PRESS BRIEFING BY SECRETARY-GENERAL’S ADVISER ON ASSISTANCE TO COLOMBIA

The Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on International Assistance to Colombia, Jan Egeland, in a briefing to correspondents at the United Nations this afternoon, said the peace talks in Colombia were in crisis, with new difficulties in the talks between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Government of Colombia.  

Expressing great concern over the situation which he described as being one of the biggest armed conflicts in the Western Hemisphere, he urged the parties to return to the negotiating table and to stick to the issues that were up for negotiation:  a ceasefire and an agreement on human rights and international humanitarian law.  The parties should not waste all that had been achieved in the peace process over the last several years.  He stressed that there was no military solution to the conflict and no alternative to a negotiated settlement.

Drawing attention to the hundreds of thousands of displaced persons and massive human rights violations, he said a rupture in the peace talks would only lead to total war and massive suffering of civilians in Colombia.

Asked why he had waited so long to come to the briefing to express such concerns, he said he had been talking to the parties and to the local and international press.  He was at Headquarters to brief the Secretary-General and was taking the opportunity to speak with the United Nations press corps.  Perhaps he should have come earlier.  

A correspondent asked why Latin America had “disappeared from the United Nations radar screen”.  Mr. Egeland replied that there should be greater focus on Colombia and Latin America within the United Nations.  Various meetings had been held today among United Nations heads of agencies to address the critical situation in Colombia.  There were already 15 United Nations agencies engaged in Colombia, but because it was not one of the poorest countries in the world the resources at the disposal of the agencies were limited.  Measured in human suffering, however, the situation in Colombia was equal to any conflict in the world.  Moreover, it was a situation that could become much worse.  For the past two years he had been shuttling between the two parties and between the Secretary-General and the parties.  He described his role as “discreet facilitation of the process".

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