Abstract

DE GAMBOA-TAPIAS, Camila. INDIVIDUAL MORAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR ATROCIOUS ACTIONS IN CONTEXT OF PILOTICAL VIOLENCE. Int. Law: Rev. Colomb. Derecho Int. [online]. 2010, n.17, pp.355-380. ISSN 1692-8156.

Generally speaking, articles that address the issue of individual responsibility for moral atrocities in violent political contexts, and especially in the reflection of transitional justice tend to give more attention to criminal and political responsibility rather than to individual moral responsibility. Focusing on individual moral responsibility for atrocious actions allows us to understand the diverse levels of moral guilt that can be attributed to an offender and the moral repudiation this person deserve from us. The importance of this moral analysis is particularly relevant to Colombia internal conflict, for we are experienced grave human rights violations within a very polarize political environment. In this context different groups whether tried to diminish the evil acts or to justify them as a minor evil; to accuse the enemy as the origin of all wrongful actions and then as the only responsible for political violence; to blame the guerrilla and paramilitars as the only responsible groups forgetting the role of the liberal and conservative parties in the history of political violence, or taking a passive and sometimes an apathetic attitude toward the perpetrators and the victims.

Keywords : Individual responsibility; guilt; atrocities; political violence; Individual responsibility; guilt; atrocities; political violence.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )