UN members should support Colombia's security policy, president says

The President of Colombia today appealed to United Nations Member States to support the country's security policies and its efforts to eradicate coca.

“Violence in Colombia has received much international media coverage, constant criticism of the Government, and little support to overcome it,” Álvaro Uribe Vélez told the General Assembly. “It is time for the international community to urgently call on vivolent groups to make peace without any more delays,” he said.

“For us, organized violence under fictitious political pretexts is terrorism, and security is the path to peace,” he said.

The Colombian president said more than 40,000 members of armed groups had been demobilized. “Illegal self-defense groups which had until two years ago together with the guerillas seemed like powers greater than the State, are demobilized today in the vast majority, and a large percentage of their leaders are being held by our justice system.”

Violent groups derive funds from illicit drugs, he said, declaring that this “criminal, bottomless and autonomous financing is the main obstacle to peace.”

Colombia was exerting all possible efforts to address the scourge and deserved international support, he said.

“We are willing to revise our strategy, to improve it, but we need the entire world to get involved with us,” he said. “I ask the United Nations for additional efforts to help us to find the path to effectiveness.”