Speech by President Andrés Pastrana at opening of talks with FARC, 7 January 1999

Speech by President Andrés Pastrana at opening of talks with FARC, 7 January 1999

"Your children and ours have a right to peace"

"Colombians, today we come to fulfill an appointment with history. We have delayed almost half a century in making it a reality. We know that the eyes of everyone, of every worker, of every businessperson, of every peasant, of every mother of a family, of every displaced individual, of every soldier, of every insurgent, are waiting for us.

We have come to find ourselves with a yesterday of contrasts, of lights and shadows, of successes and failures, of events that fill us with pride and of others that crush us, but also to construct a common destiny that has the face and the +dimesion/importance+ of our dreams, of our sacrifices, and of our generosity. I am confident that the illusion of peace in Colombia will become reality and that this historic opportunity shall begin, once and for all, the voyage to everlasting peace. I invoke the patient God of the Colombians to guide us with your wisdom on the path upon which we embark today. I come to San Vicente del Caguán as head of state to fulfill my word.

The absence of Manuel Marulanda Vélez is no reason not to proceed with the installation of the Dialogue Table to decide upon an agenda of conversations that we should conduct towards peace. The national government, under my leadership, comes to the beginning of the Dialogue Table with an open agenda, without intentions to veto or to impose topics. We are prepared to discuss, we are prepared to disagree, we are prepared to propose, to evaluate, but over all, to construct. This is the very essence of a democracy. In it the Colombian armed forces faithfully carryout the noble work that the National Constitution has appointed them, and I should point out with fairness the manifest will with which they have collaborated in this process that we are beginning. From the very moment that the Colombian people gave the mandate to govern the army, they have always been loyal partners on the road to peace, they have defended our institutions with bravery. I know that they are in jeopardy working for the achievement of peace, I know where we are headed, I know that the journey will be difficult, I know that we are facing a road that is long and trying. On it we shall find shocks and opportunities.

We Colombians are aware that a conflict of many decades will not be ended in a few months, but I am sure that upon completing the route that we have sketched out, we will achieve national reconciliation. As president of all Colombians, I want a prosperous and optimistic nation, without violence, compelled against corruption, progressing against poverty and with its major forces dedicated to the well-being of my compatriots. In the work of change on which my government finds itself embarking, I have led the process with security and direction. We fight tirelessly against poverty and against corruption. We look to create the conditions to give secure and dependable employment. We design a development plan to construct peace and we strengthen the image of Colombia internationally.

My dear friend, the president of South Africa and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Nelson Mandela, says in his memoirs that at the beginning, the people could not believe that the process had really started, but without peace all is lost.

The only peace that is believable is one that overcomes the reasons that generate violence. I have recognized the political character of your organization. My presence here as head of state is an endeavor without precedence to find formulas and mechanisms that allow us to discover the course of peaceful coexistence. I come invested with the legitimacy granted me by the democracy with the highest participation of our republican history. Here we unite respect for the unity of the nation and the consolidation of your institutions.

In the end it is popular sovereignty and democracy that permit us to realize this meeting and thus begin the voyage towards the reunion of all Colombians.

As head of state I am expressing the voice of a country that wants peace, that demands peace, that seeks out social justice and is ready to give course to the politics as an exercise of the common good.

A country that demands liberty with security and asks that it guarantee liberty with dignity. A country that insists upon stopping death and that opens itself to the reforms that will be necessary to merit a bright future.

But in the same manner that I come to claim the right to peace, as head of state, I am ready to fulfill and carry out the duties that reconciliation imposes upon us. There are some who have not realized that the strengthening of peace doesn’t only require leaving behind murder, but also calls for having the ability to choose the privilege of life.

Let us retake the shovel and the hoe, the book and the binder, the hammers and bricks, to build the country that we all want. There are some who have not seen that peace beats war in employment, in the quality of life, in nutrition, in health, in education, in respect to ecology, and in the certainty of maintaining the survival of happiness.

His Holiness John Paul II has said: ’The right to peace favors the building of a society in which the relations of force are substituted for relations of collaboration oriented towards the common good. The current situation proves extremely well the failure of the resort to war as a means of resolving political and social problems.’

Only in peace will social justice and opportunities for all grow. The growth of peaceful coexistence will make the application of the Development Plan possible and will allow change in order to build peace in full capacity. It will allow the very important Colombia Plan to be enacted in full. Every step of progress in peace will create the conditions in which the solidarity of the people will convert good intentions into repairs of well being. Only peace, intended as the right to liberty and development, will offer the opportunity to hand over to the campesinos certain possibilities for agricultural substitution and the elimination of farming linked to drug trafficking.

With narcotrafficking there is not peace, they shouldn’t (+substitute+) the convictions, for justifications that they know, for illicit uses and interests. I have the optimism that recognizes that beside the patient suffering of the Colombians there has grown a perception of and some special sensitivity for human rights. I know that peace blossoms when these rights are fully observed.

I know that peace is only possible if one is conscience of the dignity of the human being. I know that every person should be respected for this. I know that peace starts with the right to life and that we must give as much importance to civil and political rights as we do economic, social, and cultural rights.

My government, as well as the international community, is hopeful that the process that we are starting today will allow us to humanize the conflict. In this way, we should try to win full respect for the (+International Humanitarian Right+) to behave as a civilized nation. All that dream of a great fatherland have the right and obligation to participate in this endeavor that we should link to everyone. There are people who only support peace from an intellectual stand point, but do not want to make sacrifices for it.

It is essential to understand that our peace should generate a model of a new society where social forces will encourage the transformation of the state. When social forces are the determining factor in the organization of community, social justice will become the cornerstone of sovereignty.

Dear friends, we must put as much initiative and imagination into peace as we have put into war. We cannot forget the victims of this conflict. I do not want to repeat the bitter experience that, like myself, so many Colombians have lived. Our sacrifice cannot pass unnoticed. The pain of the families, the suffering of the kidnapped and the uncertainty caused by the disappeared, weighs heavy in our hearts. For all of them, and especially for the memory of the victims that this national tragedy has left, I invite all to a moment of refection in respectful homage. We should not forget that the difference between war and peace is that in war, parents bury their children and in peace it is the children that that bury their parents.

It is clear that the endeavors for reconciliation should lead to the end of death and the kidnappings. A magnanimous act like the famous one will make confidence between Colombians grow and it will allow it to regain the positive perception about the true intentions of the forces in conflict. I am thankful in the name of Colombia to the population and to the mayors of the municipalities of Mesetas, of La Macarena, of Uribe, of Vistahermosa and of San Vicente del Caguán, that belong to the zone of tension, for the generous hospitality with which they have welcomed the numerous visitors that are coming into the region for these few days.

The passage that we undertake today has earned the backing of the international community. My thanks for your presence at this event, which we understand as a support to the diplomacy for peace that has directed our international action. We equally highly regard the presence of those who are here as witnesses of good will. +I hope they were our best ambassadors in their countries+, to achieve timely results and deserving of international cooperation+. Colombia cannot go on divided into three irreconcilable countries, where one country kills, the other country dies, and a third country, in horror, ducks its head and closes its eyes.

This division should end, and only together can we survive. The future of a good people, noble and generous, that longs to exchange fear for hope, that dreams every hour of every day for peace, depends on you and us. Let us not lose more time, no more distraught orphans crying over the coffins of their parents. No more children taking up arms. Let us not thwart another generation of Colombians.

Your children and ours have the right to live in a country of peace. We have the duty to devote ourselves to them. History will judge us and the verdict will be inexorable. Nothing and no one should impede our right to build a peaceful country, in which the national flag can be risen proudly. The flag is the legacy of our liberators, who surround and accompany us on this day, they make us tremble with emotion in memory of how much they symbolize.

A united fatherland with a common destiny, sure of the same, a flag that makes us shiver before the glory of Gabo and the mastery of Botero, of the prodigious shot of Pibe Valderrama or of Chico Serna, the original and modern letter of Shakira or the Aterciopelados, the science of Manuel Patarroyo and of Rodolfo Llinás, the sublime emotion of this plains woman and the deep pride of being Colombians.

Colombians, the hour of peace has arrived, and nothing shall stop us. Thank you."