Colombia needs drug policy changes to end internal violence, truth commission says
Colombian leaders should acknowledge how drug trafficking has penetrated the nation’s tradition, economic system and politics and the way the worldwide struggle on medication is driving its inside armed battle, Colombia’s reality fee mentioned on Tuesday in a long-awaited report.
The fee, established as a part of a 2016 peace deal between the federal government and the now-demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels, urged the nation to reassess the position of medicine in its nearly 60-year inside battle.
Among the many fee’s suggestions are calls to implement substantial adjustments in drug coverage with a deal with regulation, and to steer a world dialog addressing coverage adjustments.
Different suggestions included advancing peace talks with the Nationwide Liberation Military (ELN), tackling corruption and guaranteeing high quality of life and dignity for all communities.
President-elect Gustavo Petro attended the presentation and pledged to hold out the suggestions.
“These suggestions will grow to be profitable within the historical past of Colombia,” mentioned Petro, a former member of the M-19 rebels, including cycles of vengeance should finish.
Some preventing continues
From 1985 to 2018, 450,664 individuals had been killed within the battle, based on the reality fee, whereas 55,770 had been kidnapped between 1990 and 2018.
Greater than 7.7 million individuals had been displaced from 1985 to 2019 and 121,768 had been disappeared between 1985 and 2016, based on the fee.
Regardless of the peace deal, which ended FARC’s position within the battle, preventing continues in some elements of Colombia between leftist rebels from the ELN and FARC fighters who reject the accord, in addition to crime gangs and the navy.
The fee was given three years to research the reality of what occurred throughout the armed battle and supply a broad rationalization of how atrocities occurred.
The greater than 1,000-page report included hours of testimony at personal and public hearings, the place perpetrators and victims alike spoke in typically emotional recountings.
Drug trafficking and the struggle on medication contributed to the degradation and extension of the battle into one in every of complete struggle, the report mentioned.
Colombia, a serious cocaine exporter, joined the struggle on medication within the Eighties below stress from america and continues to face fixed U.S. stress to eradicate coca, cocaine’s chief ingredient, and deal with trafficking, the report mentioned.
Present President Ivan Duque, whose time period formally ends in August, didn’t attend.
