Colombia’s president Juan Manuel Santos on Wednesday announced that he will lead a campaign aimed at tackling illegal arms trafficking.
Santos said that he wanted to spearhead an initiative aimed at reducing gun-related violence in Latin America at the upcoming meeting of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) to be held in Chile later this month.
“From all sides we are hearing how organized crime and the presence of all kinds of weapons in the hands of individuals is generating more and more violence. We see the case of Newtown in the United States [where a shooter killed 28 people including himself]. At this moment, there is a discussion of a new policy in the United States regarding this problem,” Santos said.
Colombia’s head of state will need consensus from other Latin American countries if his bid to decrease the amount of weapons that find their way into the hands of criminals.
Santos noted that he plans “to negotiate at the U.N. [for a] treaty to regulate and control the arms trade.”
