PBI-Colombia accompanies CAJAR at ceremony at which President Petro apologizes for acts of violence and persecution during the 1990s

Published by Brent Patterson on October 22, 2025 October 22, 2025

The Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project has posted on social media:

“On October 17, PBI accompanied the José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers’ Collective (@cajar.colombia) at the public ceremony in which the Colombian State, led by President Gustavo Petro, acknowledged its international responsibility and offered an apology.

We celebrate this historic step toward truth and reparation, in which the State acknowledges and apologizes for the persecution and stigmatization suffered by CAJAR members and their families for their work in defense of human rights.

We also celebrate the measures announced by the government aimed at purging military intelligence files, which, if implemented, would be a first step in responding to a historic demand by CAJAR and human rights movements in Colombia regarding the right to informational autonomy and the right to truth.”

On October 17, the Associated Press reported: “Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Friday publicly apologized on behalf of the state to the José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers’ Collective for acts of violence and persecution they suffered during the 1990s because of their activities in defense of human rights.”

That article adds: “’In public speeches, from presidents of the republic downwards, they stigmatized us… they sought to neutralize our work and even annihilate us,’ said Yessika Hoyos, president of CAJAR, during the event.”

El Tiempo further explains:

“On March 18, 2024, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights condemned the Colombian State for profiling and persecuting the members of the José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers’ Collective (Cajar), an organization that provides legal advice to victims of state crimes.

During the event, President Gustavo Petro signed and announced the decree with which he declassifies “from now on” the DAS [the Administrative Department of Security, the former security agency of Colombia] files.

“They said that we belonged to international communism and that we were its agents,” said Eduardo Carreño Wilches, co-founder of the organization that, a year after the international sentence, received the ‘mea culpa’ of the Nation.

The case came at the request of the Inter-American System due to the harassment and systematic surveillance exercised by the country, through its intelligence agencies, including the defunct DAS, since the 1990s against human rights defenders and their families.

At the public act of recognition, led by President Gustavo Petro, the human rights defender and co-founder of Cajar, Rafael Barrios Mendivil, said that “most of the 16 orders of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the Colombia vs. Cajar are unfulfilled.”

“The importance of this ruling lies, among other things, in the subordination of military power to civilian power in a social state of law. The intelligence and counterintelligence law must be adapted to international standards, so that judicial control is exercised over the techniques or actions of surveillance of people and the storage of data,” he added.

The event was also attended by the Attorney General, Luz Adriana Camargo, and the Minister of Defense, General (r) Pedro Sánchez.

President Gustavo Petro closed the act of public forgiveness. The president, who had to apologize on behalf of the State but spoke of a ‘paradox’. “I have to apologize to you on behalf of a series of people who also made me a victim.”

Subsequently, the President redirected the speech and spoke about the stigmatization of trade unionism and the “normalization” of the violation of human rights. “This is a country where human rights defenders were deliberately murdered (…) Those guilty of the genocide in Colombia are not apologizing and I cannot tell that lie on behalf of myself or the State,” said the head of state.

And he added: “On behalf of that State that is not yet here, I apologize for what a genocidal State did in Colombia,” assuring that he was already beginning the declassification of the DAS files.”

Accompaniment

Peace Brigades International has accompanied the José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers’ Collective (CAJAR) since 1995.