This desire of a large part of the Colombian people is once again supported by the United Nations Organization and the international community, as stated this Wednesday in the Security Council of the multilateral organization.
There are numerous and complex steps to achieve this goal, which for many is a utopia and for others an urgent need with real possibilities to achieve it, thus ending decades of violence and insecurity.
Achieving this goal, which is seen as the policy of the Petro government, implies the implementation of the 2016 peace agreement and also the conclusion of new agreements with armed groups such as the National Liberation Army.
It also includes the judicial subjugation of criminal structures that have devastated entire communities and territories with murderous wars over drug trafficking, territorial control, or illegal mining.
But peace also implies social changes that will benefit millions of people suffering the horrors of the various armed conflicts in the South American country.
To this end, the Petro government initiated the sweeping agrarian reform, through which it began buying productive land from owners willing to sell it voluntarily to supply to peasants.
Another source to achieve this goal envisaged in point one of the 2016 peace agreement is the delivery of property that was in the hands of paramilitaries and drug traffickers and is now under the control of the Special Assets Society.
The United Nations Security Council decided yesterday to expand the mandate of its mission in Colombia to include the comprehensive rural reform envisaged in the peace agreements as a contribution to ending the national conflict.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres hailed the moves of Gustavo Petro’s executive and his determination to cement the end of the war.
“I am pleased that the full implementation of the final agreement is the focus of your efforts,” Guterres said in his report on the verification mission to Colombia, which covers the period between September and December 2022.
The head of the organization described as encouraging the contacts between the government and rural communities and the subsequent agreement with the Cattlemen’s Federation to purchase land for comprehensive rural reform.
“This is clear evidence that all sectors of Colombian society can and should contribute significantly to the implementation of the final agreement,” he stressed.
In this sense, the head of the UN Verification Mission in Colombia, Carlos Ruiz, assured that he would pay attention to access to land in its entirety, the participatory implementation of development programs with a territorial approach and the presence of the state in the territory through the national reform plans for rural areas to overcome inequality and poverty in rural areas.
These are strategic elements to reduce inequalities in access to land, resolve related conflicts and overcome inequality and poverty in rural areas, with particular attention to the situation of women and ethnic people, Ruiz said.
He stressed that Guterres’ report welcomed the government’s recent actions to move forward in some of the areas of the agreement with the greatest potential for transformation.
“I join his praise for the measures taken in recent months in terms of comprehensive rural reform, such as agreeing on land purchases and increasing budgets for agriculture,” he said.
He added that an additional push in the field of rural reform was observed when the authorities convened the first National Campesino Convention last December.
“In this convention, representatives of farming communities exchanged testimonies and put forward numerous proposals to deepen the implementation of elements of the comprehensive rural reform of the agreement, reaffirming their key role in building peace,” he stressed.
He reiterated that rural reform is now, and at last, clearly at the heart of efforts to build a more peaceful and prosperous Colombia.
jf/otf