YouSaid · the spoken record

David Santiago Cano Salazar

lines on the record
15
first
2020-04-14
most recent
2020-04-14
sittings or episodes
1
sources
un-security-council

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

  1. “I urge Council members to see the COVID-19 pandemic as a reminder that we are stronger when we are united and that all of us have a responsibility to accomplish the first objective set forth in the Preamble of the Charter of the United Nations Charter, namely, “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war”, including mine.”

    2020-04-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/305 (2020) · source

  2. “We should not have had to face a pandemic for the argument that weapons across the world need to be silenced so that we can focus on the greatest threats to our common survival, from climate change to transnational crime to poverty, to prevail. What happened in Colombia embodies this idea; the end of the conflict with the FARC-EP has allowed us to focus on the structural problems affecting our country. Young people all over the world look to the Security Council to live up to its responsibility to promote international peace and security.”

    2020-04-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/305 (2020) · source

  3. “In every country on the Council’s agenda, there are young women and men who are working hard to build peace and who have important contributions to make to the Council discussions. I also wish to thank the United Nations Verification Mission in Colombia for promoting youth participation in peacebuilding efforts. I thank the Colombian Government for holding a national conversation focused on youth and look forward to seeing concrete results from those discussions. I am also grateful for the openness of the Agency for Reintegration and Normalization in working on different youth- related initiatives; through it, we have completed some very fine projects so far. As Council members know, the Secretary-General has called for a global ceasefire so that all of humankind can unite to fight the COVID-19 pandemic together.”

    2020-04-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/305 (2020) · source

  4. “I thank them on behalf of young Colombians who are now growing up with less fear and greater opportunities. Since the peace agreement was signed, I have seen people who had been kidnapped by the FARC-EP during the conflict sitting down to talk with former combatants. I have seen police officers and former combatants competing together on the same team in the national rafting championships. I have seen young people from Colombian cities finally having the chance to visit rain forests that were previously plagued by war. None of this would have been possible without the peace agreement. I thank the Security Council and the Permanent Mission of the Dominican Republic to the United Nations for this opportunity to address the Council. I hope the Council will continue in future to invite other young representatives to brief it.”

    2020-04-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/305 (2020) · source

  5. “I S/2020/305 have personally had conversations with coca-growing families and can guarantee that if they are given the right tools and market access, they would much prefer to grow coffee or cacao than coca. Finally, as a young man, I am very proud of the fact that Colombia’s final peace agreement incorporates actions to promote the participation of women, including support for women leaders and women former combatants. In every single peacebuilding or community effort with which I have been involved, success has depended on the equal participation of both men and women. All actors must recognize this truth and make real efforts to implement the gender provisions of the peace agreement. Before concluding, I wish to thank the Security Council and the international community for their support for the peace process in Colombia.”

    2020-04-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/305 (2020) · source

  6. “In many of these rural areas, drug cartels and illegal armed groups have taken advantage of the vacuums created by the absence of the State to extend their control, including through the recruitment of children and young people. Let me be frank — as long as individuals continue to use cocaine, including those in many of the countries present in the Security Council, it is the young and the poor in countries like Colombia who will pay in blood, tears and suffering. Eradication is not the solution because that leaves poor farmers with little recourse for their livelihoods; rather, the solution is crop substitution and economic opportunities.”

    2020-04-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/305 (2020) · source

  7. “Measures must be taken to guarantee the protection of young men and women leaders, so that brave people like this woman from Chocó do not have to fear for their lives when they are trying to speak up for their communities. Thirdly, when I visit rural communities, I hear frequent complaints that the State is not present. Communities want and need teachers and doctors, roads and schools, investment and opportunities. Over time, Colombia’s geography has created sharp divisions between the cities and the rural areas. Now that the conflict with the former Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-Ejército del Pueblo (FARC-EP) has ended, there is an opportunity for this Government and all future Governments to commit themselves as a priority to bringing State presence and investments to rural areas; indeed, it is their duty to do so.”

    2020-04-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/305 (2020) · source

  8. “Secondly, the ongoing violence against social leaders remains one of the deepest wounds in our national conscience. It is a tragedy that has motivated young people across the country to mobilize in these leaders’ defence. I recently participated in several sessions of the national conversation with a focus on young people, launched by President Iván Duque Márquez. Young leaders from rural areas discussed the intimidation they face, which limits their capacity to be agents of change. I was particularly shocked to hear a young Afro-Colombian woman from Chocó department describe how many of her friends do not participate in leadership forums or political spaces because they fear being threatened by illegal armed groups.”

    2020-04-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/305 (2020) · source

  9. “The implementation of the development programmes with a territorial focus should remain ongoing, as communities are expecting to reap benefits from these investments. I am particularly concerned about the productive projects of victims and former combatants. The young entrepreneurs who are mentoring former combatants in their product fair initiatives have reported that these former combatants are struggling because of reduced sales. Strong support for them is very important as they strive to weather this difficult storm. Their mentors are helping them come up with innovative ways of adapting, including online sales, gift certificates and the development of new products. We are very proud, for example, that the former combatants behind the Pazarela-TejPaz clothing project are now producing face masks for the COVID-19 response.”

    2020-04-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/305 (2020) · source

  10. “We are now working to replicate that fair in other cities, and we also created a programme through which young entrepreneurs are mentoring these projects to provide them with technical advice. This is one of many examples of how Colombian youth are working to support peace and reconciliation. I would like to take this opportunity to highlight some of the main challenges I see to the peace process in Colombia based on my personal observations and on conversations I have had with young people, former combatants, community leaders and others. First of all, the economic impact of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic will be felt most by the most vulnerable. Steps must be taken to support them.”

    2020-04-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/305 (2020) · source

  11. “This past December, I mobilized youth volunteers to organize a fair in Bogotá for former combatants to sell their agricultural products and handicrafts, in alliance with the United Nations, the Agency for Reintegration and Normalization and several non-governmental organizations. It was very inspiring to see people in one of our capital’s most exclusive neighbourhoods buying products and interacting with former combatants, and all the initiatives surpassed their sales expectations. One of the initiatives was the “Sabor La Esperanza” coffee from Cauca department. The brand name means “Taste of Hope”, and I am going to send Council S/2020/305 members in New York some of this delicious coffee so that they can enjoy this taste of hope, peace and reconciliation.”

    2020-04-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/305 (2020) · source

  12. “Soldiers who only years before had the responsibility of fighting the FARC-EP were now fully devoted to their new responsibility of protecting their former adversaries. People from the local community were working together with the former combatants to get trained to be tourist guides. And I was very encouraged to hear from the former combatants their firm conviction in the peace process and in building new lives for themselves and their families. Following that experience, I committed myself to supporting former combatants and their local communities with their productive projects.”

    2020-04-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/305 (2020) · source

  13. “The peace agreement with the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-Ejército del Pueblo (FARC- EP) fulfilled many of these hopes, but it also raised expectations that violence would finally cease and that peace and development would finally come to rural Colombia. Today those expectations remain, and all of us must do our part to fulfil them, including by implementing the whole of the peace agreement. In July 2018, I travelled with the United Nations Verification Mission in Colombia and a group of young leaders and entrepreneurs to the former territorial area for training and reintegration in Miravalle, Caquetá, to be the first visitors to a tourism project led by former combatants, in an area that was at the heart of the conflict for many decades. What I found profoundly moved me.”

    2020-04-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/305 (2020) · source

  14. “I remember, when I was growing up, the neighbours who were killed, the sounds of gunshots, the dead bodies on TV and the pervasive fear. Because of this common legacy of suffering, I also believe that all Colombians have a responsibility to contribute to that peace that we have wanted for so long. With this belief in mind, when I was 21 I joined the non-profit organization TECHO, which mobilizes tens of thousands of youth volunteers to support vulnerable communities, including victims of forced displacement, through the construction of transitional housing and other social-inclusion programmes. I travelled across the country and heard the hopes and expectations that Colombian youth and conflict- affected communities had for a peaceful end to the conflict.”

    2020-04-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/305 (2020) · source

  15. “It is a tremendous honour to speak to the Council today to humbly offer some thoughts regarding the peace process in my country. I cannot claim to speak on behalf of Colombia’s very diverse, passionate and active young population; however, I can speak from my personal perspective as someone who has witnessed the positive transformation of my country as a result of the Final Agreement for Ending the Conflict and Building a Stable and Lasting Peace and who decided to get involved to help that peace flourish. While I was not a direct victim of the conflict, I believe that all Colombians who lived through the conflict have suffered from the consequences of violence. I was born in Medellín during the drug-fuelled violence of the early 1990s to parents who struggled to support their children, like an average Colombian family.”

    2020-04-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2020/305 (2020) · source