“Giving back hope” – six years of peacebuilding in Colombia. An interview with team leader and lawyer William Ramirez

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[versión en español]

I do this, because …

Interview with William Ramirez, lawyer and team leader for AMBERO Consulting Gesellschaft mbH in Colombia*

“Giving victims of violence some hope and showing that there can be mechanisms for change so that they can find new meaning in their lives and rebuild the social fabric […] motivates me,” says William Ramirez. The lawyer, who specialises in human rights and criminal proceedings, is the team leader for the ProPaz I and II projects implemented by AMBERO Consulting Gesellschaft mbH in Colombia. In this interview, he tells us how six years of peacebuilding and peace implementation have changed lives and why it is important for all team members to have a shared vision.

In Colombia, the BMZ (German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development) is supporting the political, social, and transitional justice process of dealing with the armed conflict that the country suffered for around 50 years. The ProPaz I and ProPaz II projects are integrated into this support plan and are being implemented under the leadership of GIZ. AMBERO is responsible for certain sub-modules of the projects on behalf of GIZ (German Development Agency). ProPaz I focussed on the transitional justice process and establishing historical truth, with a particular focus on institutional support. ProPaz II focussed on consolidating the peace process by pursuing a cross-institutional and psychosocial approach. 

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William, you are a Peruvian lawyer. Tell us how you came to work for AMBERO in Colombia?

Well, since I left university, I have worked on projects in the field of justice, especially in the areas of human rights and criminal proceedings. As fate would have it, I was in Guatemala as part of the development of the peace agreement**. There I supported the process of litigating cases of human rights violations and strengthening institutions of justice. I worked in Guatemala and Central America from 1995 to 2010.

One day, a German friend asked me if I would be interested in a project on the implementation of the new criminal procedure model in Peru, and I said yes. That was my first project with AMBERO, between 2010 and 2014.

What was the project about?

We supported the reform of the criminal proceedings and then also the transitional justice system. The project went very well, and when AMBERO approached me again in 2018 and asked me if I would like to work on an interesting project that supports and implements the peace agreement in Colombia on the topics of justice, memory and truth, I said: “Well, let’s give it a try.” And that’s how I joined the ProPaz I programme in August 2018.

Giving victims of violence some hope and showing that there can be mechanisms for change so that they can find new meaning in their lives and rebuild the social fabric. That motivates me.

And what motivated your continuous commitment to the implementation of human rights and peace agreements all these years? 

Just recently we were talking to my daughter, who is already 16 years old and thinking about what she wants to do with her life, and the question came up as to why my wife, who is also a human rights expert, and I chose this branch.

Well, there are always different mechanisms to resolve conflicts and among them is the law, right? And within the law, there are human rights and the purpose of giving victims of violence some hope and showing that there can be mechanisms for change so that they can find new meaning in their lives and rebuild the social fabric. The pursuit for these solutions motivates me.

And indeed, the support for this peace agreement in Colombia is very interesting, partly because it brings in experience from all Latin American countries where peace agreements have already been implemented. So far, there have been good practices and experiences with reparations and truth commissions, but in Colombia these have been transformed into a normative transitional system. A normative structure with its own institutions and processes has been created here, which makes it possible to work towards reparation processes. That also motivated me.

2024: William Ramirez during the “COL-COL” conference, an exchange of experiences among ethnic communities from the three project regions. (ProPaz II)

And what have you learned during your time as a team leader?

I have learnt a lot; I think it can be divided into two areas. On the one hand, there is the logic of the organisational culture and structure in the working teams, and on the other hand the thematic level, which concerns the relationship and the impact of the project products on the population.

As for the structure and organisation of a team: I am not Colombian and had never worked in Colombia before. So, I asked my team – one of the best I’ve ever worked with, both technically and personally – for an introduction: into the situation in Colombia, the problems, the culture, but also on how to deal with people. In return, I was able to show the team the general procedures for working with the GIZ guidelines. It was a process of getting to know each other, which helped us to understand each other better. Another thing that helped me a lot at the beginning was travelling with the teams into the interior of the country to get to know them better and find out how they relate to each other.

2018: The ProPaz I team with William Ramirez (fourth from left)
 2024: The ProPaz II team with William Ramirez (fourth from left) and AMBERO project manager Ginela Salazar on a backstopping visit (far right)

So, you started by getting to know the team and the country.

Exactly. That was important to find a common vision with the AMBER-GIZ team, which was a multidisciplinary team. There were lawyers, psychologists, social workers. A project like this, sets indicators, i.e., measurable results that we have to fulfil in the course of our work. In the beginning, we met every day to study and interpret the indicators that we had to fulfil until we had a common line. This helped us a lot, because regardless of the region the individual team members were in, they knew which north they had to follow and which logic we wanted to enforce.

See what you need, and together we can see where we can help.

And how was the cooperation with the local institutions and people?

What helped us a lot was to listen to their needs. In other words, we sat down with the institutions after we had done an institutional analysis and we said, “We are here to support you. What are your essential needs?” And when we saw a match between those needs and our mission, we told them: “This is where we can contribute and support the following process.” I believe this was also a very important point for institutions and people to understand that it’s not about implementing a ready-made roadmap, but that we come and say: “See what you need and together we can see where we can help”.

A process of listening and learning. What would you say are the results of this work and what changes have there been?

There was an internal redesign of the programme regarding the vision of ProPaz I and ProPaz II: ProPaz I focused on strengthening individual institutions, i.e., each consultant was assigned to one institution. It was very complicated to deal with common thematic aspects. ProPaz II was different because it focussed on cross-cutting processes that were common to all institutions. We were now able to work across institutions. For example, we were able to work on the psychosocial processes of reconciliation with the Unidad de Restitución de Tierras (Land Restitution Unit), as well as with the Comisión de la Verdad (Truth Commission) and the Ministry of Education, which had a much greater impact on the affected communities. This is one aspect of change.

2024: Good practices and exchange of experiences between three indigenous communities and the regional institutions in Caquetá (ProPaz II)

Another aspect of change comes from training and capacity building both, of individuals and of organisations or institutions. For example, when a civil society organisation had to submit a report to the institutions on transitional justice issues, we supported them by providing training and education on the elements for preparing a socio-legal report, so that the subsequent documents or reports could be prepared directly by the person in the organisation thanks to the knowledge we imparted. The people we worked with at the beginning are now leaders who offer training courses in their region themselves. So, a change is also noticeable here.

Just the fact that this woman can talk about what happened to her and today supports other women, seems fundamental to me.

In other words, giving people the means to move forward.

Yes. One example that really impressed me was in one of the workshops in Caquetá with women who had been victims of sexual violence. A woman I didn’t know came up to me and said: “I was kidnapped by the paramilitaries, they raped me, and I wasn’t even able to tell my husband or my family. Thanks to the psychosocial support and the recognition of my dignity, I now feel calmer”. And this conversation, just the fact that this woman can talk about what happened to her and today supports other women, seems fundamental to me.

2022: Working group in Caquetá with women who have experienced violence in the context of the armed conflict. (ProPaz II)

A direct indicator of the impact your work is having. What is your approach on sustainability for this project?

This year we are working a lot with GIZ to see how we can finalise this process. We are trying to focus on three main themes: Sustainability, Learning and Communication, and Knowledge Management.

At the institutional level, we have achieved two things: one is the normative issues, i.e., guidelines, protocols, manuals, internal procedures that have already been approved by the institution, which means that they will continue working with them. The second is the training of civil servants, not so much for technical knowledge, because they know the subjects, but for methods for dealing with the people who approach them.

Can you give us an example?

Working with women who have been victims of violence is not the same as working with people whose family members have been abducted or displaced. We have developed tools and methods that they can use depending on who they are dealing with. We have worked with the various civil servants and trained them to do so. That would be institutional sustainability, for example.

And what about the sustainability of the project for those affected?

In terms of sustainability for victims and victims’ organisations, it’s about giving them tools so that they know how to approach the institutions and raise their concerns.

And in terms of communication and knowledge products, we are currently in the process of systematising each of the instruments, creating toolboxes, manuals, procedures, and videos. If all goes well, they will be made available on the GIZ website or the website of a partner organisation so that people can access and download the products that can help them in their work.

These are basically the three main topics in this finalisation process, which should make the whole thing sustainable.

2024: Exchange of experiences among ethnic communities from the three project regions “COL-COL” (ProPaz II)

If we had dealt with the same issues using a different methodology, we would be arguing already .

And for you personally, after six years with ProPaz in Colombia: What is your conclusion, how do you feel?

I am very satisfied with the work I have done because you can see the positive effects and the changes. The relationship with the victims and the work with the civil servants of the institutions have taught me a lot.

Last week we had an exchange of experiences from the three regions we work with. It was about indigenous healing practices and how indigenous communities want to interact with state institutions. And one of the participants who was there said to me: “Look, ProPaz’s methodology is the best I’ve ever seen. If we had dealt with the same issues using a different methodology, we would be arguing already. But you handle it so well as part of a process that at the end we sit down together and talk about some difficult aspects, but there’s no arguing, there’s a search for solutions”.

And I think that’s where you feel the greatest satisfaction.

* This interview was originally made for the internal Dorsch Online Platform where it was published in August 2024. This version has been adapted with permission of Dorsch Online for the publishing on the AMBERO website.

**Editor’s note: After 36 years of civil war in Guatemala, which cost around 200,000 lives, a peace agreement was signed between the guerrillas and the government in December 1996, officially ending the civil war.