Juan Manuel Santos sends a letter to the UN refuting the thesis that the peace agreement enables a constituent assembly

“On March 29, 2017, in my capacity as head of State, I transmitted to you the complete text of the Final Agreement for the Termination of the Conflict and the Construction of a Stable and Lasting Peace in Colombia, signed between the national Government and the Armed Forces. Revolutionaries – People’s Army (FARC-EP) on November 24, 2016 in the city of Bogotá, I also requested that the new Agreement be welcomed and sent to the Security Council within the framework of Resolution 2261 (2016) and Resolution 2307 (2016), approved unanimously in said Council, so that an official document was generated that annexed to Resolution 2261 (2016) the complete text of the Final Agreement. I am grateful that this has happened,” the letter begins.

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Next, Santos maintains that “when transmitting the Final Agreement to you, I expressly referred to the principle of good faith, which is of enormous importance in the interpretation and application of the Agreement. I highlight this because Colombian officials and former officials have attributed to some paragraphs of the Agreement a meaning that is contrary to its object, scope and purpose, which is possibly incompatible with the principle of good faith.”says the former president between 2010 and 2018.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner indicates that what was signed in Havana, far from providing for extra-institutional mechanisms or seeking to circumvent the procedures established in the Constitution, “was ratified by the Senate of Colombia on November 29, 2016 and by the House of Representatives on November 30. November 2016.”

“In those aspects whose implementation required constitutional changes, the procedure established in the Constitution was followed for the adoption of amendments in compliance with what was agreed,” he says.

Likewise, Santos assures that in no part of the Final Agreement does it propose or imply that the rules established in the current Constitution may be ignored in the future. “The Constitutional Court reviewed the compatibility with the Constitution, not only of the laws that developed the Agreement, but also of the constitutional reforms, in accordance with the constitutional rules and doctrines commonly accepted on this matter in Colombia, a country that prides itself on a tradition of more than a century of respect for the principle of constitutional supremacy,” he emphasizes.

And he adds: “There has been an attempt to ignore the letter and spirit of the Agreementas well as the independence of the JEP, created to avoid impunity, trying to impose a way of proceeding through statements to the effect that “the JEP must apply the universal mandate and guarantee of criminal favorability”, “it must proceed in a manner preferential and rapid application of the right to amnesty (…) in the terms provided for in Additional Protocol II to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 (…) the JEP must keep in mind the universal principle nulla poena sine lege”, statements that I have taken from the letter that President Gustavo Petro sent to you on October 19, 2023.”

According to Santos, in accordance with the above, the decision adopted in 2021 by the UN Security Council “to expand the mandate of the Verification Mission to include the task of verifying compliance and effective application of the sanctions it imposes” becomes more important. the JEP and, as the Security Council noted in said Resolution, “make the rights of the victims a reality and consolidate peace.”