Media Center

Press Release

OAS SECRETARY GENERAL CALLS FOR GREATER COMITMENT TO SUPPORT COLOMBIAN PEACE PROCESS

Achieving peace in Colombia is vital for stability in Latin America and a key issue for the Organization of American States (OAS), Secretary General José Miguel Insulza said today, as he called for greater collaboration from the hemisphere to strengthen the work of the of the OAS Mission to Support the Peace Process in Colombia (MAPP).

“We are engaged in a positive task and I believe that it can be much more positive if we redouble our efforts at this very crucial moment,” said Insulza, during the first such presentation that a Secretary General has made to the 34 OAS member countries on the process to demobilize illegally armed groups in Colombia. Insulza stressed the need to expand the available human resources to be able to fulfill the Mission’s mandates.

“The MAPP, which today has only 44 employees, should have a permanent establishment of more than 100,” the quarterly report presented by Insulza states. “To achieve such an increase would require an annual budget of more than $10 million.”

The Secretary General informed the OAS Permanent Council about Colombia’s recently passed Justice and Peace Law, and stressed that “we are obligated to see that the law is followed, therefore there is also a need for judicial verification, a verification of justice, to take place.”

The Secretary General also emphasized the need to substantially reinforce the verification of human rights issues related to the demobilization process and said that it is essential for the OAS Mission in Colombia to have a human rights component.

The report presented today indicates that consultations with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) are underway to study the possibility of forming an IACHR working group in that country. This would allow an “active collaboration with the MAPP to ensure that the Organization’s role in Colombia is fully consistent with the obligations of its member states regarding full respect for human rights and international law,” it says.

Colombia’s Ambassador to the OAS, Alvaro Tirado Mejía, said that “more extensive funding will permit the expansion of programs to verify the ceasing of hostilities, disarmament and demobilization, to accompany in a more direct way the reintegration of those demobilized and to support the communities where this process has occurred.”

In the meeting, chaired by Ambassador Izben Williams of Saint Kitts and Nevis, the representatives of several countries expressed their support for the work carried out by the OAS in Colombia.

Reference: E-237/05