HAVANA: A woman whose disabled son was kidnapped and murdered by soldiers was among a group of witnesses to testify yesterday at peace talks in Cuba between FARC rebels and the Colombian government.
“This is an unprecedented step of immense significance,” President Juan Manuel Santos said in Bogota ahead of the testimony of the 12 witnesses, the first time victims of Colombia’s five-decade armed conflict have addressed the talks.
The closed-door hearing started at 9am (1300 GMT) in a residential complex in Havana that normally hosts visiting foreign dignitaries.
Reparations for victims is one of the most sensitive items on a six-point agenda for the talks in the Cuban capital because each side blames the other for violence that has killed 220,000 people and caused more than five million others to flee their homes.
AFP
