 Now that we're back real live, I'm Jay Fardel. This is Think Tech Hawaii. This is Transitional Justice. And the title of our show today is 2022, a Key Year for Columbia, Transitional Justice in Columbia in 2022. And we have our special guest from Project Expedite Justice, an intern there, her name is Natalia Venegas Arango. Buenas tardes. Buenas noches, Jay. Thank you for having me. Yes, great. I really so admire anybody from Project Expedite Justice. So tell me what you do for them and how long you've been doing it and your mission in life, if you will. Okay, so I've been working with PJ for the past three months. I've been an intern and I work with the Ethiopian team on human rights violations. And what I would like to do is keep working on human rights, maybe raise advocacy for it and try to fight against humanity, please. Yeah, you're a lawyer. Yes, I'm a lawyer and I also studied international relations. Okay, very important. Are you one of a number of people like that, you know, or are you the only one in your crowd? I'm not sure a lot of people actually decide to study two degrees, but some of us actually love both things and couldn't decide either of them. So I'm excited. So are you from Colombia? Yes, I'm Colombian. So do you want to go elsewhere and investigate war crimes and atrocities? Or are you happy to stay in Colombia? No, I would like to go. I would like to work one day, maybe for an international organization, maybe do my master's degrees in Europe, especially in human rights. So I would love to do that. Well, there are plenty of project expedite justice people in Ukraine right now as we speak. And we talked to one of your colleagues just a couple of weeks ago. That was pretty extraordinary. And then I found that the very same day and that I talked to him, he was talking to my brother's class at Yale Law School and that was quite something. So you guys get around. Project expedite justice is everywhere. It's from Colombia, to Sub-Saharan Africa, to Ukraine, to Yale Law School, everywhere. Anyway, you called the show 2022 a key year for Colombia and I need to know why. Why is 2022 a key year? Because I think it's a key year actually worldwide but why is it a key year for Colombia? Yes, I also agree with you. I think it's a key year worldwide, but especially in Colombia and especially in transitional justice, it has been a key year because of maybe two main things. The first one would be that the Truth Commission's final report is out. It was the 28th of June and that was something that we've been expecting for a lot of years. And the second thing would be that there has been a big development regarding the cases that are judged in the special jurisdiction, the special peace jurisdiction. Okay, the report is out. How did it get to be this report? Who was working on it? How long were they working on it? What did they do to gather facts, data, what have you? Make their conclusions and ultimately write up the report. We should know about that. Can you tell us about it? Yes, the report was made from a couple of testimonies from victims, from armed conflict, especially from the perpetrators but also from the army. They interview a lot of people. So the victims, the bark, also the army was interviewed, some government officials, they also went to some places where a lot of massacres happened and where a lot of very specific and dark things from the history of this country happened. And they started to dig from there. Also, there are a lot of things that they said that were confidential. They couldn't reveal the sources of the report but they were like two sources and they were verified. And it has been like a process for the past five, six years, more or less. So it's been actually a key investigation and it's like a manual on the armed conflict and to reveal what actually happened during the past 50 years of war. Well, Columbia is relatively speaking, Columbia is a democracy. Am I right? Yes, you're right. But you had this problem with the FARC problem, if you will. And it was a lot of murder and unpleasantness and people victimized and killed and so forth for a long time. So if I ask you on the basis of your study and your career and your education so far, where the truth commission fits in a democracy, what benefit does it provide to sustain the democracy, to preserve the democracy, to continue the democracy when you have a truth commission? Well, for instance, here, the truth commission provides with the truth from what actually happened during the conflict and to sustain this democracy that we have is also very important to know what actually happened and what's the root of the problem or what's the root of the problem. And if you know the root, then you can prevent the conflict from happening again from the same roots. And also the final report is actually being distributed and they're gonna teach children since they're little what happened in their country and why is it so important that they actually know what happened here? So the future generations and the generations to come actually are informed of what happened here, how to prevent it over the perpetrators, like which were the people involved and the crimes committed. So it's also very important to sustain a democracy. Well, we don't know exactly what it's gonna say, but let's assume that it discloses atrocities. And let's assume that you, an ordinary citizen, now not a special PEJ person, but an ordinary citizen, you read this report or you hear about this report in the newspaper, television, what have you. What are you going to do being so informed in order to prevent this from happening again? What does the ordinary citizen do with having the benefit of a report like this? The ordinary citizens, I think something that happens here a lot is that the cities, the big cities are not actually communicated with the rest of the country. So what happened in the rest of the country, we don't know about it. So the atrocities and everything that happened everywhere, we're not really informed about it. We know what happened because the news or because we read it somewhere, but we're actually not true. And then the truth starts to be a gossip and it becomes like, yes, someone told me that this happened in this place. Someone told me that this happened in this place. And actually you don't have a one truth, you have multiple of it. Though like the normal citizen needs to know what happened, where do we come from and what's next? Because if we don't have truth, then we don't have like a future. That's like the slogan of the truth commision. So if we don't have truth, if we don't know what happened here, we're not sure about it or if we have like doubts and we're not gonna know what actually happened, how to solve it and how to keep going as a country to be recovered from the past 50 years of war. Oh, if I read the report and I understand a clear unambiguous statement, a true statement of what happened, what do I do with that? Do I, I guess I talk to my friends about it. It becomes part of my public conversation. Maybe I write an article. What do I do in order to join in a kind of social movement to prevent this from happening again? Yes, you start, every person starts with their own like little pieces. You said like, you start reading the report, your friends start doing it, and then you start sharing like common views on what happened and depending on your line of work or depending on your stance, because that happens here a lot. There's one side to the conflict that says that the report is maybe not well done, that that's not the truth. And then you have another side that considers that the report is well done, that it's impartial and that it actually answers to what the country needs. So what the report tries to do is actually stop this from happening. One side, the other side, but just like this is what happened in the country. There's no one bad guy or another good guy. Everybody committed atrocities. Every actor in the conflict was like a perpetrator or was a victim. So that's something that the report seeks and then you as a normal citizen will know that when you read the report, you'll see, okay, maybe I was wrong, maybe I was right in this or in that when I was speaking, I'm not spreading a lot of information that might be fake or might be not accurate. Now, this is a very interesting look at it. But the whole agreement around the FARC and the Truth Commission is that if these people who committed atrocities will own up to it, then they are what, forgiven? Are they forgiven? Do they not suffer the punishment they might suffer? Were there no Truth Commission was if there were like war crimes trials instead? And do they walk away? The Truth Commission has a different perspective. It's just to know what happened during the conflict and presented to the people. But the HEP, that is the jurisdiction for peace, special for peace, they're in charge of what you're saying. And then in Colombia, there are three types of sanctions according to the peace agreement. There's some sanctions that restrict rights and restrict freedom of movement, but not into jail, but through special zones. Like house arrest, that sort of thing? No, there's more like, you can go to this place, you can't maybe go to this place that was a more... There's civil liberties unlimited. Exactly, more like restricting the civil liberties, but you're not going to jail. Then you have another type that are like alternative and it seeks to repair the victims. So for instance, if you were part of a squad that maybe bombed the school and then you wanna repair that school and you wanna build it again, that's what the alternatives look for. And then you have the ordinary sanctions that are like jail, 15 or more years, 15 to 20. And that just happens if you don't tell the truth. So if I'm part of the FARC and I'm speaking to the HEP, so then what you will do is if you don't tell the truth, well, you're going to jail. So the truth commission can refer you to the organization that can put you in jail. If the truth commission finds that you're not telling the truth, is that what happened? No, the truth commission just spreads their report. It's already published. And what they do is that they try to get the report to as much people as they can. They also do it to the UN, to the security council, to the human rights council. The special jurisdiction for peace, they have also like a special unit to find out the truth according to the special case. So they are in charge of saying, you're not doing it right or you're lying, you did commit this crime. And in that case, and that would be serious now and you would wind up going to jail for not only the crime, but for lying about the crime. Exactly, yes. So I guess the 15 or 20 year punishment is relegated to the people who are serious criminals or criminals. Yes, and it also can be a small or a political crime, but if you lied about it, then you're not going to get alternative or restorative sanctions, which is you're just going to go to jail for 15 to 20 years. My reaction is we should, we in the United States should learn from you about this. Natalia, do you watch American TV? Do you read American newspapers? Do you hear about what's going on up here? Yes, yes. I asked you before about American immigration policy and policy around separating children from their parents and so forth. That must be a real problem, a real sticking point for anyone concerned about war crimes. And it seems to me that separating intentionally, separating parents from children is a war crime. It's an atrocity, do you agree? That depends on how you look at it because you're not in an armed conflict, but for the rest, I mean, it's an atrocity and it should be punished. Yes, I agree. And so that it never happens again, mainly. Yes. So, you know, the US has its issues these days and I suppose we ought to learn from what Columbia does and Columbia can learn what not to do from what we do. So I asked you before about the average citizen. The average citizen gets the report from the Truth Commission and the average citizen tries to live his or her life in a way as to avoid atrocities again. But what about you, Natalia? You're gonna see the Truth Commission report. What are you gonna do about it? How are you going to advance the lessons of the Truth Commission? Well, I read a part of it because it has like 8,000 pages, so it's very long. But what I've tried to do so far is try what I was just telling you, maybe try to clarify some fake news that are evolving around the Truth Commission and the PIS jurisdiction because a lot of people are saying, no, this is just made for the FARC to come clean and then they won't have any repercussions and then the army will have every repercussion and it's gonna be made just to wash children's brains. And there's a lot of people that are actually saying that. So what I've been doing so far is trying to maybe clarify more what the Truth Commission is saying. They're not good guys, they're not bad guys. It doesn't say the FARC are the worst guys in the world. No, it says that every armed person or every actor in the armed conflict committed atrocities and they describe which one was committed by who. It actually describes everything. So I think that me as a citizen that is informed about the Truth Commission's report, that's what I've been trying to do so far. That's a good experience I think. Truth is essential to democracy which takes me to the next question. As you mentioned that people have, they have questions about the report and they have not been properly informed or not properly aware of what has happened all these years. And that's troubling because in a democracy, presumably you have the media, you have the press, you have newspapers. I know you have newspapers and you have television. So how come the media was not able to accurately report what FARC was doing? How come the media was unable to get the people to accept it's reporting on what the FARC was doing? Why is there this confusion now as to require a Truth Commission? Couldn't the media have found all this out by itself? And couldn't the media have reported this a long time ago accurately? No, I think that the Truth Commission has also a very important asset and it's their independence. Media here in Colombia is owned by certain political parties or not political parties, but certain political wings or maybe very powerful people. So they tell- We don't have any of that in the United States. No, no, no. We never see that happen here. Nevermind, go ahead. But we do have that. So what the Truth Commission has is that they're independent. So every research that they're doing or that they did for the final report was independent. They got help from the UN. They got help from witnesses, from other NGOs, but they didn't get any help from the government itself more than maybe interviewing people or they didn't get any help from any political party because they're independent and they shouldn't be biased by any political, well, way. So what they're doing is, what they did is very important because of that. Also the media reported a lot of things, but it was very hard to get a lot of information here because there were towns where a lot of atrocities and massacres happened. Maybe the worst that happened in this country and nobody knew about it, but days after it. And the truth was a little bit maybe partialized or they didn't know what happened. Every survivor was killed. So nobody knew what was actually going on. So it was very hard to actually know what was happening at the time. If that's very troubling. I'll tell you one thing troubling about it is, you talk about the political, the sort of call it the capitalist control of media, which happens, as I was joking, it happens in the United States, plenty, plenty. But couldn't that happen again? Because those structures that improperly restrained the media before and led to the necessity for a truth commission, independent truth commission, those phenomena still exist, don't they? Those capitalistic structures still exist. So it could happen, the suppression of the truth would happen again in Colombia, am I right? Yes, you're completely right. I think that's a trouble that we're having, not just in Colombia, but worldwide. The media has been partialized and then we as the ordinary citizens, as you were saying, are a bit confused on the truth and what's actually happening. Well, it goes to another issue too, and that is the FARC gone. Did the agreement actually terminate the structures in the FARC? It's like, we found, it took us a while to get our hands on it, but we found that the proud boys and the oath keepers here in the United States were active organizations, funded in large part by political interests and capital interests. We're actively involved in the January 6th insurrection, coup d'etat, so it's popular these days. And I guess they're still around, there's been a handful of prosecutions, but relative to their existence, I don't think you could say they went away. And so what about the FARC? By virtue of the agreement and now the Truth Commission, did the FARC go away? Can we say there was no more FARC? No, that's actually something that wouldn't be accurate for me to say. So before there was numbers were like 30,000 aren't men, and now they're less. What they did is that the agreement terminated the FARC, but now we have like little maybe organizations that were people from the FARC before, and they're actually doing the same that the FARC did, but in a smaller structure. So the peace agreement did help because now we have much less men, much less atrocities happening at the moment. The problem with drugs has also been a bit improved since the FARC stopped being an armed group, but we also have a lot of problems regarding internal security. We have a lot of other armed groups that were born since the FARC left. So there's also a lot of issues that we have to keep working. It's funny there's a kind of parallel between the cities like Bogota and I suppose there are other large cities in Columbia, and the rural areas where the FARC ruled, and or may still rule. And this is a problem which I have discussed with Nicholas Aaron Sussman, who you know, with Project Next But I Tested. It's a problem is that you have two societies. You have two societies in Columbia, and it breaks down, the educated people, the people who appreciate these issues, the ones who preserve the democracy and reasonably responsible representative government are in the cities. But when you go into the rural areas, you find almost a different world. And it's very hard to put the two together. Can we, can you? We have the same kind of issue, cities, most versus rural areas. And you see that popping up in Trump's base. And so I wonder if there's a solution here to make the rural areas more akamai. You know, akamai is a Hawaii word, smarter about dealing with the problem that separates them from the centers of democracy. Can we fix that in Columbia? Can we fix that in the United States? I think that it responds to different things. In Columbia it responds because here in Bogotain, in the center, it's basically wherever decision is made, budget-wise, politically-wise. So it's very difficult. They never think of the rural areas, and they're forgotten. Another way that they're trying to improve that is through infrastructure. So they're trying to improve infrastructure for the government to be able to actually approach and enter into the city, and to the smaller places in Columbia. So that's also something that's been happening, and we're trying to improve, but it's very hard for us to do it. This is where a centralist country, and everything that happens in Bogota is the decision that is made. Interesting that I mentioned Juan Tello, who has also appeared on our shows, and he's a lawyer like you who specializes in infrastructure, in raising money, organizing large contracts to build infrastructure in Columbia. And the mission is, just as you say, that if you connect the city with the rural area by infrastructure, and that includes roads, it includes railroads, it includes telecommunications, it's all connection, then you, through that connection, you teach the people in the rural areas that there's another life and so forth. But doesn't that worry you though, Natalia, and if I build infrastructure all across Columbia, and I show the people who are poor in the rural areas, the wonderful life they can have in Bogota, they will come to Bogota, and soon enough everybody will be in Bogota, that may not help the rural areas, what do you think? No, I don't think that that would help, but that's actually something that's been happening here for a while. So for instance, Columbia is a country of more or less 15 million people, and 12 million people live in Bogota. So it's been like this since the start of the conflict, everybody's coming here just because they want to have a better life, because they know that's what they can do for their children or for their families, because it's very, very hard for them in the rural areas, especially because of the armed conflict, they've been displaced from their houses, from their homes. So it has a way of seeing it, and some people, they don't want to leave their places or their houses, their roots, their culture, but some of them would like to have a better life for their families as well, so. So we hear about people who want to immigrate for sanctuary in the United States. Are they coming from Columbia? Are they coming from the rural areas? Are they coming from Bogota and the cities? Are they coming at all? Do they need sanctuary in the United States? Are they making the trip? No, in Columbia, not that much. In Columbia, it's been more, it happened mostly during the 90s, but the armed conflict was on a peak and the drug cartels were also running the country. Mostly the people that go to the US are the Central American people, Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador. There are countries that are very troubled politically right now, so it's mostly. Yeah, well, we hear about that and it makes us sad because what we would like to see is Latin America united, Latin America, with leadership that goes beyond one country. And we hear about all these political troubles and economic troubles and we don't see solutions coming. And I've thought, talking to you and Nicholas and Juan, that Columbia was a leading light, even with the troubles with the FARC and the troubles with the war crimes. The fact is that you do have a democracy and you are an important country that could be a leadership country in the, what do you want to call it, the improvement of Latin America in general. You agree with me about that? Yes, I do agree with you in that, mostly Venezuelans immigrants are coming here because they want to have a better life than the ones they have in their country. Yeah, too bad there's so much trouble now in Venezuela, in Brazil now, and he whiz and governments are turning autocratic in Latin America and elsewhere. I was telling you that I saw an interesting movie called Plaza Catedral, which involved the wealth gap, you will, and the education gap in Panama City, which is not too far away. Matter of fact, I think you're, are you contiguous with Panama? There's your board, yeah. So people don't realize how many countries there are in Central America, and they don't realize that Panama actually runs west to east, and it's not north to south, it's west to east. And they don't realize that you're right there and that Columbia touches Panama and Columbia is Panama's entry, so to speak, into South America. So Panama City is a city of steel and glass, of wealthy people, a fair amount of corruption, I would say, and in this movie, we learn about people who don't have two pesos to rub together and they live across the street from people who are very wealthy and who live in the steel and glass and drive fancy cars and all that. How will you compare Bogota with Panama City? I would say that it has the same problems. Columbia is a country in which inequality is very high. I would say that one of the highest in the world. It's actually been very hard for Colombians because the middle class in Colombia is not very clear. So it's very hard to make it if you're not from a good family or from a good education or you went into a government subsidized program that allowed you to study in a good university. It's very hard because you have a very big gap and I would say that that's very similar to what you were describing. The difference would be that would be, and I would turn again to the to the armed conflict. And it's that besides all this inequality, you have victims from the armed conflict just sometimes on the street just asking for help from others because they were displaced, forced to be displaced from their homes. That's very tragic, especially with kids, especially with young kids. And I'm sure you'll agree with me that if you do that for any length of time, if you have people who are displaced, especially young kids who really don't have a future in the existing society, the society itself is undermined. The society has corroded you. You really can't have that wealth gap over any significant period without having a trainwreck on your society in general. So I wonder what you see with the future here, the future of Bogota, the future of Columbia, the future of rural Columbia, the future of the people who might otherwise continue to engage in FARC-like activities. I mean, obviously you're committed to the country. You're committed to doing the right thing. You're committed to making it better, but what do you see happening in Columbia and in Columbia as a, call it a leader in Latin American democracy, what do you see happening? So since the last election, there was a new kind of government that was elected. It was a bit more centered left, sorry, than the last government, and they're seeking to try to connect more with the rural areas to implement the rural reform that was in the peace agreement for them to be able to develop. They have a very different approach to drug trafficking and the approach that we have right now with the United States regarding exactly drug trafficking. And they have very different approaches regarding health, regarding social security. So I think that all of us Colombians are just waiting for the best. And then we are just like patiently waiting to see what the government does and every promise they made during the campaign and every promise they made to the people to improve their lives and to actually reduce inequality because that's also something that they wanna do. We're just waiting and patiently waiting to see if it happens or if something changes in the country without jeopardizing the economy that we have and the institutions that we have now. So, yeah. Oh, may I say, God bless you for that. But what about running for office, Natalia, and being an activist and being part of the political solution? What about that? I think I'm more of a lawyer than a politician. So I would rather work for a court, human rights advisor than running for office. Okay, but let me offer the thought that you may change your mind about that. And it'll be okay if you do. Okay, I'll remember you if I do. Yeah, remember what I suggested for you? Well, in French, we would say, vous êtes très charmante. I don't speak Spanish and what that means in English. You've been very charming today and I have greatly appreciated this discussion, Natalia. And I hope we can circle back and get an update from you as things go forward. It's been really a good discussion and I've learned a lot and hopefully other people will learn a lot too about Columbia and about the processes in Columbia that we can learn from. Thank you, Natalia, Venegas, Arango. Thank you, Jay, for having me. Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.