 Marta Goldstein and Isiar Gomez will be providing translation for today's event. For our in-house audience, translation is available and you should have received headsets as you came in. To listen to the program in English, tune into channel one. Spanish will be available on channel three. And for those who are tweeting, please use the hashtag Columbia Peace Forum at USIP at HR Colombia with an O. Evaluation cards were distributed as you came in. Tonus, are you around? Somewhere? Maria Antonia Montes. You are the only participant in the conference. Please press any key on your keypad to remain in the conference. Sounds like she's trying to line us up for the Skype. OK, Tonus will be collecting these cards at the end of the event. And you can give your cards and your input any time that you see her throughout the event. The questions on the evaluation cards are a bit generic, but I would be very interested. We got over 150 RSVPs for this event, and I'd be very interested in knowing the motivations for those of you who are here. It's a large number of people for a Columbia event, yes, although we usually get a good crowd for Columbia, but for a topic that's a somewhat technical topic on implementing an agreement on disappearances, it was actually surprising to us that we reached such a wide broad audience. So if you have particular reasons that you're here, we'd be interested in knowing those. Finally, so you can pace yourselves, we will break at 1050 for a 15-minute coffee break just outside the room. You'll be disconnected. Today's topic on implementing the agreements on the disappeared is timely, both for the topic itself and for the possibilities it presents to the parties negotiating in Havana to build confidence in the prospect for peace after so many decades of war. Force disappearances have left a tragic legacy for families throughout this hemisphere. The practice of enforced disappearances, often associated with the darkest days of military dictatorship in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Brazil, among others, is defined by the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons Against Disappearances as, quote, the arrest, detention, abduction, or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the state or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of the state, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which plays such a person outside the protection of the law. In the Colombian case, the victims of enforced disappearances include labor leaders, journalists, peasant organizers, and politicians. Also, in the context of war, they include military and guerrillas who fought in Colombia's internal armed conflict and who remain unaccounted for. Thus, this tragedy cuts across many sectors of Colombian society. The crime of enforced disappearances, in which there is no body, is particularly hard to prosecute. Without a body, there is little hope for accountability or for justice. The tragedy is particularly poignant as it leaves in its wake a trail of victims that include not only those who disappeared, but those who remain behind and search for news of their loved ones. It is a story of perseverance and hope in the face of loss. It's the story of the power of memory and love. It's the story of the search for truth when all around there are powerful forces calling to forget and move on. But without the truth, moving on becomes impossible. Nowhere has the tragedy of enforced disappearances been so pervasive or occurred over such a long period of time as in Colombia. The numbers are upwards of 30,000, and there are many different statistics on this. I won't go into all of them, but it's a large number. Sergio Jaramillo, High Commissioner for Peace and one of the negotiators for the Colombian government in Havana, has spoken of the importance of addressing the question of the disappeared. We must give a response to the millions of victims that the internal armed conflict has left, and among these victims, the victims of disappearances occupy a special place. Searching for the missing people is the first obligation in the law and in international humanitarian law when a conflict ends. Jaramillo told family members who attended ceremonies last week to receive the remains of their loved ones. Confronting the tragedy of the disappeared is important as it can satisfy the rights of the victims to truth, justice, reparations, and guarantees of non-repetition. It also offers the possibility of restoring the relationship between a state and its citizens that was broken and has been broken by years of war. In Havana, where peace talks between the Colombian government and the FARC have been underway for three years, the parties agreed to a plan last October to accelerate efforts to search for, locate, identify, and turn over the remains of the disappeared who might be found to their family members. In a joint statement signed by the parties on October 17th, 2015, which has come to be known as agreement number 62, the Colombian government and the FARC committed to a two-part strategy to address the issue of the disappeared. Agreement 62 would alleviate the suffering of the families of persons deemed as missing and contribute to the satisfaction of their rights. The Accord called for both long-term structural measures and immediate complementary measures to improve the responsiveness of the government to victims' rights. Likewise, these immediate complementary measures are being coordinated by the Attorney General's Office, the Fiscalía, the Victims Unit, and the National Institute of Legal Medicine, or Forensic Studies, in coordination with victims' organizations. In this process, an important role has been granted to victims' and human rights organizations, and they are coming forward with their own proposals. Their participation will be critical to the successful implementation of the agreements reached in Havana. Today's session, we'll hear about some of the specific challenges for the implementation of agreement number 62. We hope that today's session and the discussion that we'll follow will generate ideas for how to address these challenges, as well as lessons for the negotiators as they think about the design of mechanisms for effective implementation of the peace accords more broadly. Implementation of this agreement on disappeared is in its early stages, and if done well, it has the capacity to generate confidence, broader confidence, in the peace process. Engaging the victims in the design and implementation of these measures will potentially provide quick and effective remedies to individuals and communities harmed by the conflict. It will also be an important building block for the implementation of the final accords. And now, let us turn to today's speakers. We'll begin with Uliano Franco Vanegas, the Executive Director of Familiares Colombia. Welcome. Virginia, Dr. Carlos Valdez, Diana Valgo, Alicia. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning to all of you. The Colombia-Europa coordination is a network of over 200 organizations that are NGOs in Colombia that has been constituted as one of the principal reference points regarding Colombia. The objective in the coordination is that Colombia advance to the compliance to the international agreements on human rights. The work of our network is to promote in Europe, in coordination with Oida and the United States, to coordinate also with the U.S. Office in Colombia, Pusok, to have a political agenda in Colombia for human rights. Research and communication regarding this situation in Colombia is to strengthen the national movement for human rights. At the same time, within the coordination efforts, the work table, the disappeared is bringing together 30 groups of victims and disappeared of human rights and support, anthropologic, forensic, and legal support for these families. Familiares Colombia is part of the group. We are an NGO that defends human rights that was created and made up of family members of individuals that have disappeared or have been enforced disappearance. We carry our work out in different areas of the country, Santa Marta, with the state of Magdalena and Yamasa, the state of Casanare. The municipality of Victoria, La Dorada, in the state of Cauca, and in Bogota, Distrito Capital, the federal district, our work is looking for our loved ones. We represent then legally the families, whatever whether it's common or transitional law based on public administration and the inter-American system. We carry out alliances that are strategic with organizations, specifically set up as a work group in Colombia for Equitas, it's called. Vingulos is another group, an opción legal. Even though we come together as being victims of this forced disappearance, there are different contexts in each one of the regions. In Santa Marta, for example, family members are in common that they're victims of the paramilitary groups that are called the Northern Bloc, Sistencia Taidona and Clan Rojas, the Autodefensas of Colombia as well. In the year 2000 and 2005, their loved ones disappeared in the city of Santa Marta, sub-urban areas as well as the banana sector. In the region of Seville, Yamasa, the victim, the cause of the victims actually were in Casanares, who at the end of 2002 through March or 2003, attacked the population, the civil population of the area, even though supposedly the reason was to face the guerrillas, the basic reason was to have mega projects that were multinational in nature, and the result was an indeterminate amount of victims between 150 to 300 people that were murdered and forced displacement. Victoria en la Dorada, also a part of the Magdalena Medio, it's a very special conflictive area because of the presence and the structure of paramilitaries that call themselves the Bloc de Magdalena Medio of the AUC of Colombia. They displaced thousands of people during many decades. Different than the victims of other areas of these crimes, in our case, the search for these loved ones is an essential effort in our hopes. It is the only way that we will reach justice, truth and reparation that will be part of the prerequisites that are essential for peace. Familiares Colombia, from when it was created through an organized process and a judicial representation with interdisciplinary measures has been able to assume and delivery of the remains of 24 of our loved ones. Within that dynamic, we have gone forward in the struggle to implement the fact that we have to return these individuals with dignity. Historically, the Colombian authorities are used to mistreat the families when that special moment arrives that implies the return and reunion with the individual disappeared. The commission that is set up for this search, which is an entity which has not been able to comply with what the law has asked it to do and it does not give any accountant to the society and the victims of, societies of victims has an institutional protocol for the dignified return that permits massive returns where the rights of the families are really harmed, bringing about the fact that that delivery is done based on the logistical needs of the institution and not the love of the families. But that's not the only problem based on this protocol. They admit the possibility of also to just symbolic delivery of rest where supposedly would be impossible to find the individual that's disappeared, denying the right of the families in their search for their loved ones and invulnerability of a universe of rights. It's incredible that this group only has made up professions that are quite qualified to do so that are trying very hard to respectfully carry out the rights of these victims in a very working in hand in hand with the NGOs in each one of these return of rest. But that's not the general rule in Columbia, the paradigm from the Attorney General's office and the state continue being just improvisation and imposing on the families and issues that are difficult for the families. The Institute of Legal Medicine is one with which the families of the disappeared historically have had serious problems. In one of our cases, for example, we were brought the remains here to the United States in order to be able to identify them through the mitochondrial DNA because the legal forensic expert in Santa Marca put the rest in hydrochloric acid and they were not able to be identified in another very painful case in Casanades. We needed to repeat the return of the remains because they did not incorrectly identify the bones and they had the remains of four people in one box so it made it impossible to separate it. In another case in Columbia on September 9th of 1997, the victim was a bacteriologist from the left of Maya Montoya-Onau, 30 years old, and we still don't know where she, her remains might be. Since then, Colombian government one way or another through their paramilitary leaders have forcibly disappeared an unknown number of people in the context not only of the armed internal conflict but of the sociopolitical violence against the opposition. We're saying that the number is unknown because the Colombian state hasn't been able to figure out how many people have disappeared. There are no numbers and they are very fragmented. This is the reason why the data is not trustworthy. The members of the public forces, the paramilitary have not assumed historic responsibility for the victims before society based on the violence that occurred. One of the mechanisms of impunity has been official versions that have been made that denied the stories, the voice of the victims and their historic memory as well as covering up events. The numbers therefore constantly change. Sedeck says 113,000 of 200,000 of forced disappearances the register on equal victim says is 46,000 and the attorney general's office of Colombia says 30,000 investigations to date. The distance between these numbers then reveals the magnitude of the problem. The forced disappearance of individuals creates emotional and economic difference based on the uncertainty by not knowing what happened to the loved ones and the fact that the government hasn't satisfied the victims as far as reparation and justice. Colombia has lived for 50 years in armed internal conflict between the government and the rebel forces of the FARC, the FARC, the Ejercitor Religion Nationale and other subversive organizations and at the end of the 60s, we saw organizations that were paramilitary in nature that strengthened through the years up to the 90s with the support of the state and the public forces that were available. The result of the conflict has been a humanitarian crisis that had made victims of the civil society suffering consequences, all types of humanitarian issues. Perhaps one of the most cruel conducts that happened has been the commission on the states and the paramilitary that acted under their patrimony of this undetermined number of people. As we said before, the only registered victim is calculated about 46,000 disappeared. The government in Colombia hasn't investigated most of the events or to punish most of those responsible. They have been able to find either the tremendous amount of the individuals disappeared and they still don't give a satisfactory response to the family. According to the attorney general's office, the exclamations have been carried out from transitional justice with justicia impas that found approximately 4,000 individuals disappeared in 10 years of work. If we looked at the number of the only registered victims, we would find that they have not been able to resolve even 10% of the cases. The law in Colombia, based on the organizations that are of the NGOs and the international community have set up norms of situations for the disappeared in the year 2000 after decades of search. The 589 law was approved and they identified for the first time in Colombia the fact that this is a crime, this forced disappearance. They began to look for people and they would set up a register. They established norms for the disappeared and a mechanism of individuals through other measures as well. Unfortunately, today, we denounced the total impunity in the majority of the cases that have been studied. The inability of the commission that is looking for the individuals disappeared, which is a register of cases and the fact that the fact is not working properly. The fact that law 7.1 of 2005 is very valuable and could also allow for them to find the individuals that are still alive, but most of them, the prosecutors and judges don't want to look into that situation, consequently has any level of effectiveness. Another tool that could possibly help in developing a strategy that would be successful to look for the disappeared in whole regions would be implementation of the search for individuals that have disappeared. Presented in February of 2007, based on 589, a law approved is objective to know the dimension of the phenomena of those individuals that have been displaced, to find out what these disappeared are, to be able to identify them, establish the circumstances of their disappearance, and also find out the socioeconomic situation, why it happened, find out the perpetrators and the crimes that were created to find out the participation of public servants in some of those events. They have four different stages for collection of information, analysis, verification of information, recuperation, it's technical studies and scientific of identification, and fourth, the final destination of the corpses. Although the lay for victims says that they have to plan the search for individuals that have disappeared in order to be able to carry out adequately the search for these individuals. In reality, there has been no practical offense since the Attorney General's office has not been able to carry out or they don't see it as a tool. That's only theoretic in its level and it's not practicable. As you can imagine, the system then only works in a very small manner and based on the pressure of the victims and their representatives, since there is no real political will to do so on the part of the government to clarify the situations. Many of those that have perpetrated these crimes are still in power and they're impeding in the process which by in and of itself is quite high in impunity. The conversations between the FARC and the government in Havana to resolve this conflict have agreed to put in search several measures that are first in the search and identification of these individuals that have been lost to people that have disappeared during the conflict. Second, actions focused on institutional strengthening and third, special unit for the search of disappeared people. Relatives of disappeared people are hopeful with regards to the agreements between the national government and the FARC at the negotiation table. These are a challenge both for the government as well as for the Colombian society. However, decades of frustration make us believe that the lack of capacity by the government is becoming an obstacle for their implementation and there are still enforced disappearances taking place and there are still very powerful paramilitary structures in place in many regions in the country. The agreements that have been signed so far promise the creation of new institutions and victims organizations have been called on to engage in the implementation process. Simultaneously, we need a strengthening process of the legal system and for that, we need real political will so that our rights become a reality and we have a durable peace. Thank you very much. Muchas gracias. Ahora vamos a escuchar. Thank you very much. Carlos Eduardo Valdes, the general director of the National Institute of Forensic Medicine. Muy bueno. Good. Gracias. Un saludo especial para mis colegas de. Good morning, special greetings for my colleagues at the table. As director of the National Institute of Legal Medicine, and Forensic Science, I would like to thank the organizers of this event. It allows us to get to know a little better of what is happening as well as the problems related to enforced disappearance in Colombia. My institute has 102 years working on this issue and we recognize that in these two 102 years of work such as my colleague said, the institute has not responded in the best way possible in many areas. Last November, as an example, I had to ask director of the institute, I had to recognize that in the case Justice Palace, we had committed big mistakes. I also said that we were not going to make those mistakes again. In this context that has to do with enforced disappearance in Colombia and everything that has to do with Agreement 62 of Havana, the institute is developing a very important strategy. First of all, the strategy does not come out of the agreement, this agreement, number 62. We start implementing the agreement in 2011 and it's comprised of two big pillars. The first one, the search, the initial search will be in the cemeteries in Colombia. We started a program called Cemetery Plan in 2011. Many organizations were called in order to be engaged in the development of this plan. Basically we need to recover all the corpses in Colombia that are in cemeteries and that have not been identified. This operation is quite large because we believe that there might be corpses in these cemeteries that belong to many of the people that have disappeared in Colombia. This cemetery project involves a very big structure in order to carry a diagnosis of the cemeteries and then an intervention. When Agreement 62 was signed, this agreement strengthens the structure and identifies some priorities, especially in the first point of the agreement, which has to do with the development of certain actions that build confidence. In this regard, we've already intervened three cemeteries and we will continue to work in two more cemeteries, Bocalla and Yagumal. They are, but our agenda includes all the cemeteries in the country. Now, the whole history of disappeared people in Colombia is there, but we have something very specific that we found in cemeteries in Colombia. The management of the cemeteries have developed second and third disappearances when the corpses in cemeteries are moved from one place to another or they're mixed up by the management. Therefore, we carried out a second strategy at the institute that was implemented as of 2011. The corpses that we recover from the cemeteries will never be returned to the same cemeteries. We are building what we've called repositories, repositories that have been technically designed so that the corpses are not, don't suffer any deterioration and we will use new techniques in order to be able to identify those corpses. The institute has undertaken a big responsibility. We will not return those corpses, we will preserve them, especially corpses that were not identified and will not be able to be identified in spite of the modern techniques that we have available right now and those that have not been claimed or whose relatives have not been located. In this context, we have to, it's clear that we need to work on many different issues, the main one. To define a single strategy with technical and scientific procedures in place. What Dr. Yulianov has stated here is true and it has happened for many years and recently certain mistakes have been made and some procedures have been developed that do not allow for the identification of certain corpses and the institute is responsible for this because so far we have not established specific procedures. A month ago I issued a resolution and I make an international call and national call in order to come together and define minimal quality standards for the search, recovery, analysis, identification of corpses. And this call is open for NGOs, governments, institutions, academia, international organizations and we hope to be able to develop minimal standards very soon because the work that we carry out in terms of searching disappeared people is just starting so to speak. We are just becoming aware of what a disappearance in Colombia has involved. I agree as director of the institute, as public officer. I acknowledge that the biggest disaster that we've suffered is that relatives didn't get any attention. Relatives of disappeared people didn't get any attention. The only response that relatives had were closed doors in government institutions. We are changing. In the institute we are changing in order to come closer to the relatives, to bring them closer to the scientific processes that are being developed. I am aware that there are great expectations regarding all these initiatives. For example, the National Registry of Disappeared People, the information systems, your tech. But with an open mind, an open attitude, understanding criticism, carrying out corrections of those mistakes, I believe we can move forward. In general ways, this is the plan that we are developing at the institute. This is the plan that we're developing with everything that has to do with the forced disappearance in Colombia. Thank you very much. Gracias, Dr. Valdez. Thank you, Dr. Valdez. I would like to offer now the floor to the Ana Rango Gomez from Aguitas. Good morning. First, I would like to thank the United Institute of Peace and the Latin American Working Group for having organized this very important event. But above all, I would like to thank them for their work on durable peace in Colombia based on the defense of human rights in the country. My organization is a forensic group that was created in 2004 as a response by human rights organizations and victims in order to have independent forensic work in the reparation work. Aguitas, like Familias Colombia, are part of the coordination Colombia, United States, Europe, and we are working on forced disappearance and we are representing this coalition of organizations. I would like to start my presentation by saying, by stating that the search of disappeared people in Colombia is not an easy task. And it's not only because of the time that has passed between their disappearance. Many of them have been disappeared for more than 30 years, like Ulyanov said, the first disappearance took place in 1977, but also because of the complexity of the scenarios where we are looking for people, such as rivers or clandestine trenches. Our work is very rigorous. We exchange information with perpetrators, communities, and relatives. And we also use technical and scientific tools in order to carry out the search on the ground. The search in Colombia has been delegated to specific type of format by investigators of the general attorney's office. And sometimes the search is not part of the legal investigation or the search for the truth around the disappearance in Colombia. Ulyanov shared some figures with you. After 10 years of justice and peace, we've only recovered 5% of the corpses. Many of them have not been identified yet, and they're in the rooms of the institutions, government institutions. If we continue this pace, we will take us more than two centuries to find everyone and identify them. In Colombia, we have a set of rules and laws and also commissions, such as the commission for the search of people in charge of implementing policies, but there's a lack of coordination and lack of coherence between what the law says and the implementation or enforcement of such. We could then state without fear to be mistaken and figures support this, that the Colombian government has a pending debt with the Colombian society as a whole. Victims organizations and relatives of disappeared people as well as human rights organizations specialized NGOs celebrate the statement of the agreement 62 of Havana, which talks about implementing a unit, a search unit in order to find disappeared people in Colombia. This agreement that was reached by different parties recognizes they grab the seriousness and the magnitude of disappearance in Colombia and is a result of the work of victims organizations that have been claiming the return of their loved ones for more than 30 years. However, this agreement, agreement 62, poses certain challenges. The most important one to make the same mistakes as the ones that were made in the past. The unit to search for disappeared people have to respond to the questions of the relatives of the victims. Where are their relatives and what are the circumstances surrounding their disappearance? I would like to state that this communique talked about the victims participation as well as human rights and specialized NGOs as a main part of the design and the measures that are being implemented. The communique of this agreement 62 ordered the national committee for the search of people. This committee had to look for people and implement measures immediately in order to guarantee the participation also of victims organizations. In this regard, the working table for disappeared people called on the committee. However, given the failure of this committee to fulfill their work, the working table, together with the coalition Colombia, Europe, United States, decided to issue another statement and this process counted with the participation of more than 300 people from 90 organizations from 24 of the department's origins in Colombia. It's important to state that the recommendations were issued together with victims organizations as well as all the armed victims from all the different armed groups. We had organizations representing different types of disappeared people such as forced disappeared or kidnapped people, among others, among 300 recommendations were issued through different regional encounters between January and February. They were processed and systematized in three blocks of recommendations that respond to different issues that were presented in agreement 62 such as immediate measures, institutional strengthening as well as the creation of the unit for the search of people that have been disappeared. Likewise, as a product of the very fruitful discussion, different recommendation, cross-cutting recommendations were issued that touched upon the three different points. These recommendations were completed in February and were presented in Havana on the 15th of March of this year. This was a recognition of the autonomous process put forward by the authorities. These are part of the working group on disappeared people and it shows also the diversity of the different parties that participate from civil society. Now I would like to highlight some of the recommendations regarding two of the components of the communique which are immediate measures and the unit for the search of disappeared people. Outside of this room there are photocopies of the documents that includes all the recommendations regarding the three components of the agreement but we could also distribute it through the internet. With regards to the immediate measures, organizations agreed that parties are requested to establish a clear mechanism through which victims organizations, human rights organizations as well as specialist organizations can provide information in order to locate people that are considered disappeared. This is a mechanism to build confidence between both parties, the FARC and the government and they request legal medicine and the committee for the search of people to implement these measures but requesting or using the information provided by the table, organizations have requested to have a mechanism so that victims organizations can submit information in order to contribute to the immediate measures and so that relatives of the victims are also included in the process. Second, a timeline and a protocol has to be developed in order to facilitate the delivery of information by the FARC and state agents as well as paramilitary. In the case of the information provided by state agents the access to archives and classified information has to be guaranteed as well as other information that can be useful in order to locate disappeared people. All this information has to be provided under the immediate measures framework and it has to be transferred once the unit for the search of disappeared people is created. We understand that legal medicine and the CRR have moved forward in building this protocol. However, we are still waiting to formally be presented with the protocol and to define the mechanisms through which victims organizations, victims human rights and specialized organizations can provide information and participate in the follow up and monitoring of the implementation of these immediate measures. Now I would like to move forward to the recommendations that have to do with the unit to search for disappeared people. They are most of the recommendations that were developed under the framework of the encounters and this shows the importance and the expectations generated by the creation of a unit within the human rights movement but also within the victims movement. The recommendations were divided in different blocks among such the nature of the unit, the objectives, its temporary unit, its structure and the way it should operate. To put it in a nutshell, we believe that the unit for the search of disappeared people must be independent and it has to be within the government structure. It has to be of a high level and a lot of legal authority with their own legal authority so that they can receive resources from the international community. They need to have an item, a specific item under the national budget and they have to have their own staff. The objectives of the unit must be the following. Identify the universe of victims. In Colombia we have a series of problems regarding the number of disappeared people in the framework of the armed conflict and political violence. Like my colleague was saying, we figures go from 20,000 to 100,000 and we still don't have a consolidated figure. The unit has to go farther and on top of establishing the universe they have to characterize the victims. They have to also define the concept of disappeared people. They have to differentiate between forced disappearance, kidnapping, forced recruitment or a death in combat. This in order to bring truth to victims and the relatives. In addition to this, the unit must strengthen, update and implement the search plan and guarantee effective participation by victims, relatives and civil society throughout the whole process. We hope that the unit will work for at least 10 years and throughout this time I hope the unit will be able to review together with human rights, victims and specialized organizations, all the cases and review whether it's necessary for the organization to exist longer or not. The unit will need to coordinate with all the other parts of the justice and reparation system through a clear working protocol as well as exchange of information. Information produced by the unit must be an input in order to clarify the cases and to bring justice and peace. As a conclusion, I would like to highlight that the participation of victims and civil society organization does not end in the production of these recommendations. Quite the contrary, it should be considered as a start point of a process that guarantees that the voices and proposals developed are taken into account and included in the building and implementation of immediate measures and the unit for the search of disappeared people. From the table, we would like to make a call and we insist that the fulfillment of the agreement reached on the 15th of March in Havana are important and that we need to implement follow-up mechanisms for the unit for the search of disappeared people and we are really looking forward to see the results final in Colombia. So far we haven't had real political will for the search of disappeared people that is represented in coordination between different institutions, allocation of technical and economic resources and through the participation of victims and victims relatives in the search identification and the handing over with dignity of the remains of the disappeared people. We hope to have real political will in order for the unit to fulfill its mandate and to solve the historic that we have with the relatives and their families. Thank you very much. Anna, I think we're going to take a break now and we'll see if we can get our Skype caller online in the meantime. There's coffee available just outside the doors. If you go all the way to the end of the hall there are restrooms available for both men and women. So thank you for your patience this morning. Thank you to all our speakers for your presentations and look forward to the conversation that we'll follow. Welcome back everyone. I can feel the charge of energy with the coffee flowing through the veins. We're pleased to welcome with us now Kristof Harnisch who is the head of the ICRC delegation in Colombia. He's been the head of the delegation since August 2014 and has been associated with the Red Cross for quite a while both in the field and headquarters in Geneva. So he has a broad experience beyond Colombia that he brings to this theme and we're going to turn it over to Kristof for about 10 minutes to tell us about the ICRC's role in the search for the disappeared and then we'll turn over to Lisa for Lisa Hogard for comments. Chris, the floor is yours. Muchas gracias, Janie. Thank you, Janie, can you hear me? Well, thank you so much for having invited me at USIP. Thank you for all the fellow panelists. I wanted to give you some information from the point of view of the ICRC. And some of the conclusions that I personally have felt are very important for the process we're living through in the search for the disappeared in Colombia. First of all, as far as we're concerned, the agreement of October 18th of the... Excuse me, could you turn off the video portion and just use the audio that way, there's less chance of the call being dropped. Yes, Chris, could you begin again? We just heard that you were going to talk about the medidas de la cuerva, but we didn't get any of your discussion. You're back with us. I'm back with you, so I start again. Yes, please, thank you. Sorry about that, Kristof. The measures of the agreement of October 2016 for the peace process that is taking place in Ivánza is a crucial step forward for the victims of this country. The fact that the two parts of the conflict have decided to resolve a humanitarian problem that's immense in its magnitude for the Colombians is extremely important. And we're very happy that this has happened. It recognizes a fact that the efforts and the political goodwill that we have breached or been able to reach this agreement is very important. We need to remember that two parts have political interests in this negotiation, but they have found the time to talk about a humanitarian agreement and it's an extremely important issue. This is not something that's normally seen in many areas of the world nonetheless. We can't forget that the dimensions of the disappeared in Colombia are incredible in the numbers, so we need to be prepared so that the search for these disappeared and to be able to return them to their families is going to be a long-term process. The agreed mechanisms have to set forth the steps that are gonna be taken for many, many years into the future and that need to use ability, authority, and the knowledge including the resources, the materials necessary to be able to respond to all of the actors in the armed conflict. The consequences on a humanitarian level are incalculable for the families that have been destroyed, the psychological effect for the loss, the stigma, the economic results because of the disappearances of their loved ones. Consequently, this issue has been incredibly important in Colombia and a problem in which we will continue to work with all of our efforts in many years to come. I see RC recognizes the fact that there's such uncertainty on the part of the families that don't know what happened to their loved ones, the feeling of ambiguous loss that is generated because they don't know whether individuals are alive or dead or where they are and particularly why they disappeared. The process then to find a loved one is very long and painful. That's why it's so important to have a commitment, the support and the solidarity of the general society and to all the institutions handle the family members with dignity and respect. Unfortunately, in certain cases, for some of the families, they will never have a definitive response because they will never have sufficient information to define the situation. I see RC is working on implementations of immediate measures taken in the framework of the October 18th agreement in the search for disappeared individuals. We are exclusively then based on a humanitarian role and what we will do is to go forth initially on three different pillars. First of all, to organize and receive information on those disappeared, the information that comes not only from the different parts that are involved, such as FARC, for example, the victims' organizations so that we will be able to take the steps necessary to find and look for these individuals. This is a very complicated job that we need to carry forward and we cannot underestimate the difficulty, the greatest difficulty that we see is to gather the detailed information. It's not just enough to get some information. We have to have very detailed information given us and obviously this requires a lot of time and a lot of effort. Secondly, we're now inaugurating a work plan together with the Legal Medicine Institute and Forensic Sciences who are partners and perhaps the most important institute with which we are cooperating within the last years. This is so we can coordinate the cases that we have already looked into. And thirdly, a bridge to the families of the disappeared so we can give them our support while we resolve the cases of all these loved ones that have been lost and we make them participants in the process of the search and then the return of their remains. This is very important. One of the measures to be able to handle the problems that the family members have. Can you hear me? You're talking about one of the subjects is handling the problems that the family members have. That's when we got cut off. We also need to set up a bridge to the families of the disappeared so we can give them support while they resolve the issues and the cases regarding their lost ones. And we will make sure that there are participants in the process for the identification and the return of their loved ones. In other words, as far as possible to be able to find specific solutions so that the families can also participate throughout the process. This is not easy. It requires a lot of time. The work of ICRC then is to be able to resolve this very serious problem. The second phase of the process led by the new special unit for the search for individuals disappeared within the context of the armed conflict. First, it's very clear that this unit has to have the necessary support within the Colombian government. So that it can go forth supporting the family members depending upon their requirements, particularly psychosocial support and active help from those that can render the support. It has to be a true system for justice reparation and the guarantee that this will never happen again. The most important issue in the process is we need to start with the families, the families which obviously will be the center of the humanitarian efforts by us. The disappearance of Colombians is for us a priority in the sense whatever tasks that we go forward will have to be within the framework. And obviously none of this is new. We continue constantly standing besides the families, offering them psychological support, social psychological support, information about their rights, and the support in the search for the disappeared members of their families. During the last 10 years, we've recovered the remains of 93 individuals in conflict zones. In the last four years, we've also supported 560 families in the search for their loved ones. And another 320, where we would be able to give them psychosocial support through incentives with our campaigns to the right to know the solidarity of society with these families. And more than that, the most important thing for us than the numbers is a constant commitment to alleviate the pain that has been caused by the disappearance. I'm very sure that with the process that is currently being opened, we'll be able to do much more to find all of these individuals. The hopes in the country are immense. However, the past is going to be very long. The experience we've had in other armed conflict areas indicate to us that to resolve the problem of the disappearance in Columbia will take years and sustained efforts throughout time. In conclusion, let me reiterate two points first. The disappearance is a humanitarian situation. There's no doubt about this. It's also a phenomena that will impact in a much more important manner the Colombian society as a whole. Always in these conflict armed conflict situations when they are over, the politicians, the negotiators don't have enough time to dedicate themselves to the task of structuring the search for the disappeared individuals. In many situations, this becomes a political issue with the fact that some family groups get together and the problem that we always see is that there is no app-transparent effort on the part of the government. There will be political tension that will make the situation much more difficult for the search. This is something we've seen in every single country. The greatest problem, for example, in Lebanon today, when we talk about the war from 75 through 92 has become politicized and perhaps it's the most important issue is the disappearance during the conflict. So in the case of the war, for example, between Iran and Iraq, currently, during this year, so we work very closely with both sides to find individuals disappeared. Obviously then, as a phenomenon, this particular issue as a source of suffering is not gonna disappear from the society at the end of conflict. Here in Colombia, we at least have the will to begin to handle this problem. This requires a lot of time. The negotiators themselves have other tasks at hand to decide what they have to do, but we have to begin this process with enormous energy. We have realized that in Colombia, is going to require much more time than what was anticipated. Secondly, the implementation will be carried out with the institutions that the country has. We can't just dream of institutions that would be unavailable. It's very clear that one of the greatest challenges as far as institutions today in this issue is to find information, to find what happened 15, 20, 30 years ago in a certain area of the country. There are no registers. And again, we can see in the case of Colombia that one of the measures we would like for the parts in the conflict that belligerents take is to at least minimally register, get information from the soldiers and the combatants that are disappeared as well. This is normally not done enough. And this perhaps in Colombia will be one of the most important challenges. Not only for the institutions, the combatants, the parts in conflict, this is a moment of truth. To give all the information that sometimes has not been collected in an efficient, serious manner. And with the will to clarify the problem. In this sense, then the work ahead of us is going to be a much more complicated effort, much more so than many people in this country are even thinking about. ICRC has a commitment to continue helping, but they are not international organizations. It's not the international dimension. And they are the only ones that can help resolve this issue. It's also going to be in the hands of the Colombians, the NGOs in Colombia, the Colombian institutions, they are the ones all jointly will have to work in this incredible effort which is such an important effort in a very complicated political environment. Thank you so much for your attention. Yes. Thank you Chris. Now we'll turn to Lisa Hogard for some commentary on the presentations. Thank you, Jenny. I think you've heard from all of the panelists today that this new agreement on forced disappearances that was arrived at Havana offers really a historic opportunity to provide answers to the families of the disappeared. Like all peace accords, the promise is only met if there is vigorous implementation that is carried out with the participation of the victims. Colombia has some real advantages here of an organized effort by valiant organizations of family members of the disappeared and human rights organizations and they're brought together in the working group on forced disappearances. The advantage of this recent commitment from the Colombian government and the FARC at the table in Havana, the support of the ICRC and substantial technical capacity within Colombia as we can see with Medicina Legal. What is now needed is to follow through in a carefully consulted way with victims, including in the search process, in the investigations, in the reparations, in the exhumations and in the return of loved ones remains with dignity and that's something that Olianoff has emphasized as many victims organizations do. There also must be adequate protection for victims of forced disappearances who continue to experience to this very day threats and attacks intended to stop their efforts to find truth and justice. And the international community has a role to play in implementing this important agreement. This is a daunting and frankly very expensive task due both to the technical nature of the response needed and to the enormous scale of the forced disappearances in Colombia. It would be most helpful to have international support for the new search mechanism, for investigations and for forensic efforts. It is important not only to fund governmental efforts to implement this part of the peace accords, but also to fund victims, organizations, human rights and independent forensic initiatives. There must be a robust civil society effort to monitor, verify and be directly involved in implementing these accords. The United States government in particular can also help by declassifying for the truth commission to come and for the public the vast amount of information that it has on the conduct of the war, the operations of all the actors in the conflict, some of which can help to reveal the truth about disappearances and perhaps where some of the bodies are located. The United States also should reflect about forced disappearances in Colombia. Olyanoff mentioned that although forced disappearances are committed by all actors, guerrillas, paramilitary, state actors and others, the substantial number of forced disappearances occurred between 2000 and 2005 with paramilitary organizations in some cases with collaboration or acts of omission by the state. And as the United States needs to reflect on the false positives or the extraditional executions, it also needs to reflect on what happened with forced disappearances and how that enters into our judgments about the various impacts of Plan Colombia and US assistance. Beyond progress in finding the mission and the missing, it is obviously essential to achieve more progress in justice for cases of disappearances. It is also urgent to have a more extensive open discussion in Colombia about who has disappeared, who disappeared them, who allowed it to happen and why. Forced disappearances have been used as a tool by different armed actors, including paramilitaries, guerrillas and state actors to control communities and to silence dissent by eliminating the leadership of social movements and community organizations, instilling fear in those left behind. Disappearances is the hidden crime intended to bring silence. To close this chapter of history, Colombia needs to open the book on disappearances, to talk about them, to discuss them, to bring them out into the open. Thanks so much for each of the participants today for their inspiring role in doing just that. Great, I'd just like to first thank all of the participants. I think that it's been a very rich set of ideas and concepts put out. And as the table in Havana resumed their work yesterday, the disappearances continues to go, the accord on disappearances continues to go forward in its implementation. And I think we've heard quite a number of the really phenomenal obstacles that lay ahead. And I'm hoping that beyond kind of naming those obstacles and beginning to think about what they might be as we move forward, we might also be able to generate ideas about how to confront these obstacles. And I've heard from the speakers, first of all the sheer numbers that we're talking about. This is tens of thousands. And if we think about family members looking for their loved one or loved ones in their own family and the daunting task that that is to try to find out what happened to one person and then multiply it by tens of thousands, I think we can begin to have an idea of how difficult it really is in practice to get at the truth of what happened. Not only the individual truth, but the collective truth. We've heard about the difficulty of the fact that disappearances happen and there's a long time lapse before these efforts to find forensic studies or efforts might be made to find or to search for the loved ones. We've heard about the lack of competency, the lack of capacity, the lack of resources, material resources in particular, the lack of information, the need for really detailed information. We've heard about inter-institutional protocols that operate for bureaucratic needs instead of for the needs of the victims who are looking for their loved ones. We've heard of the lack, well, we haven't heard too much, but the lack of a single database of all of these names and people and experiences and the need to really have a more coordinated approach and policy to address these issues. We've heard about good laws that are not implemented about gaps between norms and implementation. We've heard about lack at times of political will, the lack of training and magistrates. We've heard of systems that rely on pressure from the victims to operate and this is not a good position to be in for a victim. The state should be out in front designing policies that serve the needs of the victims whose rights have been violated. We also hear of ongoing disappearances and of threats to those who are searching for their loved ones. I'll refer to what Dr. Valdez called the past history of closed doors, the errors, the insensitivities, the indifferences. These are technologically complicated processes with geographic impediments that were mentioned by Diana, the rivers, the ravines, the deterioration of bodies of evidence over time and put all those against the high expectations that have now been created because there has been an agreement reached in Havana that something will be done, that efforts will be accelerated. So once again, there is tremendous hope and there comes with that hope, a real obligation on the part of the state to make sure that this time is different and that this time the victims do find out what happened to their loved ones and there's some way to move forward. So with that short summary, I would open the floor to questions and we have microphones at either side. I would ask you to stand up to identify yourself, the institution you come from and if you wanna direct your question to a particular speaker, feel free to do that. Is it working? Yeah, okay. My name is Moira Burse. I work with Peace Brigades International and we provide protective accompaniment to human rights defenders in places like Columbia where that kind of work is threatened. We've provided accompaniment to familiares colombianos and other organizations of families of disappeared individuals. And I wanted to ask in particular, Uliana, but also others, to speak a little bit to some of the threats and attacks that organizations like familiares colombianos have received or other organizations recently, Fundación Nidia Erdica Autista received a series of death threats and sexual violence for their work supporting families of disappeared. And if you could speak a bit to the kind of response that you've gotten from the colombian government to threats and attacks that have been received and if you find that response inadequate, what is needed to best respond to that security situation? Thanks. Let's take a few questions and then we'll turn them over to the speakers. Good morning, Armando Mosquera. I have a few questions for the different speakers, Dr. Valdez and Dr. Franco. I now received political asylum from the US government. I would probably be part of that list of disappeared people had I not come to this country. When we talk about disappeared people, then we talk about the unit for search of disappeared people and we also talk about international and national efforts. My question, why do we not talk about the government, the FARC, the paramilitary, the ELN and drug traffickers? I believe they are the ones that are highly involved in these disappearances. At no point did I hear anyone mention mass graves. In Colombia, we have them all over the place. When Dr. Valdez talked about specific case in my region, in my department of the Choco, there's this very little town where everyone knows each other. The FARC placed a bomb there and 117 people died. My question to Dr. Valdez is the following. Is it true that we have disappeared people there when everyone knows each other and everyone knows who died in that attack? Thank you. Could you hold your question just a minute? I think the panelists would like to address the two questions that have been presented, then we'll turn to you. Juliana. Unfortunately, the defense of human rights in Colombia and the exercise of our rights to look for our relatives, to look for justice, truth and comprehensive reparation is a very risky activity. Even today, we suffer from threats from government agents and paramilitary groups that operate in the country. They are threatening people that are defending their rights, as well as people that are asking for land restitution. Recently, we participated, or rather, we were part in an offense, paramilitary offensive of large scale, carried out by the Autodefensas Gaitanistas from Colombia. They are known as the Urabeños. They managed to paralyze a great part of the country, actually, with threats, intimidation. And I don't have figures right here, but we know that many people that were asking for land restitution have been killed also throughout the years. And there are still also threats against relatives of disappeared people. The government has a reactive answer to this reactive response. And in the best of cases, they provide security operations that are, in my opinion, inadequate. I think the point here is that we should not have to suffer any threats, and we should be able to carry out our work freely. With regards to the question by Mr. Mosqueda, yes, unfortunately, in Colombia, there, and Dr. Valdez was talking about this during his presentation. Someone said that Colombia is a large mass grave, basically. Cemetery's in Colombia are very precarious places where there is no clear order or organization for the burial of the remains. In this regard, the, Diana has developed, or his organization has developed a very interesting campaign, she can talk about it. In Colombia, we have many mass graves that have not been exhumated. We, Exhumed. Exhumed. And there are specific projects within my organization too. It's possible to find those graves, even if we're talking about very large regions, because we have very clear plans and projects to do so. With regards to the first question, the National Institute of Legal Medicine has no record of having received any threats in the institute, but we do have notice of people that have died, and these people worked on human rights, defending human rights, or the relatives of victims. And we are seeing people that are being, or that have died, and we registered those deaths, and we also analyzed the circumstances of those deaths. We have the Minnesota Protocol, as well as the Istanbul Protocol, in order to identify people that have died in conflict, to identify torture, cruel, inhumane, degrading treatment. So, we do have statistics that show that over the last years, we have had deaths related to these threats. With regards to the question posed by Mr. Mosquera, I would like to remind you that the institute is a scientific institute. We are not a police investigation institute. The Attorney General's Office is, we are under the Attorney General's Office, and the work that we carry out is basically scientific. We recognize and we know that, we're aware of the fact that in Colombia, non-identified corpses are not only in cemeteries, but they are also in other places. Once we learn of the existence of a clandestine grave, regardless of whether it's individual or collective, the institute will get involved. In this regard, I have made a call to all the different agencies as well, government agencies, NGOs, and academia, in order to unify criteria, because we've also learned that in this search, in our efforts, in order to recover corpses, different techniques are being applied, and some of them are not the best ones, or the most adequate ones. Therefore, as you may understand here, identifying corpses might depend on these techniques, and if they're not the right ones, we might not be successful. Given the social and political moment that Colombia is undergoing, where we're having a dialogue with the oldest guerrilla group in the country, the institute has made a call to everyone in order to develop some minimal parameters for good practices regarding the search, recovery, analysis, and identification of corpses. In other words, to have standards that will guarantee the application of very rigorous scientific procedures. Christoph talked about this. Probably not all, we will not be able to identify all the corpses that will be recovered, and the National Institute of Legal Medicine has a great responsibility, which is to uncover the truth. One of the main rights of the victims that have been violated throughout all these years of suffering in Colombia has been the right to know, the right to know what happened, and this is a fundamental right, and it's the one that moves us, that motivates our work, and we're focusing the problem on identifying the corpse, but we have to focus also on the right to know how that person died, why, who participated, and the different circumstances that might help clarify this. Therefore, our concern is to make sure that we have the best practices in place, and that's why we made the call that I talked about. And then the case of Ojomaya. Yes, this is something that we find very painful. On the 2nd of May, we will have to celebrate, or it will be the 14th anniversary since it happened, and we all find it very painful. Because of everything that happened, there are, among many things, I would like to recognize that we did not apply the best practices, and when I participate in different fora, I do not hide anything. I say it, we do not apply the best practices, and their relatives right now, they're claiming corpses because they were not included in the list, because at the time, a collective return was made, not individual. At the time, those fundamental rights of the relatives were violated. That's why the institute right now is working hard to review each one of the cases, review all the scientific practices that were implemented, go back to the ground, actually in eight days, next Wednesday, I will meet with the relatives in Ojaya in order to review what happened, recover and assume again, and go back to each one of the places to see if the 114 that we know of, 114 people that died can be found, but this is an enormous task. This is an enormous task. Dr. Diana mentioned that one of the proposals is for the unit to last for 10 years, and I can guarantee you that based on the experience of other countries in Latin America, this unit will exist for more than 10 years. We can't fix this in 10 years. If someone asks me, how long will it take? I don't know, but the later we begin, the later we will finish. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Vika Montes from the International Association, Moraísmo Internacional, which is an NGO with headquarters in Geneva and offices in several countries in Latin America. We carry out a lot of work regarding the peace process in Colombia. We work on the rights of women and migrants to make sure that they're respected throughout the peace process. Based on the very overwhelming figures that we've heard, I would like to ask the following. On top of all the technical issues that we've discussed here, is there a roadmap in order to relieve the pain in human beings, in the relatives I remember, United Nations Forum on Women, where people talked about this, about the mental pain, the mental trauma, that all these things caused, and if there is some sort of system where you're included in order to coordinate all this. And if you include experts such as psychologists and faith-based organizations or women's organizations, relatives organizations, and then also how this system, if it actually exists, is managed, what type of procedures are in place, how does it work in order to mitigate or relieve this great impact caused by the recovery of those corpses as well as the identification of such, their impact on the human dimension, on humans and relatives. And I'd also like to bring Chris Harnish into the conversation on the humanitarian dimensions if you'd like to give a first response and then we'll turn to the table. Yes. I would just like to give one word on what Dr. Valdez has said. Given the atrocities, the brutality of this conflict, it is not the time to dwell into what has happened and who was responsible as a priority when one thinks of dealing with issues of disappeared. It is a moment to put all this aside and to focus on the human dimensions, to focus on the humanitarian dimensions and to focus on the support to existing structures, B-Day NGOs, local NGOs, or B-Day state institutions. I think it is critically important that people with influence refrain from going into always the same stories and the same accusations and the same explanations of who was the worst responsible in these atrocities and who was the worst responsible with the biggest numbers of mass graves. I think we should be clear that this country is on the way of having an agreement, and if you want to deal with the issue of the disappeared, you need to know what to prioritize, and this is not something that we can do, it's something that the Colombians must do. Second, on the psychological and the psychosocial support, Colombia has lots of experts in psychosocial support, but this is an activity that is just about to start and to be better structures. There will need to be much more trainings, much more furthering of experts' resources, B-Day from other countries in Latin America, B-Day from countries that have witnessed this in order to give them the dimension, because when we see the families affected and not only the directly affected families, but also the bigger families affected, we can see that there is a need that the society learns how to address these issues and the human suffering. It is extremely important that this is something that will need to be strengthened in the coming years in a way that we might not really imagine because it needs a lot of experts, it needs a lot of people and these people are not needed in the big cities, they are needed in the areas most affected by the different conflicts that have been taking place in this country. What we see is that there is a lot of goodwill, but it needs to be improved and this is one of the areas when it comes to dealing with the human dimension, the human and variant suffering of people, families, this is where the country will need much more support. Lastly, let us not forget that the areas most affected by the phenomenon of disappearance, the people in these areas do not speak up yet. They will speak up in the coming years simply because today they are afraid and they need to talk about this. They know what has happened to people who have talked about this and they are naturally afraid and we must respect that because it is no way that we can impose on them that they talk and that they say what has happened. Today we are in a situation where the mental chip of most of these people, what they have lived through in all these years is still the same outside of three or four years of negotiations. This has not changed and when these people then can speak up, I think the work of the healing, the work of psychosocial support, the work also of economic support because I think it is not useful to focus only on the psychosocial support because if you have psychosocial support with poverty in these areas, this is not sufficient. You need an integrated approach for these families and then you have to take into consideration of course that these families should not be singled out by assistance. These families should be dealt with as members of communities that will need support as well. So the task ahead is enormous and what I see here is that there is a willingness to start. Whether this willingness to start is well structured, well organized, that's a matter for debate and I think there's a lot that needs to be done more. But let's focus on the task to start not amid accusations but amid a willingness to solve problems. Thank you. Thank you Christoph. I'll go to the table now if anyone wants to respond. I would like to make a comment, an additional comment based on the psychosocial support for the communities that have been affected as well as the victims. The law of 1448 of 2010 or 11 the law for victims established the fact that there was an order to the Ministry of Health to create a program for this issue for the victims of the conflict. This program is called Pubsiving. It's the psychosocial attention for victims and it supposes that from that point on the victims have access to this type of help. However, what we have seen particularly when we refer to the victims of those disappeared is that that support is limited at the moment that it is offered. In other words, the units that go with the victims when there is some type of return of remains when the victim has been identified and when they're told many times the family member who has no idea that his family member has disappeared and has died he just receives a communique from the Attorney General's office that the individual is dead and that they're going to an administrative action to return the rests and that they will then have the support of psychosocial help from this particular unit. So we believe that that type of support offered to the victims is very precarious. It's very important to think of that type of support that be a cross cutting issue that will carry through the effort of search and identification and return of remains and that will also have participation from the victims of the family as a fundamental issue and this is something that we are currently not seeing. Likewise, we believe that the psychosocial support when it's just a technical explanation of what the family means and I think from the point of view of Ekitas we do that, we mix the technical issues with psychosocial issues so that the family member can be prepared to know what's going to happen and what the returns are made. And this is something that hasn't gone forward in our country so there's another debt from the government not only with the victims or the disappeared but the victims of the conflict in general. The mental health of the victims of the conflict is very precarious as well as the intervention of the health ministry when it comes to that issue. Let me make a very slight, small response to the possibility of not finding individuals and identifying them all. We know that's a possibility. We don't like to mention it. I don't like to mention it. I'd like to instead talk about the possibility of yes, why need everyone because that is the responsibility of our government and I think to prepare people by the state and by the entities that are being initiated through this justice system we have to determine what happened to our loved ones and minimizes the fact that we might not find them but it guarantees the fact that given the moment if we cannot find them then at least the family will have the assurance that we have used all the resources for the search but particularly to establish the fact that we now have found where these loved ones are and what happened to them. I think it's a risk at that point to say that we're not going to be able to find them to say that from the beginning without using all of the available resources in the efforts to find them I think that's very important. Good afternoon to everyone. My name is Rafael Barrios. I'm an attorney from the Office of Reshepo in Colombia and Dr... began his presentation this morning talking about the errors that were committed in the castle of the... of the justice ministry is not going to happen again. That's good news, not just for Colombia but for the international community as well because if you don't remember what happened in the Palace of Justice which occurred in 1995 where a command from MA-19 took over the highest court offices in Bogota in the Plaza de Bolívar and there was a legitimate reaction by the military but unfortunate in its nature. It was a fact that the Inter-American Court on Human Rights condemned the government when they said they took and retook the Ministry Palace. In other words, when they had access to the interior where later on the operation actually ceased agents of the state, members of the National Military Forces caused forced disappearance, illegal executions, torture. Last year, the Institute identified, found and identified several of the victims of that event because of the fact that they retook the Ministry many of the militaries involved are now already received sentences. One was found not guilty, others are still awaiting processing. So is that... It's good news, doctor, about this but my question is as follows. We have been informed that there's an agreement with the International Commission of the Red Cross. The delegate from the committee has already informed us that obviously that task has to be carried out with Colombian institutes. So my question is directed to the following. The family of the victims at that palace have requested as well the intervention and also hand-in-hand with the Colombian authorities and international organizations that are NGOs in nature. And for example, the anthropological forensic group from Argentina. So that particular activity can be complimentary to whatever you could carry forward not only the Institute for Legal Issues but also the ICRC in Colombia. Thank you. The Institute is always obviously open so that their scientific work be transparent in the sense specifically of the Palace of Justice. Yes, we did open the possibilities so that the anthropological team from Argentina as well as other experts as far as genetics, human genetics are concerned from Spain so that all of them became involved in reviewing that particular case. Currently, as the proposal, since we made the proposal, we are not the one who actually started it. The Institute basically just began the effort and has all of the studies on the table so that can be reviewed by them or by any other scientific organization. But at the moment, it is the Attorney General's Office of Colombia who is carrying out the process and carrying out all of these processes in front of the Chancellor's Office so those international NGOs or experts, international experts can become aware of all of the forensic details. Currently, in the case of the peace talks in Havana, ICRC is carrying out a humanitarian efforts and the relationship we have with them is a scientific relationship, obviously, where their work is going to be in other words, the job that they've done in the field and with the families is something we're going to continue in our labs. But undoubtedly, this is something that we would like to know that there is overseas regarding the scientific works that are carried out. Every time that we do something, our work will be open to transparent observance of others. So that's why we're constructing those minimum parameters on an international level that I mentioned before. Thank you. My name is Francisco Quintana and I work at the Justice International Sejil. Our organization has defended cases to the Intermediation Commission from Mexico through the Patagonia, but I'd like to refer to the Peruvian case. In that case, there was a commission for the truth. They've taken steps and measures. Nonetheless, as you have mentioned, Dr. Valdez, there have only been ten cases resolved after so many years in regards to recuperating in the bodies. But in Peruvian cases, it's shown us that there is a dilemma that exists between what you call this humanitarian umbrella issues that Dr. Harnesh made so much reference to this overall coverage, humanitarian coverage vis-a-vis the judicial investigations. As far as humanitarian efforts, we know that it is a response to the families. If there is a body that's been identified, it has to be returned. But at the same time, sometimes it is in conflict with the actual investigation itself because the body has been removed, even though they say that they're going to guarantee the evidence in this case, which would be the bodies. So the specific question is, if this particular debate is occurring in Colombia, has it been identified from this humanitarian issue, the general and the legal aspects? And my question is because in the agreement in 62, there's a paragraph that states in Article 62 that they will put available the bodies, but in the actual words, in the text itself, they mention the fact that the search units will take the evidence, the bodies in this case, and the text says the specialized unit will be able to request them. So I see that there's a separation there between those two particular elements and not really cooperation that seeks solutions. Thank you. The speakers each a chance to wrap up. My question is very straight. It's in regards to the problem, the work, the psychosocial work that's being done. What is being done in this issue in Colombia? With regards to that question, the very first question we got, it's very clear and we've been able to discuss this in different areas that there's not going to be any exclusion as far as the Administration of Justice in Colombia, but the procedure that we agreed at the working groups, is it going to have two types of situation. First of all, under the legal aspect and then under the humanitarian aspects, with both of them as far as the search, the recuperation of these bodies, obviously have to follow the parameters that have to be said from our institute that guarantee that whatever elements that might be constituted as evidence are not going to either be lost or altered or allowed to deteriorate in any manner. Our institute then is working in both sides to guarantee these results, whether it be a legal action that's being taken by the judicial police or the Attorney General's office or the national police, or whether it's a humanitarian action that is carried out by, say, CICR or ICRC, excuse me, or like ECITAS, humanitarian groups, either one, the actions of both we're going to come to our institute. Now one of the others obviously will have to comply with specific parameters, specific standards, and that's why we're calling for standards and others will have to follow scientific standards that are handling biological elements and of burials and burial places. These are going to be done in such a way that they give us the trust that it's being done right and they'll be carried out and reviewed by different institutes. So that's what we want. We want to construct parameters that are clear, that are defined, that can be verified. That's what we're intending to do. With regards to the concept that you just mentioned regarding this humanitarian coverage or umbrella, in our country we basically never have seen that before. We had a recent experience of transitional justice, the implementation of law 975 that was poorly labeled justice and peace and we've always had obviously regular law. But there's always been a legal value, anything that has to do with the exclamation and identification of remains. Our experience has been, at least from the point of view of familiares in Colombia, is that when they carry out those processes, it brings forth or should bring forth some kind of clarification of events. That has been our experience in Colombia. With the new units, now we are seeing the criteria Dr. Valdes has mentioned, but we certainly hope that that will contribute towards the truth and that's the ultimate goal. As far as psychosocial work is concerned with children, for example, in our experience at Familiares Colombia, as far as when the remains are returned, as I said before, in so many years we've been able to assume, identify and return a total of 24 individuals and currently in many of these returns there are minors involved that are present at the office. As Diana explained before, the Colombian state doesn't have a strategy for psychosocial help that is clear. It's very simple and many times just the day before the return or the day of the return, the individual, so there's no continuity, there's no process to give them further psychosocial help. So in Colombia, in Familiares Colombia we've made an effort to at least to accompany these people with psychologists from our organization even during those very difficult moments and not only at that moment, but a year before or months before the actual procedure. We have paid a lot of attention to being able to accompany the minors during those very hard moments, thank you. Just a last comment based on what you mentioned about the humanitarian versus legal, as you said, I think there's a lot of areas for example that haven't been resolved is yet because the agreement for the law justice and reparation still has a lot of questions to be resolved, in other words, it's an agreement that's very macro, it's very broad and we need to fill in the gaps. Nonetheless, what the organizations or victims have said and what the organizations or the working group have said is whatever information that is found, as Dr. Valdez mentioned from these humanitarian efforts will not impede the judicial processes from the Attorney General's office until the law comes into effect. In other words, the information has to be centralized. It has to be handled the same way it has been handled as far as any information based on the estimations that have been carried out and the look for these individuals disappeared. It also then has to transfer that to the unit for a search when it goes into operations. If those cases are operated specifically by cases that are going to be seen by the courts, if not continue under the general law. So there is parallel events that occur between the two forms of law whether it be the normal law or transitional. There is a way to resolve these issues and the victims are going to need someone to go with them to explain which cases go under which jurisdiction and which case are going to fall in one or the other. I think this is a pending dialogue that has to be debated on a national level. Chris, would you like to add a few words? Just one second. There we go. Okay, we've got you. Chris, would you like to add something? No, no, that's okay in this moment though. I think we're over time now but on behalf of USIP and the Latin American Working Group Education Fund I'd like to thank you all for being here. I'd like to say a special word of thanks to our speakers and to Chris for joining us virtually and to our virtual audience for those that still remain. There are evaluation cards if you haven't filled them out please turn them into tonus before you leave. I think we've heard a lot about the challenges that are ahead and there are many but I think we have a number of reasons for hope. We have the decision from the table in Havana to move forward with an agreement on this topic. We have the commitment of the ICRC and Medicina Legal to move forward. We have the dedication of human rights organizations and victims organizations such as those represented here today on the panel and these all are tremendous resources for moving ahead and I think that we also have an international community that is very interested in seeing how we might support and help in the struggle to find the truth of what happened and to move ahead to guarantee the rights to truth, justice, reparations and non-repetition of this in Colombia. Thank you very much all for coming.