Geneva, December 12 (EFE). – The Vice President of Colombia, Francia Márquez, criticized today the “Eurocentrism” with which human rights are often interpreted, during her participation in Geneva in the commemorations of the 75th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration that protects them within the United Nations.
“In Europe, human rights were thought about with a very different vision than in the rest of the world, and from there an idea was imposed that doesn't mean much to us in a country like Colombia, where we were told that, for example.” To guarantee it, we had to adopt an anti-drug policy that only resulted in deaths and displacement,” he criticized.
“We see how this policy destroys farmers, indigenous peoples, Afro-descendants, it incarcerates women, but we have never seen the drug trafficking proceeds confiscated from a bank in the war on drugs,” he said in one Dialogue with heads of state. and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk.
“From a young age, I heard people say that we were all born free and equal, but I come from a people who were not free, but rather enslaved,” the vice president added, alluding to her African-American heritage.
“Our ancestors were dehumanized, treated like animals and as a result we suffered from deep structural weaknesses, which is why I have always wondered what freedom and equality mean to a people who have experienced colonization and slavery,” he emphasized.
He addressed the situation in his country and criticized the fact that for years the focus had been on “a security that has militarized the territory and served to strengthen the defense industry with the dead and blood of our nations.”
This, he added, fueled “a vision of the internal enemy that drove Colombians to kill each other.”
“I think we need to deeply question human rights and who they apply to, because they are used as an excuse to invade territories and impose sanctions,” he stressed.
Looking to the present, Márquez noted that “a country’s civil society does not have to bear the consequences of a terrorist group and Palestine, for example, does not have to pay the price of terrorism.”
“It is as if in Colombia everyone had to pay for the presence of terrorist and criminal groups that violate the rights of a people,” he said, pointing out that “there have been governments that have carried out the murder of young people under the pretext of extermination justified.” the guerrillas, and “What they did was to kill innocent youth.”
The Vice President concluded by emphasizing that “a review of human rights in the light of today is necessary so that they do not only reflect the Eurocentric approach.”