Yesterday President Juan Manuel Santos announced his intention to re-form Colombia’s national peace council. The decision came after a meeting with the Commissions for Peace of the Colombian Congress.
The president declared his desire “to revive and summon” the peace council and spoke of a need to “update its make-up and function”. With that in mind, official announcements are expected to follow shortly regarding a new process of selection for members of the council.
Santos wants to revive the peace council so it can be integrated into the proposed peace talks with the militant guerrilla organisation, FARC. A ceasefire was provisionally agreed on 28th August but formal peace talks are not set to commence until 8th October in the Norwegian capital of Oslo.
In the past, the role of the National Peace council has been to collect proposals from different sectors of Colombian society and ensure that they are voiced and accounted for during the negotiations between government and FARC representatives.
A member of the Peace Commission, Guillermo Rivera, told the newspaper El Tiempo that the aim of the peace council is to establish “the line between justice and peace”.
Rivera explained that “The current victims want justice and the potential victims want peace so you have to try to find a middle ground”.
