Statement by Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia at a UNSC Briefing on Colombia
Mr. President,
We would like to thank Miroslav Jenča for his report on the situation in Colombia. We welcome the participation of Vice Minister for Multilateral Affairs Mauricio Jaramilho, and we are grateful for his detailed briefing on the state of affairs, the implementation of the Final Peace Agreement (FPA), and the government's plans for making progress in all areas.
The Final Peace Agreement (FPA) recently marked its ninth anniversary. Its signatories, and indeed Colombian society as a whole, expected that by this point the agreement's key benchmarks and tangible results would have been attained. What was also expected is that ex-combatants would be safely reintegrated into civilian life, that farmers and victims of the conflict would receive the promised land plots, that justice would prevail and those most responsible for crimes would be held accountable in accordance with the mechanisms of national transitional justice. Unfortunately, the path of Colombian peacebuilding is not yet over.
We do not question the commitment of the current Colombian administration to the comprehensive implementation of the agreement. Tangible progress has been made in a number of areas, which becomes evident when one merely compares areas of formalized and distributed land plots under President Petro and his agrarian reform program and those under his predecessor.
We continue to have full confidence in the work of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, a transitional justice mechanism, which is taking a judicious approach when considering and making decisions on genuinely complex cases encompassing decades of internal armed conflict, thousands of defendants, and tens of thousands of victims. We regret that, at the whim of one Security Council member, the UN Verification Mission in Colombia has been stripped of its mandate to verify the implementation of Special Jurisdiction’s sentences, which is one of the most pressing elements of the FPA implementation at present.
Moreover, we wish to draw particular attention to what is perhaps the most acute issue related to the implementation of the FPA, which is the status of its signatories who used to be FARC combatants. The situation with their safety remains – and it is no exaggeration – appalling: there is ongoing “shooting” of former combatants who have officially laid down weapons and returned to civilian life. Almost five hundred people have perished over the nine years after the Agreement was signed, which means that one person dies every week. All this is happening with utter impunity, with only at most 10% of these crimes elucidated.
It is clear that as long as this tragic phenomenon persists, the full-fledged reintegration of ex-combatants will not be possible. Ultimately, faced with threats to their lives, stigmatization, and unemployment, many former FARC combatants simply lose faith in the peace agreements and even consider taking up arms once again. Such an outcome would spell the collapse of the FPA, and it is important for Bogota to do the utmost, acting with the support of the Security Council and the international community, to preserve the participation of 11,000 ex-combatants in the peacebuilding process.
Otherwise, the likelihood that armed groups, which remain rampant in the country, will agree to a deal with the authorities will tend towards zero. What we are observing now is that armed groups, such as the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the Central General Staff (EMC), which up until recently were in dialogue with the government, are now increasingly appearing in reports of terrorist attacks and armed assaults. Their growing activity is a cause for grave concern, and government measures to restore order and extend state control in the conflict-affected regions are needed now more than ever before.
Mr. President,
Given the upcoming electoral period and the imminent transfer of power in Colombia, I would like to emphasize the following: regardless of the outcome of the upcoming elections, the implementation of the Final Peace Agreement must remain a constant in Colombia's state policy. The historic agreements enshrined in the Security Council resolution and the chance for national reconciliation must be safeguarded. The UN Verification Mission, led by Miroslav Jenča, will continue to assist the Colombian Government, and we are confident that it will continue to provide impartial support for the long-term priorities of the country and its people.
Thank you.
