By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press
UNITED NATIONS (AP) – The UN special envoy for Colombia said Thursday that “there are good reasons to be optimistic” about the country’s new leftist administration, but he warned that the Violence targeting former combatants remains a major obstacle to peacebuilding.
Carlos Ruiz Massieu told the UN Security Council that four former combatants had been killed in the past two weeks alone, bringing the total number of ex-combatants killed to 331 since the signing in 2016 of a peace accord. peace between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
The agreement ended more than 50 years of war in Colombia that has caused more than 220,000 deaths and displaced nearly 6 million people, but it has not been supported by left and right elements in the South American country.
Ruiz stressed that a priority for any peace agreement “must be to protect the lives of those who laid down their arms in good faith with the assurance that they would be protected.”
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“Illegal armed actors continue to target local leaders in conflict-affected areas marked by poverty, illicit economies and limited state presence,” he said. “Indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities are among the most seriously affected by violence and insecurity.
He also pointed to recent reports regarding “the alleged misuse of considerable resources from hydrocarbon royalties” which were supposed to go to development projects in rural areas where the war has had a major impact. He called for transparency and investigations into all possible acts of corruption.
Ruiz said the incoming administration of President-elect Gustavo Petro, a former guerrilla fighter who is due to be sworn in on Aug. 7, “has a tremendous opportunity and responsibility to accelerate the implementation of the peace accord.”
Petro narrowly won a runoff election in June, beating a millionaire political foreigner and ushering in a new political era for Colombia by becoming the country’s first leftist elected to the presidency.
Ruiz noted that Petro called for national unity, expressed his intention to deepen the implementation of the peace agreement and called for negotiated solutions with the remaining illegal armed groups in the search for what he calls it “total peace”.
The UN envoy said Petro “strongly reaffirmed that peace would be the cornerstone of his government” when they met two weeks ago, and the president-elect said “he counts on the support United Nations”.
Ruiz said she also met Vice President-elect Francia Marquez, the first African-American woman to hold that position in Colombia. She reiterated “that peace, with a territorial and ethnic approach, will be high on the government’s agenda,” Ruiz said.
“There are good reasons for optimism,” the UN envoy said, “and I think the United Nations and the international community should do all they can to provide support.”
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