YouSaid · the spoken record

Leyva Durán

lines on the record: 70
first: 2022-10-12
most recent: 2023-10-11
sittings or episodes: 4
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

“In relation to the Special Jurisdiction for Peace and the Security Council’s own document, mediated by the unilateral declaration of the State, as well as subject to resolutions 2261 (2016) of 25 January 2016 and 2307”
2023-10-11 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9434 (2023) · source
“The principle is part of the human right to due process. Where crimes are concerned, the Special Jurisdiction is obliged to implement previously established punishments, excluding all others, in accordance with the peace agreement, as stipulated within the Security Council letter that I just mentioned. Under Chapter 5 of the agreement, part III — entitled “Procedure, bodies and sanctions of the judicial component of the comprehensive system for truth, justice, reparation and non-repetition” — the last paragraph of section 46, clearly states that: “The Tribunal for Peace will be the final body of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace created within the Comprehensive System for Truth, Justice, Reparation and Non-Repetition”.”
2023-10-11 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9434 (2023) · source
“The SJP cannot impose conditions or restrictions on those who want to tell the truth if they have the right to appear before the Special Jurisdiction, owing to the specific jurisdiction derived from its constitutive norms, such the mandate conferred on it by the peace agreement, which we have often referred to by its full title, Final Agreement for Ending the Conflict and Building a Stable and Lasting Peace, officially acknowledged in the letter dated 29 March 2017 from the Secretary-General addressed to the President of the Security Council that I cited previously. The principle of nulla poena sine lege, or that there is no penalty without law, is held sacred in constitutional States. It is upheld even more strongly in a socially conscious State based on the rule of law such as Colombia.”
2023-10-11 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9434 (2023) · source
“Those legal rights, which are broadly protected by international law, are based on the principles I just mentioned. The mission of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace is therefore to promote and uphold them, while acknowledging their intrinsic value, to provide them with the corresponding safeguards and acknowledge their place in the legal hierarchy, as they are at the top of the normative system, given the fact I mentioned previously that they have the power to invalidate any norm contrary to them, whether customary or conventional.”
2023-10-11 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9434 (2023) · source
“Furthermore, the German jurist Hermann Mosler reaffirmed that “jus cogens rules are characterized by the fact that their violation affects the international legal community as such, since even when it turns out that only one State is directly affected by a violation of such rules, the consequences are likely to extend to the community as a whole”. We must therefore ask ourselves what, given their status as peremptory norms of general international law, are the norms and rights within the scope of jus cogens over which the jurisdiction of the SJP falls in order to protect them without any restrictions? The answer is nothing more or less — and whether it is put in writing or not — than the recognition of the victims and the fact that their rights in armed conflict include the right to the truth.”
2023-10-11 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9434 (2023) · source
“With regard to ius cogens, the author points out that these are peremptory norms of general international law, which are the linchpin of the normative system and can invalidate any norm contradicting the principle, customary or conventional. As Ms. Drnas writes, all of that implies that the nature of the norm ius cogens is characterized as “a coercive, compulsory, imperative, absolute, peremptory, final, non-derogable, fundamentally immutable, full right, which protects fundamental social goods of a given community”.”
2023-10-11 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9434 (2023) · source
“In that regard, I would like to refer members of the Council to the most authoritative sources on the subject, as reflected in their credentials. On the subject at hand, I have based my arguments on renowned experts, in particular Rafael Casado Raigón, Professor of Public International Law at the University of Córdoba; Araceli Mangas Martin, Professor of Public International Law and European Law at the Universities of Salamanca and Complutense; and Zlata Drnas de Clément, Professor Emerita of the National University and Professor of the Catholic University in Córdoba, Argentina, whose expertise lies in public international law, among other subjects. Perhaps the Council can best be guided by Ms. Zlata Drnas’s work on the peremptory norms of general international law — ius cogens — and its concrete application.”
2023-10-11 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9434 (2023) · source
“It bears pointing out that the Special Jurisdiction as a special jurisdictional system is based on the Charter of the United Nations, whereby free States may establish such systems, based on the principles of international law, international humanitarian law, international human rights law and international criminal law, all of which points to the fact that in the case of State agents, article 27 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, “Irrelevance of official capacity”, is applicable without being subject to discrimination. The scope of paragraphs 1 and 2 of Article 27 must therefore be borne in mind. With regard to the right to the truth and victims’ right to the truth, they are inescapable, particularly in the context of a peace process. Such rights rise to the level of ius cogens.”
2023-10-11 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9434 (2023) · source
“Furthermore, it states that “[f]or the purposes of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, a State agent is understood to be any person who at the time of the commission of the alleged crimes was acting as a member of public bodies, or as an employee or worker of the State or its decentralized entities, territorially or through provided services, and who participated in the planning or commission of criminal acts related directly or indirectly to the armed conflict. In order for such acts to be considered by the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, they must have been committed as actions or omissions within the time frame of the internal armed conflict”. Despite the cases of hundreds of Colombians, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace has set aside previous mandates all of which are related to its specific jurisdiction.”
2023-10-11 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9434 (2023) · source
“Likewise, in accordance with paragraph 32, to which I have already referred to twice: “The judicial component will also apply to State agents who may have committed crimes related to or during the armed conflict; this application will be in a differentiated manner, providing fair, balanced, simultaneous and symmetrical treatment.” It continues: ”In the case of State agents, the application of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace is based on the recognition that the State’s primary purpose is to protect and guarantee the rights of all citizens”.”
2023-10-11 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9434 (2023) · source
“I add here a citation from item 5.1.2 of the Final Agreement, entitled “Justice”, in its section II, paragraph 32: “With regard to combatants in illegal armed groups, the judicial component of the system will only apply to those signing a final peace agreement with the Government.” It is worth noting that, in the case of the so- called paramilitaries, there is the Santa Fe de Ralito Agreement, of 15 July 2003, signed between the national Government of the time and the so-called United Self-Defence Groups of Colombia. That text has been disregarded, but I am providing a copy of it alongside my statement today. The persons concerned are therefore covered by the personal jurisdiction of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, which we are analysing.”
2023-10-11 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9434 (2023) · source
“If, subsequent to the promulgation of this law, laws are issued that grant members of illegal armed groups benefits more favourable than those established here, the persons who have been subject to the alternative mechanism may avail themselves of the conditions established in such subsequent laws.” That goes to show that combatants subject to the jurisdiction of the Justice and Peace Law can resort to the universal principle of penal favourability — a right that has constantly been denied by the Special Jurisdiction for Peace.”
2023-10-11 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9434 (2023) · source
“That has restricted the revealing of peace, closing the path to truth and impeding it from fully reaching the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, as well as the victims and the general public. Now is the time to underscore that Law 975 of 2005 — known as the Justice and Peace Law of Colombia, which dates back to well before the peace agreement — contains provisions for the reintegration of members of armed groups organized outside the law who contribute effectively to the achievement of national peace. Its article 63 states that: “More favourable future law.”
2023-10-11 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9434 (2023) · source
“It will apply to those investigated or convicted of the crime of rebellion or other crimes related to the conflict, whether they belong to the armed organizations in rebellion or not.” Unfortunately, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace has officially limited the appearance of those who are entitled to such special justice, as is the case for so- called paramilitaries, among others. Their connection has been prevented or made difficult by the application of a non-existent mechanism in the Final Agreement that refers to so-called prior contributions to truth within the framework of the conditionality regime, when the fact is that the conditionality regime refers exclusively to the laying down of arms.”
2023-10-11 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9434 (2023) · source
“Therefore, in the case at hand, the official document I mentioned was automatically added to the constitutional body of law of the Colombian nation. That is something that many are unaware of, yet that cannot be ignored. In the case of a jurisdiction such as the one indicated, its binding regulatory text establishes the corresponding powers, which are not being respected. With regard to the personal competence of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, the text of the official Security Council document S/2017/272 states the following: “The judicial component of the comprehensive system for truth, justice, reparation and non-repetition will apply to all those who participated directly or indirectly in the armed conflict.”
2023-10-11 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9434 (2023) · source
“Consequently, the Security Council incorporated the Final Agreement, along with the unilateral State declaration, in an official document: S/2017/272. Its incorporation implies that the text to be implemented by the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, without any modification of its content whatsoever, is the one officially adopted by the Security Council, thereby enshrining Colombia’s commitment to the world to enforce it, at the risk of incurring international liability that would entail serious consequences should it fail to do so. We must bear in mind that Security Council resolutions such as those I cited cannot be contested through any legal recourse — much less through a unilateral State declaration. It is those resolutions that, by their nature, prevail in our internal order.”
2023-10-11 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9434 (2023) · source
“On 13 March 2017, the Head of State of the Republic of Colombia, in a communication addressed to Secretary-General António Guterres, politely requested that he transmit to the Security Council his official declaration of good faith in the form of a unilateral State declaration. By doing so, within the framework of resolutions 2261 (2016) and 2307 (2016) of 25 January and 13 September of that year, respectively, adopted unanimously by the Council, its own official document would be generated, containing the 2016 Final Agreement for Ending the Conflict and Building a Stable and Lasting Peace, signed on 24 November between the Government of Colombia and the Fuerzas ArmadasRevolucionariasdeColombia-Ejército del Pueblo.”
2023-10-11 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9434 (2023) · source
“With regard to the desire to maintain and fulfil what was agreed upon, we are concerned that the institution serving as a model for the entire world, designed to provide justice after decades of horrible internal conflict — more specifically, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace — is derailing from what was agreed upon with great effort, casting aside norms that should be rigorously applied in favour of the victims, with truth, reparations and non-repetition as its heart. I love and admire the Special Jurisdiction for Peace as if it were a person, not an institution. Alongside five others, I had a hand in designing it. I therefore applaud what was intended and what has been achieved. It has been a difficult task, but the time has come to review its actions in order to correct and perfect them. Let us consider that now.”
2023-10-11 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9434 (2023) · source
“It is my duty, at this point, to highlight that Colombia’s decision to bring the peace agreements of 2016 to the Security Council was a sign of the will at that time to achieve irreversible reconciliation — the task being to ensure that what was agreed upon would be binding regardless of the political will of the Government in power. I wish to take this occasion to refer to two fundamental issues of peace in Colombia: first, the need to ensure the inviolability of what was agreed upon in 2016; and secondly, to reiterate that the dialogues that continue to be held with various armed groups and actors are fundamental tools, today and every day, to achieve “total peace” throughout our national territory.”
2023-10-11 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9434 (2023) · source
“Five years later, in 2000, Botero donated another sculpture, a new bird, which now stands triumphantly alongside the “Pájaro Herido”, or “Injured Bird”, as it was dubbed to refer to the violent incident. Botero taught us an important lesson — despite the violence inflicted upon us, we must never waver; we must vanquish; we must overcome. In Colombia, we know that lesson very well. Although various forms of violence persist, as mentioned with concern in the quarterly report presented today (S/2023/701), our efforts and renewed commitment to peace must be maintained and must be our highest task. It certainly has not been easy and has required perseverance. Fortunately, we have an active society that demands constant responsibility from the Colombian State and its institutions.”
2023-10-11 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9434 (2023) · source
“Botero was a man who banked upon peace in Colombia and in the then besieged and suffering Medellín, his birthplace, to which he donated a sculpture called El Pájaro — The Bird — as a symbol of peace, which would help it leave behind the violence perpetrated by the drug cartels in the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s. On 10 June 1995, in the San Antonio park, in his city, at the foot of this sculpture, 10 kilograms of dynamite were detonated, leaving 23 dead and hundreds injured. Despite the horror of this event, Botero never lost his faith in peace. Upon the request of the artist, the sculpture was not removed. On the contrary, the bird statue remained there as an eloquent testimony of unpardonable brutality.”
2023-10-11 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9434 (2023) · source
“Mr. Leyva Durán (Colombia) (spoke in Spanish): I welcome my fellow countryman, Mr. Rodrigo Botero García. Peace in Colombia is a daily project. It is a daily effort to eradicate violence and armed confrontation as a means to further the interests of the people a divided and intolerant society. The history of humankind has taught us that peace requires ongoing efforts. It requires artisans to patiently work to build peace —to design it, weave it, agree upon it and maintain it. Allow me to elaborate on this idea with a visionary anecdote regarding our great Colombian sculptor and painter, Fernando Botero, who recently passed.”
2023-10-11 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9434 (2023) · source
“I would like to conclude by affirming that the international community and the Security Council are more than ever our key allies and guarantors in achieving our firm goal of achieving historic peace in Colombia. Colombia wants its society to move forward, no longer towards one hundred years of solitude — a phrase that has continued to haunt our national memory — but towards one hundred years of coexistence and peace. That would be a true victory. I thank Carlos Ruiz Massieu and express my heartfelt gratitude to all in this Chamber. And, of course, I reiterate my pleasure at being with everyone here today. The meeting rose at 4.45 p.m.”
2023-07-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9374 (2023) · source
“Similarly, expectations are high with regard to the initial outcomes of discussions with the group that calls itself Estado Mayor Central Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, as the Secretary-General points out in his letter dated 13 June to the Security Council (S/2023/438) concerning the expansion of the mandate requested by Colombia. Everything now depends on those new dialogues, especially as we move forward in terms of making concrete commitments, and the role of the international community as guarantor and overseer of what has been agreed has become vital to the success of the processes. For that reason, we have requested the Security Council’s support for the verification process of the ceasefires proposed by the parties in the transition to total peace, which we are committed to realizing.”
2023-07-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9374 (2023) · source
“However, if we are to have significant results, we need to reduce the number of violent incidents in the country and de-escalate the violent dynamics in the territories. Engaging in dialogue with the groups and actors that drive violence in the country is key to lessening that violence and guaranteeing the security of the signatories and of the civilian population as a whole. In the meantime, discussions with the Ejército de Liberación Nacional are moving in the right direction and have yielded concrete results in that regard. We are waiting for the negotiating groups to propose the protocols for the ceasefire agreed on 9 June.”
2023-07-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9374 (2023) · source
“Colombia must continue to make progress in encouraging and enabling all actors in the conflict to shoulder the responsibility of achieving truth and justice for the sake of society and the victims alongside sustainable, effective and dignified reintegration processes. We want to win the peace. The primary concern of the Council, as well as of the two signatory parties to the peace agreement, has been ensuring the security guarantees for former combatants. We can continue working to strengthen the security arrangements for the signatories by updating our institutional guidelines in the area. The Unit for the Implementation of the Final Agreement has spearheaded an inclusive process aimed at reconfiguring, updating and developing the Strategic Plan for Security and Protection, which is expected to be adopted in August.”
2023-07-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9374 (2023) · source
“The high contracting parties to the Havana peace agreement may resort to the special agreements provided for under Article 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949. Incidentally, such initiative is not only provided for in that article, but it was also expressly included in the original peace text in the agreement dated 7 November 2016, III, with scope of sentences cited therein, as noted by the International Committee of the Red Cross in its commentary No. 850. Finally, I would like to raise a point that the Verification Mission has come to understand very well thanks to its experience on the ground, which is the relationship between the implementation of the 2016 Final Agreement and the other dialogue initiatives that we have proposed within the framework of the “total peace” policy.”
2023-07-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9374 (2023) · source
“This indicates no more and no less than that such parties could still resort to instruments enshrined in international humanitarian law to assert principles and improve upon texts that guarantee the sought- after peace, while accelerating procedures for its full and more prompt implementation. That is the case, for example, in the effort to remove unjustified obstacles to the paramilitaries gaining access to the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, in the opening of the major case on State responsibility as an actor in the armed conflict, either by commission or omission, and the possibility of improving the mechanism for selecting new magistrates to avoid the appearance of co-optation.”
2023-07-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9374 (2023) · source
“It is therefore not possible to decide sentences that are different from those published and referred to in today’s Security Council document and which the State made a unilateral declaration. In this regard, it is worth highlighting something that is obvious but interesting: the peace process as such has not ended, which is why we meet quarterly to establish the progress of the implementation of what has been agreed. It means that the negotiating parties are still alive and alert. The high contracting parties — the Colombian State on the one hand and the former Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-Ejército del Pueblo on the other — subscribed to what was agreed.”
2023-07-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9374 (2023) · source
“I should highlight that, for the first time, the National Development Plan includes the adoption of a foreign policy with a gender approach, which is a result of our dialogue with civil society, and which will be required to promote implementation of the relevant provisions of the 2016 peace agreement. With regard to the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, I would like to draw attention to the need for it to always comply with what was agreed in the 2016 Agreement. It is fundamentally restorative justice, which, like all justice, must exalt the principle of nulla poena sine lege. In what was agreed for this purpose by the negotiating parties of the Final Agreement, sentences were announced.”
2023-07-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9374 (2023) · source
“With regard to ethnic issues, it is worth highlighting the dialogue processes in which the Agency for Reintegration and Normalization proposed that signatories with ethnic affiliation participate in prior ongoing consultation processes, in order to guarantee effective reintegration within their communities. In terms of gender, I would also like to refer to our conviction that peace must include women in all their diversity and the LGTBQI+ population, recognizing the challenges imposed by intersectionality. This vision allows us to identify and generate actions to combat the multiple forms of discrimination that are deepened by armed conflict.”
2023-07-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9374 (2023) · source
“The Government of Change and the representatives of the special transitory circumscriptions of peace achieved synergies in promoting specific provisions on the implementation of the 2016 Final Agreement in the National Development Plan that had been left behind in previous legislative sessions. Likewise, the Agency for Territorial Renewal has developed permanent dialogue processes with the representatives of the transitory circumscriptions on the implementation of the development plans with a territorial focus, at the national level and in each subregion in particular, turning the representatives into guarantor actors of these processes.”
2023-07-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9374 (2023) · source
“Examples include the National Development Plan and the new security and defence policy, which emphasizes human security, the strengthening of territorial control and the dismantling of criminal organizations. But what is interesting about these national initiatives is that they have sought to maintain dialogue between the different actors, involve civil society and, in some cases, consider the requests of the signatories of the Agreement, pursuant to what was agreed. We are aware of the challenge before us to link this dialogue in an increasingly more structured manner. With regard to political participation, I would like to highlight the dialogue with the peace representatives in parliament, promoted by the Government, to identify and promote joint legislative initiatives related to the implementation of the Agreement.”
2023-07-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9374 (2023) · source
“Thirdly, we wish to highlight the relationship between the implementation of the 2016 Agreement and the other dialogue initiatives that we have proposed in the framework of the total peace policy. We will not tire of repeating that the implementation of the 2016 Agreement is a commitment of this Government. Today we recognize that this commitment must take shape in actions that affect the lives of the signatory population and the populations historically affected by the conflict. As highlighted in the Verification Mission’s report, we have worked on a series of institutional and legislative initiatives that will allow us to make progress to this end.”
2023-07-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9374 (2023) · source
“First, we wish to highlight that the dialogue between the parties to the 2016 peace agreement is an essential element in its implementation and that it will continue to be the backbone of our national “total peace” policy. My Government recognizes the bilateral nature of what was agreed and calls for maintaining it as a point of departure in peacebuilding. Secondly, we wish to call attention to the importance that the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, while developing its mandate, which today is an example and point of reference for the justice commitments of the Colombian State, fully embraces in operation what was agreed by the high contracting parties, which gave rise to its origin.”
2023-07-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9374 (2023) · source
“It would therefore not be coherent to discuss or question any of the findings in the most recent report (S/2023/477), when the Mission’s task is to carry out a thorough and impartial verification. Those findings in the report that are less than positive should always be received as opportunities for improvement, early warnings and calls to action for the purpose of protecting what has been agreed with the FARC-EP. Today I would like to this opportunity to refer to three fundamental issues of peace in Colombia, which now, under the leadership of President Gustavo Petro Urrego, it is proposed, will extend beyond our borders through good relations with our neighbouring countries. These are issues to which we want to draw the attention of the international community.”
2023-07-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9374 (2023) · source
“Mr. Leyva Durán (Colombia) (spoke in Spanish): Every three months we meet in this Chamber to hear the briefing on the quarterly report on the progress and challenges identified by the Security Council-mandated United Nations Verification Mission in Colombia on the implementation of the Havana peace agreement signed between the Colombian State and Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-Ejército del Pueblo (FARC-EP) in 2016. I attend these meetings with the greatest pleasure as a sign of our Government’s commitment to the full implementation of what was agreed and to the building of a total peace, and out of the deep conviction of the importance of the role played the international community and the verifiers.”
2023-07-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9374 (2023) · source
“What better example for the world than Colombia — an example of what can be possible thanks to joint efforts with the Security Council. I would reiterate: dialogue and peace are indeed victory. So I would invite those present to continue to work hard on this wonderful project for humankind, and to make of peace a total victory.”
2023-04-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9303 (2023) · source
“This is a gesture of total peace, and I would add that one of the mandates of the peace agreement is to convene, under its chapter four, on illicit crops, an international conference on the topic of drug trafficking. The Secretary-General is already aware of this initiative, and of course it extends beyond this specific issue arising from the peace agreement with the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia- Ejército del Pueblo. That conference will take place in the second half of this year, in Bogotá, and of course we will invite all interested nations in order to find a definitive solution to the topic of drug trafficking. That is what I wanted to share with the Council, in terms of expressing the faith that we have in this institution, which was created precisely to prevent conflicts.”
2023-04-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9303 (2023) · source
“We are considering how to fully engage our reason in further support of the commendable work that the Security Council is promoting. In addition, President Petro has completed the implementation, because this concerns total peace not only within our country, but beyond our borders as well. We have restored diplomatic relations with Venezuela. On 25 April, in our capital city, Bogotá, a conference will be held with the countries of Latin America — and including the United States, Canada and European countries — to see how to resume the political dialogues on which we had made progress in Mexico, of course, with the opposition parties and with President Maduro.”
2023-04-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9303 (2023) · source
“Therefore, after reflecting on it, we will have to see whether it would be appropriate to create an international commission of inquiry of the United Nations. Within the context of the United Nations, commissions of investigation and fact-finding missions have been established in order to investigate allegations of violations of international law. Furthermore, I would highlight the following: as a result of the growing need to take measures to avoid further impacts on the peace process caused by obstacles imposed by external forces, which have given rise to dissent and weakened the agreement, it is necessary to establish an international commission of inquiry or an independent group of experts with the support of the Secretary- General.”
2023-04-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9303 (2023) · source
“However, I must sound the alert on those that should be of concern, in particular paragraph 15 of section II, which states that: “The Special Jurisdiction for Peace filed a criminal complaint against former members of the Office of the Attorney General for alleged obstruction of justice, fraud against a court order and concealment of evidence in 2018, during the process of no-extradition guarantee of former FARC-EP leader Seuxis Paucias Hernández Solarte, also known as Jesús Santrich, who returned to arms.” Some of us believed that this was an attempt to entrap the Special Jurisdiction for Peace. I therefore feel it is my obligation to remind the Security Council that we do indeed have enemies of the peace process.”
2023-04-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9303 (2023) · source
“However, it is also true that I am often asked to play a role that is not always the most pleasant one. I reiterate that I am in a position to sign on to every single one of the paragraphs of the report that is before the Council for its consideration today.”
2023-04-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9303 (2023) · source
“The Security Council had already done so once before, when hostilities were ceased five years ago, for the dialogues with the Ejército de Liberación Nacional that took place in the Republic of Ecuador. The Council was asked to provide monitoring, and it did so. Basically, something similar is being requested now, but with a fundamental difference: the understanding that there is a legal distinction between political negotiations and proceedings that might be brought within the ordinary justice system for groups that are willing to accept the legal framework applicable to such cases. The achievement of total peace is within the Government’s purview; obviously, the Security Council is not going to be asked to provide it. We must be careful: there can be no confusion as to what falls within our ordinary justice system.”
2023-04-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9303 (2023) · source
“Naturally there is a great deal of disorder and violence in Colombia, and total peace has led to engaging with groups that are not political in nature. There is talk of submitting to justice, which is something else altogether. These are negotiations under very clear conditions, within the ordinary justice system, involving groups that have no natural political inclinations. For this reason, I must highlight a part of the letter that I sent a few weeks ago seeking the extension of the mandate of the United Nations Verification Mission in Colombia, which reads as follows: “We trust that the Security Council will give favourable consideration to the possible expansion of the role of the verification mission in Colombia” (S/2023/112).”
2023-04-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9303 (2023) · source
“This notion was echoed by the International Law Commission in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. This is something I will repeat whenever and wherever I get the chance: dialogue and peace win, not war. All of this has captured the attention of President Petro Urrego, who, though an armed combatant many years ago, as was Rodrigo Londoño, swore to uphold the Constitution of 1991 and all of Colombia’s laws and regulations after he was popularly elected President of the Republic. But having known war and achieved peace, the fact of being elected transcends the peace that we are trying to implement in this regard, reaching towards the need for and the achievement of total peace. Council members may ask with whom this total peace is made. Total peace is made with those who want to make peace.”
2023-04-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9303 (2023) · source
“Peace is the word — peace — peace underpinned by the United Nations Charter in the application of international law, international human rights law and international humanitarian law — all of which proceeds from the jus gentium arising from natural law, as expounded by Francisco Suárez and Hugo Grotius centuries ago, and proposed by Friedrich Fromhold Martens, the Russian representative to the 1899 Hague Peace Conferences, when he declared: “Until a more complete code of the laws of war is issued, the High Contracting Parties think it right to declare that in cases not included in the Regulations adopted by them, populations and belligerents remain under the protection and empire of the principles of international law, as they result from the usages established between civilized nations, from the laws of humanity and the requirements of the public conscience.” Thus was jus cogens born.”
2023-04-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9303 (2023) · source
“They wisely endorsed those agreements, and then-President Juan Manuel Santos Calderón, today a Nobel Peace Prize winner, after having made a State declaration, built an impregnable wall of defence around them. This is how the international community has understood it. This is what makes this magnificent Organization a wonderous mechanism that cannot be tampered with.”
2023-04-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9303 (2023) · source
“It is good for my homeland to be a model in such a historic moment, since what brings us together once again is the concrete proof from my homeland and from this very Chamber that dialogue and peace win, not war. After a few years of witnessing attempts to stop the national reconciliation agreements signed between the Colombian State and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-Ejército del Pueblo (FARC-EP), not to say efforts to tear them up, as if they were an expression of harmful Security Council intentions, we all now know and can attest to the fact that the phoenix exists. Blessed are those who ran the United Nations at the time when the first light of peace was born for Colombia.”
2023-04-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9303 (2023) · source
“I was one of the six who designed the Special Jurisdiction for Peace. What I mean to say is that I am willing to sign off on every one of the paragraphs in the report of the Secretary-General that Mr. Ruiz Massieu introduced earlier (S/2023/222), which gives me great satisfaction. What, then, is the role of the Minister for Foreign Affairs? My duty is not to oversee, but rather to follow up on, the implementation of the Agreement, so that total peace is indeed achieved. But let us return to formality. It is an honour for me to be present once again in this Chamber, even more so for me in my role as the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Colombia, at a time when the world is in danger and humanity is perplexed by daily events.”
2023-04-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9303 (2023) · source