Amnesty International today called on the Colombian Congress not to approve the draft “Victims’ Law”. This draft followed the government’s watering down of the original bill, which would have gone some way towards guaranteeing reparation to the victims of the country’s 40-year internal armed conflict.

“The original draft did offer some hope of reparation to the numerous victims of human rights violations in the Colombian conflict. The new draft, if approved, will create a discriminatory hierarchy of victims, with those claiming compensation because of abuses by guerrilla and paramilitary groups more likely to receive it than victims of the security forces,” said Marcelo Pollack, Colombia researcher at Amnesty International.

www.amnestyusa.org/document.php