\n Colombia created a \"truth commission\" on Monday to help it heal after decades of war under a recent peace deal with the leftist FARC rebels.\n<\/p>\n
\n President Juan Manuel Santos also signed into law a decree establishing a special unit to search for people still missing in the country's 53-year conflict.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Today we are signing the legal decrees\" to set up the Truth Clarification Commission and the Special Unit for Seeking People Reported Missing, he said in a speech.\n<\/p>\n
\n The two new bodies are part of a set of special post-conflict institutions to be set up under the peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).\n<\/p>\n
\n Special courts are also due to be inaugurated under the accord to try atrocities committed during the conflict.\n<\/p>\n
\n The heads of the new institutions will be appointed by judicial authorities and foreign delegates including UN officials.\n<\/p>\n
\n Santos won a Nobel Prize last year for leading the peace effort, which his opponents have fiercely resisted.\n<\/p>\n
\n Voters narrowly rejected the peace deal in a referendum in October. Critics said it was too soft on FARC members, some of whom would receive amnesties.\n<\/p>\n
\n But Santos and FARC leaders redrafted the deal before the president successfully pushed it through Congress in March.\n<\/p>\n
\n Santos said the new post-conflict bodies offer \"a guarantee for all those thousands of victims who have spent years and decades waiting for answers.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n The Colombian conflict drew in various rebel and paramilitary groups and gangs as well as state forces.\n<\/p>\n
\n It has killed 260,000 people, displaced nearly seven million and left 60,000 missing, according to official estimates.\n<\/p>\n
\n Santos has also launched peace talks with the country's last active rebel group, the smaller leftist National Liberation Army (ELN).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Colombia created a \"truth commission\" on Monday to help it heal after decades of war under a recent peace deal with the leftist FARC rebels. President Juan Manuel Santos also signed into law a decree establishing a special unit to search for people still missing in the country's 53-year conflict. \"Today we are signing the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-32797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n