Proposals which could help bring peace to Colombia were presented at last weekend’s International Peace Conference hosted by the Rotary Club of Londonderry and INCORE, the University of Ulster’s international conflict research institute.
The Derry Proposals for Colombian Peace are based on lessons learned in Northern Ireland through the Good Friday Agreement and were formally presented to Deputy Head of Mission of the Colombian Embassy, Juan Manuel Uribe by Ariel Sanchez Meertens, a native of Colombia and former Research Fellow at INCORE.
The proposals are the result of discussions hosted by INCORE with delegates from Colombia and the United States as well as policy makers and researchers from Northern Ireland. The ambassador said that any peace proposals produced as a result of the discussions would be studied by Colombian President, Juan Manuel Santos.
Director of INCORE, Professor Brandon Hamber explained that they examined how lessons learned from 15 years of post agreement politics in Northern Ireland could contribute to the Colombian peace efforts.
Professor Hamber said: "The Northern Ireland experience has shown how an eventual political settlement must be progressively strengthened by additional agreements, policies and legislation. We are proud to be able to feed into other peace processes as for the last 20 years we have been transferring lessons across contexts and making a real contribution to peace.”
Colombia’s largest guerrilla group, the FARC is currently involved in negotiations with the government in Cuba. The current round of talks, which got underway in Norway last October before moving to the Caribbean, are the fourth attempt to reach a negotiated settlement of what is the longest running conflict in Latin America.
President of the Rotary Club of Londonderry, Gavin Killeen said: "We are pleased that these proposals have been presented at our conference and hope that they will help President Santos make progress in bringing peace to Columbia."
