MIL OSI Translation. Region: Spanish/Latin America/A –
Source: Republic of Colombia
Photo: César Carrión – Presidency.
The Covenant for the equity is in place / Words of the President of the Republic, Ivan Duque Márquez, to the General Assembly of the United Nations in the 73° period of ordinary sessions
“Mr Vice-president of the General Assembly of the Organization of the United Nations.
Excellencies Heads of State and Heads of Missions.
I greet the President of the Assembly, dr. María Fernanda Espinosa, and the Secretary-General, António Guterres.
I have the immense honor of addressing for the first time at this Assembly, full of history and transcendence, as President of Colombia.
I come to you with pride of having been elected with the highest number of votes in our electoral history and, at the same time, as a member of a new generation of colombians, motivated to unite our country around common goals.
Colombia is a magical country, where there are multiple races, regions, customs, and ecosystems.
It is a nation where the culture, ancestral heritage, nature and the spirit of hardworking and accommodating of our citizenry, defines the greatness resilient a society that does not bow to any adversity.
Our strength patriotic, hard-working, tireless, has made Colombia a town that has earned the respect of the world, the interest of the investment, and that builds a path of progress with democratic institutions.
We have been able to maintain the economic growth in the midst of complex volatilities regional.
We have seen to transform cities and transform the productive sectors, expanding the middle class, while we settled in to the challenges of globalization.
We have made progress in equality between men and women in the world of work and education. To recognize this progress, I appointed the first cabinet parity between men and women in the history of my country. But there is much to be done on this front and we will continue moving forward.
The pride of telling this story, I agree as colombian and motivates me even more when in the year 2019 we will celebrate the Bicentennial of our Independence.
Today, more than ever, your excellencies, we must be motivated to achieve social justice, to reject the hatred, the polarization, the revanchas and concentrate on achieving a COVENANT BY COLOMBIA: A COVENANT FOR THE EQUITY.
That is the invitation that we are doing: we build a Plan and a Development Agenda to define the State policy in the coming decades, taking as a reference reach for the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, in a framework of legality and entrepreneurship that will lead us to the longed-for and necessary Equity.
I want that Covenant that we propose is based on the legality.
PEACE is a goal of all colombians and everyone, absolutely everyone, we’re going to work hard for it.
But PEACE must be constructed with the rule of law, which combines the public goods of security and justice.
Our Government will work for the process of demobilization, disarmament and reintegration advance in recent years to come forward with success.
Provide them with to those who have opted for a genuine return to legality, subject to the principles of truth, justice, reparation and non-repetition, adequate opportunities to progress and protection.
I am grateful today for the support of the United Nations for their commitment to contribute to this process to be successful, and for that reason we have asked you to continue with these tasks.
Similarly, excellencies, we will work to reach all the regions of the country, mainly those that have been hard hit by the violence, the resources and the investments that generate hope.
The Mission of the United Nations system in Colombia, as are our organs of control, know that our Government received the fragile on several fronts.
First, there is the fragility of budget: Were made many commitments without allocating sufficient resources.
And second, is the institutional fragility: created a dispersed and complex architecture that has until now been unable to move forward effectively in achieving all of the objectives.
But I want to reiterate before this Assembly our purpose, the purpose of Colombia, is cumplirles to those who have taken the path of genuine stop the violence.
We hope to have the financial support of the international community to give strength to this process.
But as well as they will comply to those who are subject to the rules, it is also our duty to apply the law in a manner exemplary to those who persist on the path of crime.
We’re not going to accept that there is repetition and more violence. Those who follow in the world of the crime and intend to mock the victims and the generosity of the colombian people, will receive the full weight of Justice.
Mr. Vice-president: if we want Colombia to shine and shine peace, it is necessary to overcome the drug trade.
In the area of illicit crops, a few weeks ago we received an alarming situation. The trend of incremental of the last five years cannot continue, as these crops have become the fuel and the stimulus to the emergence of dangerous armed groups.
Hence, we are committed to dismantling these networks of transnational crime with a comprehensive agenda.
The drug trade, your excellencies, it is a global threat.
It is true that we must do more in terms of prevention and care to the addicts from a public health approach. That is a truth incontrovertible.
But it is NO less true that the drug trade in Colombia is a predator of the environment, a destroyer of institutions and, above all, a corrupter of social.
Fight against this phenomenon and at the same time promoting a society that rejects the drugs by their devastating effects on health and society, it is our moral duty.
We are already taking measures, and I welcome the fact that two days ago, we support the global call to Action against the Drug Problem, recognizing that the work is of all and requires all countries to contribute, including those where consumption grows and also to those who are manufacturers of precursor chemicals.
130 nations, with the leadership of the united States, we committed ourselves to continue this struggle. We will not give up nor we will accept as the destination of the addiction that is destroying the souls of many young people.
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The legality also means the defeat of corruption.
Corruption is a threat to democracy, social values, and institutions must be confronted with determination.
From the first day of our Government’s present measures before Congress, and then, in response to popular demand, we have put in place with all parties of an ambitious and needed agenda.
We show Colombia and the world that we are able to unite in the purposes national.
I invite the international community to strengthen the tools and mechanisms of sanction against corruption, transnational.
To defeat corruption is a task that involves all of us and we must make all the necessary efforts to make visible to the corrupt and to accelerate their court sanctions and social sanctions.
Our commitment to Development, your excellencies, our PACT FOR COLOMBIA, also seeks to encourage entrepreneurship and the revival of the Economy.
The Objectives of Sustainable Development validated our agenda for a Colombia where science and technology are seen driven by connectivity, access to capital, the advancement of the Economy of Orange and the promotion of research.
A Colombia committed to the protection of biodiversity, the impulse to the renewable energies, the reduction of the individual fingerprint of carbon and the formation of a citizenry empowered by ethics completely unwavering.
The world should know that this is the Colombia that we want to build every day.
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We will work to achieve this Colombia. That is our challenge, that is our motivation. For that reason I must tell the world that these objectives face a major challenge.
That challenge, that challenge that our country is experiencing today are thousands of fearful faces, with cold in the bones, hunger in the stomach and pain of the Homeland.
It is a challenge that at this precise moment to walk outside and with uncertainty for colombian highways.
Are the venezuelan brothers and sisters who are fleeing a dictatorship.
Many of them are innocent children, unprotected and exposed to the tragedy of exile.
While the conflict in Syria has generated a flow of 600 thousand migrants a year just to Turkey in a period of six years, Colombia, in less than two years, has opened the doors to nearly one million venezuelan brothers and sisters.
We have received them with affection, and we always will in spite of any difficulty social and fiscal because us binds us to the fraternity.
But we cannot stop calling things by their name.
We are living the immigration crisis and humanitarian most outrageous of the recent history of the region, for the account of a dictatorship that wiped out the freedoms.
Today I want to make clear that the self-determination of peoples can not be manipulated to become the self determination of the oppressors.
The world must act and you must join so that this exodus a tragic coming to an end and people can see hope flourish.
This is a global challenge. The end of the dictatorship, the return to democracy and full freedom is the only possible way.
That is why the international community must ask for the immediate freedom of the political prisoners and to quickly identify the best solutions to this crisis and prevent this desolation and despair will continue to increase.
I want the United Nations to listen to what we ask for and I am glad that you have heard the request of Colombia and the Secretary-General has appointed Eduardo Stein as Joint Special Representative for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela, and so raise this discussion.Thank you also to all the countries who joined us yesterday at the High-Level Meeting, convened by Colombia, where it was clear the regional commitment to address this humanitarian crisis.These measures must be accompanied by the creation of a Multilateral Fund to cater to the migrant population, a victim of this dictatorship.That’s why we must encourage the proposal that has been announced by the inter-American Development Bank and its president, Luis Alberto Moreno.But just as important, your excellencies, is the exercise of all of the international mechanisms to denounce, investigate and sanction by the International Criminal Court to those who have planted this tragedy frail.****Your excellencies, it is an honor for me to address this Assembly, to expose the vision that we have for Colombia, calling for global solidarity in front of the venezuelan people and to make them an invitation.The world today more than ever requires the cooperation and multilateralism.Is the time to integrate and not isolate ourselves.It is time to do the trade and cooperation are the way of the shared opportunities.We have a duty to move forward in a world where alliances will enable us to mitigate the effects of climate change, to consolidate a fair trade, tackling corruption and transnational crime, generate employment opportunities, end discrimination, and solidify the idea of producing, preserving and preserve producing.The Colombia of LEGALITY, ENTREPRENEURSHIP, and EQUITY that we want to build is already in progress, and in addition we will not leave anything for us to take the hope of being a country that thinks big, being a country that dreams of a better future and work for the integration of the nations.Thank you very much”.(End)
EDITOR’S NOTE: This article is a translation. Please forgive us should the grammar and/or sentence structure to not be perfect.
