Listening and Preparing the Society to Engage: The Case of the Colombian Truth Commission and Its Legacy Strategy

ABSTRACT Reflections on the Colombian Truth Commission are timely to answer a question less explored in the transitional justice literature related to how transitional justice processes have been popularized and made accessible to the broader public, and moreover, how the various stakeholders have extended the fruits of transitional justice. In this note from the field, we offer our practitioner perspectives on the key enabling conditions and strategic moments in the development of the Commission’s legacy strategy that contributed to these outcomes. We examine how the Commission’s ethical and political framing of the listening exercises and its overall institutional structure led to a long-term peacebuilding project that continues to mobilize today through the work of the Trabajo en red con aliados or the Network of Allies. We unpack the key factors that foster ongoing mobilization of civil society and local government actors engaged in debating, implementing and grappling with the recommendations of the final report. This note provides new information for the debate about the value of networks and partnerships related to facing the truth and moving towards non-recurrence in transitional justice endeavors.