The United Nations has reaffirmed the international community’s commitment to support victims of the armed conflict in a post conflict Colombia, reported newspaper Elespectador on Wednesday.
Fabrizio Hochschild, the coordinator of the UN in Colombia was speaking after a two day visit to the department of Cauca, one of the worst affected areas of the armed conflict.
While acknowledging that the role of the international community has been “reprehensible” in some countries, Hochschild maintained that Colombia would continue to receive between 0.5 – 0.6% of global humanitarian resources after a potential peace accord because “peace does not guarantee stability the next day.”
“Violence in one way or another can continue, that is the experience of many countries” explained the UN coordinator.
Hochschild was keen to stress the numerous challenges that remain in Colombia.
“Clearly there are still major challenges in human rights in Colombia, there are problems with freedom of movement, threats to the right to life, problems of access to health services, travel, child recruitment and extortion.”
John Ging, chief operating officer at the Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) stressed that his organisation was committed to continuing its work in the event of a peace accord.
“We hope that the peace process will succeed and we must be positioned to do all that is expected of us. Various governmental organisations have told us that we must be prepared to strengthen our role.”
“We should not underestimate the challenges facing the country but we should do so with confidence,” explained Ging.
The FARC and the government have been involved in peace talks since November in order to seek a negotiated end to the internal conflict.
While an accord has been reached regarding land reform, no agreements have been made on the issue of the FARC’s political participation, drug trafficking, the practicalities of the end of the armed conflict and the rights of the victims.
