Iván Duque reacts to statements by exFARC claiming to be victims of the State: “I think it's a joke”

In recent hours, some former FARC guerrillas said that they have been victims of the State and the security forces, submitting to the JEP a report of war crimes and human rights violations committed against them. Faced with this, the President of the Republic, Iván Duque, reacted and pointed out that it was an abuse, on the part of ex-combatants, to want to pass as victims.

President Duque added that, in fact, there is a peace process in the country with which the former guerrillas who took in him have been sought to repair their victims and return to society through productive work and projects. However, for the president of the Colombians within the framework of an agreement of truth, justice, reparation and non-repetition, such statements by the former guerrillas are not acceptable.

“That the country is going through a process of truth, justice, reparation and non-repetition, of course, we know that we are there, but that the FARC will come and tell the Colombian people in a shameless way that they are victims, yes, the truth, to take their little joke home,” Duque added.

The president's statements were joined by the reaction of the Minister of Defense, Diego Molano, who also described as “impudence” the claim of the former combatants of the former guerrilla combatants who signed the report submitted to the JEP.

The government official called the report “kills her with impudence. The perpetrators claiming to be victims, when what they have to do is recognize their responsibilities for the more than 9 million victims in Colombia; and in the case of the Public Force 403 thousand.”

Molano also referred to the peace process and insisted that it was done so that the perpetrators could repair the victims, “now do the perpetrators want to play victims? No! The country must demand justice, truth and reparation for the victims, not for the perpetrators... After five years of the Havana Agreement, it cannot be that the reflectors are turning to the security forces and not the real perpetrators.”

Some of the ex-combatants who made the statements condemned by the president and his Minister of Defense were Joaquín Gomez, Victoria Sandino, Benkos Bioho and Benedicto González, who were responsible for submitting to the JEP the report of the crimes that, according to them, the State and the public forces have committed against them.

“We were confronted, but that does not take away the violations of which several of our fellow members of the former FARC were subjected or victims, so today we are presenting precisely those cases in which members were victimized,” Victoria Sandino told the media.

For his part, former guerrilla Benedicto González explained that “what we have demanded is that in the JEP many such as Andrés Pastrana, Álvaro Uribe and Juan Manuel Santos have been excluded from the responsibility they have as heads of state in the context of the conflict.”

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