Colombia Conflict Continues despite Peace Deal, Says Amnesty

Colombia's civil conflict is raging on in places despite a recent peace deal, with right-wing paramilitaries killing and displacing hundreds since the accord was signed, Amnesty International warned Tuesday.

"Alarmingly, in various parts of Colombia the armed conflict is as alive as ever," the major human rights campaign group said in a statement.

The Colombian government in December signed a deal with the country's largest rebel group, the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which is disarming after half a century of conflict.

But "hundreds of thousands of people across the whole country have still seen no change in their lives since the peace accord was signed," said Amnesty's Americas director, Erika Guevara-Rosas, in a statement.

Amnesty echoed warnings by various officials and civil groups that right-wing paramilitaries linked to drug gangs were stepping up violence in the northwestern Antioquia region.

It said more than 300 people had been killed or displaced in Antioquia since the end of 2016 after being targeted by the Gaitanist Self-Defense Forces, a paramilitary group.

The government officially maintains that the paramilitaries were disbanded in 2006, and has not acknowledged that they are responsible for the violence.

The FARC and rights groups say the paramilitaries have killed scores of civil leaders over the past year.

President Juan Manuel Santos said December's accord all but ended the conflict in the country.

He also started talks with the last remaining rebel force, the smaller National Liberation Army (ELN), which he hopes will seal a "complete peace."

But Guevara-Rosas said: "It is time for the Colombian authorities to face reality and acknowledge that the conflict is still ravaging the lives of hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people. The longer action is delayed, the more lives will be lost."

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in a report this month that thousands of Colombians are still suffering rapes, killings and torture.

It said the country will take decades to recover from civil war despite the accord with the FARC.

Colombian authorities say the many-sided conflict has killed 260,000 people and displaced 6.9 million since it started with a leftist uprising in 1964.