A report released last week by the Colombian government confirmed what many in that country already knew: The decades-long civil war has claimed too many lives, forced too many people from their homes and left too many civilians unaccounted for.
The commission’s grim statistics were released less than a week after President Juan Manuel Santos said he hopes to close the Colombian office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights because it is no longer needed. That would be a serious mistake.
Consider that the violence continues in areas such as Buenaventura, a western port city that has been described by some human-rights groups as a war zone, where small paramilitary groups carry out disappearances, displacements and dismemberments. Last week, 19 soldiers were killed in clashes with rebels, and civilians continue to die too.
Until the conflict is truly concluded and Colombia’s long history of humanrights abuses is adequately addressed, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights is needed there.
Editorial, Pages 12 on 07/30/2013