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STORY: UN / COLOMBIA
TRT: 04:53
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH / SPANISH / NATS
DATELINE: 20 JANUARY 2025, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE - NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior United Nations Headquarters
20 JANUARY 2025, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, Security Council
3. Med shot, Colombia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Luis Gilberto Murillo
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Carlos Ruiz Massieu, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Colombia and Head of the United Nations Verification Mission in Colombia (UNVMIC):
“The bloodshed – the result of an ELN attack in an area of presence of a rival armed group known as EMBF -- is part of the ongoing confrontation between armed groups in various areas of the country where there is a limited presence of the State and where they compete for control over illegal economies. I condemn the killings - which are an attack against peace itself.”
5. Med shot, FARC-EP ex-combatant Diego Tovar
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Carlos Ruiz Massieu, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Colombia and Head of the United Nations Verification Mission in Colombia (UNVMIC):
“Catatumbo is like many regions of Colombia that are still awaiting the dividends of the 2016 Peace Agreement in terms of a comprehensive presence of the State that would bring public services, legal economies, development opportunities and security. It is in the vacuum of state presence that illegal armed groups are fighting for territorial and social control. Implementation of the Peace Agreement is central as ever to lasting solutions for preventing and resolving the causes of armed conflict.”
7. Wide shot, Council
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Carlos Ruiz Massieu, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Colombia and Head of the United Nations Verification Mission in Colombia (UNVMIC):
“It is critical to accelerate the implementation of the ethnic chapter of the Peace Agreement which focuses on the needs and priorities of Colombia’s Afro-Colombian and Indigenous communities, including their protection. Too often they are the most victimized by the violence still plaguing rural Colombia. The Bari and Yukpa are among the populations affected by the violence taking place in Catatumbo for instance.”
9. Med shot, Murillo
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Carlos Ruiz Massieu, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Colombia and Head of the United Nations Verification Mission in Colombia (UNVMIC):
“Only by fully and deeply implementing the Agreement, bringing a comprehensive presence of the state to long marginalized areas, can the country expect to overcome the factors that continue to foster conflict.”
11. Wide shot, Council
12. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Diego Tovar, Representative of the High Contracting Party to the Commission for the Follow-Up, Promotion and Verification of the Implementation of the Final Agreement (CSIVI):
“In just the last six days, they have been murdered in the Catatumbo region more than 80 people. A hundred were kidnapped and more than 30,000 have been displaced. This violence threatens to spread to other regions. This is the biggest humanitarian crisis we have experienced in Colombia since we signed the Peace Agreement. That's why we want to embrace Catatumbo and dedicate these words and this session today, in homage to the memory of the victims. It is still ethnic communities and peoples, women, peasant communities, and the signatories of the Peace Agreement the most affected by the reconfiguration of armed actors, all of them, in dialogue with the national Government.”
13. Wide shot, Murillo addressing Council
14. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Luis Gilberto Murillo, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Colombia:
“Violence against any Colombian man or woman is an affront to the values that underpin our nation. And it is also an affront to the work that the United Nations and its verification mission in Colombia are doing to consolidate peace in our country. That is why we have demanded that these armed organizations cease violence and give serious, verifiable signs of their will for peace. We have suspended talks with the ELN because peace requires reciprocity.”
15. Med shot, Ruiz Massieu and Murillo
16. Wide shot, end of meeting
17. Pan left, Murillo walks up to stakeout podium
18. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Luis Gilberto Murillo, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Colombia:
“We have made progress in ensuring a greater presence of the State in these areas. This is what we have said, that they are areas that have traditionally been excluded and that is why we have signed some 16 territorial pacts to guarantee the implementation of development plans with a territorial approach that will guarantee not only the presence of State security agencies - military forces, public security forces - but also the presence of the Social State that truly guarantees that the basic needs of that population are met. And that is the effort that the Government is making.”
19. Pan right, Murillo walks away
The Head of the United Nations Verification Mission in Colombia (UNVMIC), Carlos Ruiz Massieu, today (22 Jan) condemned the killings in the Catatumbo region involving clashes between armed groups, saying they are “an attack against peace itself.”
Ruiz Massieu told the Security Council in New York that “the bloodshed – the result of an ELN attack in an area of presence of a rival armed group known as EMBF -- is part of the ongoing confrontation between armed groups in various areas of the country where there is a limited presence of the State and where they compete for control over illegal economies.”
He said “Catatumbo is like many regions of Colombia that are still awaiting the dividends of the 2016 Peace Agreement in terms of a comprehensive presence of the State that would bring public services, legal economies, development opportunities and security.”
It is “in the vacuum of state presence,” Ruiz Massieu continued, “that illegal armed groups are fighting for territorial and social control,” and stressed that “implementation of the Peace Agreement is central as ever to lasting solutions for preventing and resolving the causes of armed conflict.”
Turning to the ethnic chapter of the Peace Agreement, the UNVMIC official said, “it is critical to accelerate the implementation of the which focuses on the needs and priorities of Colombia’s Afro-Colombian and Indigenous communities, including their protection,” as “too often they are the most victimized by the violence still plaguing rural Colombia.”
Ruiz Massieu said, “only by fully and deeply implementing the Agreement, bringing a comprehensive presence of the state to long marginalized areas, can the country expect to overcome the factors that continue to foster conflict.”
On 24 November 2024, Colombia marked the eighth anniversary of the Final Agreement for Ending the Conflict and Building a Stable and Lasting Peace concluded in 2016 between the government of Colombia and the former rebel group Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-Ejército del Pueblo (FARC-EP).
Also briefing the Council, FARC-EP ex-combatant Diego Tovar, who is the Representative of the High Contracting Party to the Commission for the Follow-Up, Promotion and Verification of the Implementation of the Final Agreement (CSIVI), said, “in just the last six days, they have been murdered in the Catatumbo region more than 80 people. A hundred were kidnapped and more than 30,000 have been displaced. This violence threatens to spread to other regions. This is the biggest humanitarian crisis we have experienced in Colombia since we signed the Peace Agreement.”
Tovar stressed that “it is still ethnic communities and peoples, women, peasant communities, and the signatories of the Peace Agreement the most affected by the reconfiguration of armed actors, all of them, in dialogue with the national Government.”
For his part, Colombia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Luis Gilberto Murillo told the Council that “violence against any Colombian man or woman is an affront to the values that underpin our nation. And it is also an affront to the work that the United Nations and its verification mission in Colombia are doing to consolidate peace in our country.”
That is why, he said, the Government of Colombia has “demanded that these armed organizations cease violence and give serious, verifiable signs of their will for peace.”
Outside the Council, Murillo told journalists that the government has “made progress” in ensuring a greater presence of the State in remote areas of the country.
He said these areas “have traditionally been excluded and that is why we have signed some 16 territorial pacts to guarantee the implementation of development plans with a territorial approach that will guarantee not only the presence of State security agencies - military forces, public security forces - but also the presence of the Social State that truly guarantees that the basic needs of that population are met. And that is the effort that the Government is making.”
Secretary-General António Guterres on Tuesday expressed deep concern about the recent violence and condemned the killing of civilians, “including former combatants who signed the 2016 Final Peace Agreement, human rights defenders and social leaders, and is concerned by the reported displacement of thousands of civilians.”
