patria o por el pueblo."

## 8. Representative quotes

- *"Hay futuro si hay verdad."* (There is a future if there is truth.)
- *"Rara vez los adversarios combaten entre sí. Su campo de batalla es el cuerpo de los campesinos."* (Rarely do the adversaries fight each other. Their battlefield is the body of the peasants. — Tomás Eloy Martínez, quoted approvingly.)
- *"Nosotros los teníamos en nuestras manos, nosotros los matamos, nosotros somos responsables."* (We had them in our hands, we killed them, we are responsible. — a former FARC-EP commander to the families of the murdered Valle deputies.)
- *"¿Quién dio la orden?"* (Who gave the order? — the mothers of the "falsos positivos" in the streets.)

## 9. Recommendations (67 recommendations in 8 thematic blocks)

Each recommendation specifies an addressee and a horizon (*corto / mediano / largo plazo*). A **Comité de Seguimiento y Monitoreo** (7 members, mostly women, elected by the commissioners per Decreto 588/2017) monitors implementation. Estimated reparation need cited: **328.3 trillion pesos** (2021 constant, per Contraloría).

**Block 1 — *Para avanzar en la construcción de paz como un proyecto nacional* (Rec. 1–7).** Full integral implementation of the **Acuerdo Final de Paz** (territorial, ethnic, gender approaches; accelerate the ethnic chapter and gender measures); security and reincorporation guarantees for FARC-EP ex-combatants (including widows and orphans of assassinated ex-combatants); **create a Ministerio para la Paz y la Reconciliación**; a new international policy (including **restoring relations with Venezuela**); humanitarian measures and demining; **prioritize dialogue to end armed confrontation** — pursue a **negotiated, definitive exit with the ELN** (recovering 2017–2018 advances) and a **submission/dismantling policy for criminal and paramilitary-successor organizations** via the Comisión Nacional de Garantías de Seguridad; review and adjust the **rights-restoration and reintegration** of de-linked children.

**Block 2 — *Reparación integral, memoria, rehabilitación y reconocimiento de la dignidad de las víctimas* (Rec. 8–14).** State leadership of **extrajudicial recognition-of-responsibility** acts — including explicit State recognition of responsibility in **"falsos positivos"**, in **paramilitarism**, and in the **UP genocide**, plus invisible victims (exiles, justice officials); **non-regressive** adjustment of the Victims and Land-Restitution Law and Ethnic Decrees toward **integral, differentiated, transformative reparation**; recognition of **exile** as a grave violation with return/relocation measures; recognition of victimized ex-combatants; emergency compliance with international reparation orders; strengthen **integral physical/mental health and psychosocial care**; a national **memory-and-truth policy** including a permanent, government-independent **Museo de Memoria de Colombia** and a strengthened **Human-Rights Archives** strategy; a comprehensive **forced-disappearance policy** strengthening the **UBPD** for the 120,000+ disappeared, supporting the *buscadoras*.

**Block 3 — *Consolidar democracia incluyente, amplia y deliberativa* (Rec. 15–27).** A **national political pact** to deepen democracy and prevent political violence; **electoral/political reform** (proportional inclusive representation, internal party democracy, financing transparency); citizen-participation and deliberative-dialogue mechanisms; a **statute of rights/guarantees for social organizations and movements**; recognition and protection of **social protest and mobilization** as democratic participation, ending its criminalization and guaranteeing graduated/proportional force; **public officials must cease stigmatizing** human-rights defenders and leaders; effective security guarantees for leaders, defenders, and ex-combatants; recognition and political participation of the **campesinado as a subject of rights**; equality pacts and **patriarchy-dismantling** for women and LGBTIQ+; and concerted constitutional-rights guarantees for **ethnic peoples**.

**Block 4 — *Enfrentar los impactos del narcotráfico y de la política de drogas* (Rec. 28–29).** A comprehensive shift **from the drug war / prohibitionism to strict legal regulation** (*regulación legal estricta*) — legalize cannabis (medicinal/recreational), decriminalize personal-use possession, treat drug use as **public health**, regulate coca cultivation with **support for the campesino cocalero**, end environmentally and community-harmful eradication; and **reformulate international drug policy**, advocating UN-level drug-policy reform and regional cooperation.

**Block 5 — *Superar la impunidad, judicializar los entramados de criminalidad organizada y corrupción, mejorar el acceso a la justicia local* (Rec. 30–38).** Reform **Fiscal General (Prosecutor General) selection** for independence (merit, tenure, security); independent review of investigative methods; **prioritize investigation** of systematic violence (DDHH/DIH) and large-scale corruption tied to organized crime; protect judges, prosecutors, witnesses, victims; prioritize investigation of **third parties** who interfere in judicial processes; condition **extradition** on prior clarification of crimes and victims' rights in Colombia; an evidence-systematizing commission on **organized-crime networks**; memorialize violence against the justice system; and **improve local justice access** for those facing poverty, remoteness, discrimination, disability, ethnic, and gender barriers.

**Block 6 — *Una nueva visión de seguridad para la paz* (Rec. 39–48) — the most detailed.** Adopt a **new security vision** centered on **human security** — *seguridad como bien público centrado en las personas*, protecting life, communities, and nature, overcoming the **war/enemy and drug-war paradigm**. **Transform the security sector**: redefine military and police roles/missions, **democratic civilian supervision**, institutional-culture change (training in human rights, gender, community relations); strengthen preventive/penal/disciplinary/fiscal controls over the Military Forces, Police, and intelligence. On **intelligence archives**: guarantee classification/declassification and access (Rec. 41), **derogate the 30-year reserve** keeping a non-renewable **15-year** maximum (Rec. 42), and derogate **Decree 2149 of 2017** with archive *depuración* and civil-society participation (Rec. 43); JEP to protect/preserve archives (Rec. 44). **Control private security companies** under civilian oversight (Rec. 45) and **strengthen civilian firearms control** (Rec. 46). A **differentiated rural and border security strategy** (Rec. 47); and **international military-cooperation agreements subjected to public debate** and transparency (Rec. 48).

**Block 7 — *Contribuir a la paz territorial* (Rec. 49–61).** A **sustainable territorial-development strategy** reversing rural inequality; **decentralization and territorial autonomy** with recognition of ethnic authorities; complete the **multipurpose cadastre** (catastro multipropósito); **agrarian reform** to reverse extreme land concentration (smallholder access, progressive land taxation, recovery of unproductive/illicitly accumulated *baldíos*, regularization, environmental standards); define the **agricultural frontier**; constitute/expand/sanitize **ethnic territories**; sustainable **agri-food systems** and food security; **ratify the Escazú Agreement**; reduce urban-rural gaps via the **16 PDET roadmaps**, the 17 most-affected **ethnic macro-territories**, and accelerated **Reforma Rural Integral**; and a comprehensive **land-dispossession prevention/reversal** policy with accelerated **land restitution**.

**Block 8 — *Lograr una cultura para vivir en paz* (Rec. 62–67).** **Education for peace** (curricular inclusion of conflict history, human rights, non-violence, restorative coexistence); peace pacts in educational institutions; a coordinating instance under the new Peace Ministry joining **culture, media, and faith communities**; **peace journalism** and media self-analysis of war narratives; faith communities to promote dignity, reconciliation, and forgiveness; and a final recommendation to **know, disseminate, and continue the Commission's legacy** (the Informe, the Human-Rights Archive, the Sistema de Información Misional, and the Transmedia Digital).

## 10. Distinctive insights & coined concepts

- **"Paz grande"** (the great peace) — the report's animating ideal: not merely the end of the State–FARC-EP confrontation but a national, deliberative peace that opens democracy, removes weapons from politics, and confronts structural causes. The Declaration is literally a *Convocatoria a la paz grande* (a summons to the great peace).
- **"No repetición"** (non-repetition) — the third name of the Commission and the telos of every recommendation: making the catastrophe structurally unrepeatable.
- **"Modo guerra"** (war mode) — the cultural/cognitive condition in which Colombians, even unarmed, cannot conceive of the other thinking differently, converting opponents into enemies; reconciliation requires *desinstalar las narrativas de odio*.
- **"Enemigo interno"** (internal enemy) — the symmetrical doctrine, on both right and left, that made the differing other an enemy and normalized violence.
- **"Falsos positivos"** — the mothers' name for young men murdered by the Army and falsely presented as combat kills; "*¿Quién dio la orden?*" became the demand for command responsibility.
- **"La Colombia herida"** (the wounded Colombia) — the nation imaged as a single wounded body that cannot survive with "the heart infarcted in Chocó, the arms gangrenous in Arauca…".
- **"Acontecimiento de la verdad"** (the event of truth) — truth as a public good and a public happening (evidenced equally by victims' courage and by the *negacionismo*, fake news, and attacks against the Commission).
- **"Hasta la guerra tiene límites" / "No hay derecho a la guerra"** — even within a recognized armed conflict (DIH/*ius in bello*), war crimes and crimes against humanity have no justification.
- **"Reconciliación"** — defined as accepting truth, overcoming *negacionismo* and impunity, never killing again, taking weapons out of politics, accepting that "we are many — by action or omission — responsible," and building the State/justice/economy/security in the service of equal human dignity: *"esto lo vamos a construir juntos o no habrá futuro para nadie."*
- A reflexive methodological stance: the Commission **does not own the truth** ("le pertenece a la verdad"), rejects the argument from authority and the "many equally-valid truths" relativism, and stands as a **special case** among world truth commissions — there was **no preceding dictatorship**, a continuous (if "low-intensity") democracy and a garantista 1991 Constitution remained in place, and violence articulated with politics and money **continues** because the underlying problems remain unresolved.