 Good morning, everyone. On behalf of the US Peace Institute of Peace, I'd like to cordially welcome you to this event, which is International Presentation of a New Citizen Movement in Colombia, known as Defendamos La Paz. Let us defend peace. We've co-sponsoring this event with our partners from the Inter-American Dialogues Center for Justice and International of Sejil, the Washington Office on Latin America, Wola, the Latin America Working Group, VLOG, and the Colombian Human Rights Committee. We'd like to thank all of their teams and staff for their valuable support in preparing this event. My name is Steve Hage, and together with my colleague, Maria Antonia Montes, we direct the program for the Indian region here at the US Institute of Peace. Known by its English language acronym, USIP, it is a governmental entity supported exclusively by public resources promoting peace building, the peaceful resolution of armed conflicts around the world. It was founded by active Congress of the United States in 1984 and works independently but in coordination with other state entities. In addition to some 12 countries around the world, the Institute has been working in and for Colombia for the last 15 years, including support for civil society initiatives, communities, and victims associations, as well as programs involving direct cooperation with the Colombian government and its official forces in the efforts to strengthen legitimacy in geographic areas hard hit by the armed conflict. The Institute has also accompanied several of the formal and informal processes to find a peaceful and political solution with armed groups such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the National Liberation Army. Its current programs include supporting the work of the two peace committees of the Colombian Congress, both in the Senate and the House. Colombia has a long history of all sorts of citizen movements, including those that have channeled the popular cry for an end to political violence and the armed conflict. This year, what began as just a few friends meeting together in a WhatsApp chat, a new citizen movement was born to strengthen political and popular support for implementing the peace agreement with the FARC and the continuation of suspended dialogues with the ELN. In just a short time, Defendamos la Paz has become consolidated as a major social force made up of many of the former negotiators of the last administrations and of the insurgencies who participated in the peace process. In addition to members of the peace committees of the Congress, former members with different party affiliations, victims, organizations, academics, retired military officers, and media figures have all come together in this movement. It also has established subnational groups with the civil society in many of the regions that have been affected by the conflict. This morning, we are privileged to hear from three of the leaders of Defendamos la Paz who are going to explain to us the motives, priorities, and relationships of the movement. Nonetheless, before we hear from them, I would like to invite Lisa Hallgard to give a few introductory words on behalf of the coalition of organizations that have been part of this invitation for the international presentation of Defendamos la Paz. She's executive director of the Latin America Working Group where she's worked since 1993. With log, Lisa has defended the defense of human rights and peace in Latin America, promoting development assistance oversight of defense and security policies, and she coordinates lobbying campaigns with U.S. and Latin American partners. She has testified several times before the U.S. Congress and has produced numerous reports. Lisa has also participated in international emissions to verify the human rights situation in Colombia, Mexico, and Central America. Lisa, thank you very much. Thank you, Steve. What an honor to be here today to say a word about Defendamos la Paz, and thanks to USIP for hosting with our colleague, with us and our colleague organizations. Defendamos la Paz is an organic, horizontal, diverse movement that sprang up via social media to rescue, surround, and protect the peace process in Colombia. It includes everyone from former negotiators of the peace agreements in Havana, to former government officials, mayors, and members of diverse political parties, and it includes former guerrilla leaders and artists, union leaders, renowned scholars, and leaders of victims associations from around the country. It shows the remarkable persistence, creative flair, and refusal to take no for an answer that, with which, despite every adversity, Colombians pull together to build a better society. Since its founding just a few months ago in February 2019, Defendamos la Paz has come out decisively with statements and actions in support of the transitional justice system, especially the special jurisdiction for peace. It has directed letters to the organization of American states and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights calling on international support for the peace process to be unwavering. It has called on the ELN to conduct a unilateral ceasefire to show a sign of goodwill and on former guerrilla leader, Santrich, to abide by his commitments to the peace process. The movement is seeking to gather a million signatures to demand that victims be given their seats in the Congress, a promise of the peace accords that has so far been denied them. And the movement's broadest action yet might be the march scheduled for next Friday, July 26th, calling for support and protection for the social leaders who remain at great risk in the country. And this peace process really does need this rescuing, this surrounding, and this protection that Defendamos la Paz is seeking to give. We all know that so much attention is focused on peace processes during the harrowing negotiation stage and on the days around the celebration when the ink is barely dry on the accords. Yet the hard work of building real peace is just begun. In the case of Columbia, the problem is not just a question of slow and incomplete implementation. It is also a question of a constant challenging of core parts of the accord by the very government and other forces that are charged with implementing it. This is deeply concerning. Forgive me this metaphor, but I always think of the peace accords as a game of Jenga. If neither the government nor the former guerrillas nor the international community can say, I'm gonna pull out this piece, because I don't like it, I'm gonna pull out this other piece because I disagree. Or sooner or later, the whole Jenga Tower or the whole peace process is going to come tumbling down. Now why does it matter if Columbia implements the accord in a half-hearted way? First, because the accord, if implemented, will help Columbia get where it needs to go anyway. It's hardly a radical document. It provides truth, it provides some justice and reparations for a considerable number of Columbia's nine million victims. Yet it also calls upon the Colombian government, the Colombian state, to provide in areas affected by the conflict the basic services and protections that all governments should provide to their citizens. Education, access to healthcare, roads, courts that work, responsible police, access to land and secure land titles, opportunities to make a living, the right to vote and participate in politics, and protection for citizens' rights, including the right to defend rights and without being killed. For all kinds of reasons, this is what is needed in Columbia, peace accord or no peace accord. Second, it matters because the alternative is not likely to be some better imaginary accord. The alternative is another generation lost to war. Finally, it matters because the victims of violence have suffered far too much. Over 261,000 people lost their lives, the vast majority of them civilians and nearly eight million people were internally displaced, eight million people. Most of the victims are Afro-Columbian and indigenous. Poor Campesinos and many are women and children. Thousands, thousands of Colombia's visionary human rights defenders and community leaders have been gunned down and continue to be gunned down in targeted killings. In the areas affected by the war, after perhaps a year of feeling the wonderful, delicious sense that peace was at hand, the same communities that have always suffered the brunt of the violence are trapped in violence and fear once again. This must stop now. The United States and the rest of the international community have a crucial role to play to get this peace process back on track towards full and complete implementation. One way to do that is to support the civil society Voices for Peace united in Defendamos la Paz. Listen to them and then do whatever you can from wherever you are to stand by them. Thank you. Muchísimas gracias Lisa por esas palabras introductorias recordándonos de. Thank you Lisa for those introductory words reminding us of the valuable and novel contribution of Defendamos la Paz and the importance of protecting the agreement with the FARC and what is at stake is really the future and the fate of many communities impacted by the conflict. I would now like to turn to our colloquium with the three leaders of Defendamos la Paz who are with us this morning. We've decided to use a more informal methodology, really have more of a conversation with the three leaders where I'll be putting a series of questions to them. First on the structure vision and origins of Defendamos la Paz and then some views from Defendamos la Paz as a movement and also individual opinions and perspectives of some of its leaders on some of the most important current issues for Colombia before moving on to those questions. I would like to briefly introduce each of those who are with us today. I would like to say unfortunately Professor Gonzalo Sanchez was not able to travel because of health reasons but we have the great privilege to have Luis Gilberto Murillo replacing him in one way or another on the panel as another important leader of Defendamos la Paz. I'd like to begin by introducing Laura Hill who is seated to my right. Laura at this time is editor of La Línea del Medio Internet News Portal. She's been a columnist with the El Tiempo newspaper. She's also been part of the teaching staff at Lester Pearson Peacekeeping Center in Canada and she's also been a professor at several universities including the Universidad del Externado of Colombia. Laura has also been a consultant with international organizations, governmental and on governmental and research institutions including for many years she worked as a human rights observer with an election observer with the UN and OAS and worked with the UN in Haiti as the director of analysis of the National Truth and Justice Commission. Welcome to the institute. Then we have the former minister of interior of the previous administration in Colombia, Juan Fernando Cristo, minister Cristo was previously the private secretary at the Ministry of Economic Development. He was also a consul in Caracas and then he was presidential advisor for communications with President Sampir. In 1995, he became vice minister of foreign affairs for Europe and then on four occasions was elected as senator in the Colombian Congress. In 2010, he became the lead author and great defender of the law on victims. While he was the minister, he was also negotiator while he was minister of interior. He was one of the negotiators in Havana in the peace negotiations and he promoted the whole package of laws and legal reforms in order to make way for the peace process to go forward in the Colombian legal system. Welcome minister and finally, we have former minister of environment, Luis Gilberto Murillo. He did his studies at the State University of Geological Prospection in Moscow in the early 1990s. He worked as director of the corporation for the development of the department that he is from, El Chocó. And he then went to work in the office of the mayor when Antanas Mocos was mayor of Bogota in the department of environment for the city of Bogota. He has worked with several organizations including Lutheran World Relief, the Phelps-Dokes Foundation and he was then elected as governor of the department of Chocó. Welcome minister Murillo. I'd like to begin our series of questions with minister Cristo regarding the origins of the Defendamos la Paz movement and perhaps you could cast some light on just how novel it is compared to the other movements that have existed in Colombian recent decades. What is it that really makes Defendamos la Paz stand out? Good morning. I'd like to thank Steve and the US Institute of Peace, the US Congress and the various organizations that have convened this event and have allowed us this space to introduce Defendamos la Paz here in Washington and in the United States and internationally and special greetings to all of those in attendance. Defendamos la Paz came about as a very spontaneous initiative. Steve and all here. At the beginning of the year. As you know, Colombia, unfortunately, after the peace agreement was signed and in the wake of the convening of the plebiscite ended up split in two practically equal parts when there was a referendum on the peace accords as between those who voted yes and those who voted no to affirm the accords. After the plebiscite came the presidential elections and those who had led the opposition to the peace accords won the presidential elections. And a few months later in January, February, several of us former negotiators who had negotiated on the behalf of the government with the FARC, including the head of the negotiating team, Mr. Humberto de la Calle, some members of Congress, some members of civil society, we began to talk informally and we agreed on our concern that we were concerned about the future of the peace agreement and therefore about the future of Colombia in the current situation, in the current circumstances. We were seeing and unfortunately we were right that a strategy was being put in place by sectors of Colombian society who have consistently opposed the peace agreement and the seeking a negotiated solution to the armed conflict. The Central Democratical Party has led these efforts and some in the national government. Unfortunately we were right, the events that followed, well, I'll discuss them in, we'll certainly be discussing them and so we decided to convene ourselves one day, spontaneously with no leader. We met in downtown Bogota and we called together friends of the peace agreement. That call surpassed our expectations both in terms of persons who were present and it also sparked interest in the media. The former negotiators of the FARC in the peace agreement, the former negotiators, the government all arrived along with academics, artists, columnists, members of Congress, of all of the political parties of Colombia with the exception of the Central Democratical Party, the leading social organizations in the country, the leading labor unions and the main organizations of victims in Colombia and that is when Defendamos la Paz came about spontaneously with a single purpose, with no political commitments and that is what makes the difference. You were asking about the Steve. There are two differences I would say. The first is that it is a movement that is of the greatest diversity, ethnic, cultural, religious, political in terms of social origin, in terms of geographic origin in Colombia. The various prior organizations of, previous civil society organizations have certain clear ideological orientation but here there's great diversity, great pluralism, a wide diversity of opinions on all of the issues facing the country. The only thing that we all agree on, the only issue is defending the peace agreement and the need to implement that peace agreement for the good of Colombia going forward and the need to look to the future, not be stuck in the past and looking to the future that we not get caught up in discussing aspects of an agreement that was already signed but rather we need to focus on how can we guarantee effective implementation for the people living in the different parts of Colombia or the people who are suffering and will suffer the absence of a commitment to effectively implement the peace agreement by the current government, the current administration. That is where, that's how Devin Damos Lapaz came up out and the other major difference is the use of social media networks, the use of the new technologies because every decision made by the movement we don't hold meetings, we don't have directors, we don't have a chief, no one is a chief here, we're all soldiers, there are no generals and it's simply through the different, there are generals but they're retired generals, none who are active duty generals and through the networks and through the various mechanisms that technology affords us today including the WhatsApp chat and emails, we have been defining the positions of the movement vis-a-vis the question of the peace agreement but no other in particular. Thank you so much, you touched on an issue and I want to take that up to ask Laura a question about the structure of the organization, of the movement and what is the vision for the movement in terms of how to strengthen it because it's new, it's just been around for a couple of months. Well thank you so much Steve for the invitation, thank you to you all for being here and a special thanks to Lisa and Christina from the Colombian Human Rights Committee who have really made us feel at home. On that day that Juan Fernando talked about, that day when we all came together in the Gabriel Garcia Marcos Cultural Center in Bogota, I said, do you think anyone's going to show up? Let's just go and see what happens but the place was packed and then I said as we were traveling on, now what do we do? Some of the peace accord negotiators decided to create a WhatsApp group to keep that group going, that group that had gathered that day. The ambition was not to start a movement, nobody thought that that was going to happen, it was just a WhatsApp group. What I need to explain to an audience of people who do not live in Latin America is the importance of WhatsApp. For those of us in Latin America, WhatsApp is important as Facebook is to you. Fake news works not just in Facebook and Latin America but also through WhatsApp. You wouldn't believe how much fake news or surrounding the plebiscite, the referendum was circulating through WhatsApp because that allows the creation of groups and it enables messages to be sent simultaneously to hundreds of people so it is just as powerful as Facebook. It's a major technology for Latin America and things that can be used for ill can be used for good as well so we decided to create this group so that we could share positions and the group grew. Now, there are 16 regional chats, chapters, chats in another international one, four thematic groups, women, environmentalists, Christians and I'm forgetting the fourth group, oh and youth. And now there are two national groups so we're talking about over 2,000 people and they are representing hundreds of people each from, we're talking about people from NGOs, political leaders, there are 100 congressional deputies from every party except the ruling party Centro Democrático, so it's an incredibly diverse group and what we do is ensure that the work we do through this virtual group has an impact on the real world. The first thing we did in the political arena was to oppose the objections to the hip, the special jurisdiction for peace, I imagine you're aware of the government position. There were five minor objections to this major law and those were really the crux of the law and we negotiated work together on a letter that has had quite a bit of an impact and we've continued to work out hammer out positions which we express through open letters and they're having an impact. We received a response to our last letter from the Council for Stabilization what used to be called post-conflict. We believe at this time that our movement is really having an impact that we've got the government's attention in terms of implementation of the piece of cords and now we have this March scheduled for July 26th to demonstrate our support for social leaders. We'll be talking about this issue further later but social leaders are experiencing threats, they're being killed. The cords contain mechanisms for protecting these groups and for that reason, this protection is one of our pillars and we're going to be marching to express that as a message to the government. Thank you so much Laura. Now I'd like Luis Gilberto to clear up some of the questions surrounding the movement and the political composition there of Luis Gilberto was from a major party, Cambio Radical and many of the movement's members come from different parties. So Luis Gilberto, could you explain the difference between Defendamos la Paz and then the political agenda of individual political members? Thank you Steve, thanks to USIP and to each and every one of the organizations that has helped make this day possible and thank you to you for being here to listen to us. The main thing about Defendamos la Paz is that it is a citizen movement. It's civil society dedicated to defending the peace process as Laura and Juan Fernando have mentioned, that's what unites us. There's a tend to always zoom in on the political positions of people but that isn't the point of Defendamos la Paz as has already been said. There are so many grassroots leaders, academics, artists, journalists, so many people and of course we're citizens so some of us happen to be members of political parties. One of the agreements has been that we are all united around the defense of peace, implementation of the peace accords and protection of life. We may have very different political positions, very different policy preferences but what unites us is that in order for the political work to begin, there has to be a basis of peace and a stronger democracy and so political leaders from different political stripes, we have people from the left, the center left, the center center center right and right and all parts of the spectrum and I think that that's a great step forward for our country because in my personal experience I had never had the chance to take part in a citizen movement of this kind. It's really interesting. It is incredibly diverse. It's in terms of gender, ethnicity, ages and that signifies something in our country and that we're speaking with one voice. We have taken it upon ourselves to protect this precious seed of peace, which is the accord and what the country needs is civility in internal dialogue, dialogue that is full of respect that is high-minded and that is what motivates us. So it's not just a political coalition. No, no, not at all. As you can imagine, it was really unthinkable prior to this to imagine some of us working together given our very different ideologies. Well, Steve, I have an anecdote in this regard. Many of the people that joined us after Bogota, it's not a single influential community leader or social leader that isn't part of it so everyone is informed of what's going on with Defendamos La Paz. If we had only thought of this before the referendum we wouldn't have to have Defendamos La Paz. We would have been able to avoid this whole problem. We, peace accords, would have gotten a yes vote. Yes, Steve, and another thing we have to understand is imagine a group that brings together. We got 180 some people in the national group that's as much as is allowed by WhatsApp and it's full of high-level people, people that were local leaders or tribal chiefs and so it's a horizontal relationship among all these people that had occupied different leadership positions and the fact is that we've maintained that horizontal structure. In social networks where they're used for social movements there's always an implosion of sorts and the movements crumble because there's a lack of leadership but we don't want a single leader. We want a horizontal structure where everyone's on the same footing. Thank you so much, Laura. Some of you have already mentioned some of the issues being worked on by Lisa that she mentioned in her introductory remarks. The social leaders, the special jurisdiction for peace. Perhaps Juan Fernando, if you could explain what the movement's priorities are right now given the current circumstances. As regards substantive issues, but also what does the movement have in terms of priorities for strengthening itself? Well, just now before I came in I was asked something that I had not been asked yet in the last six months who are you defending peace from? A great journalistic question and perhaps it seems obvious to those of us who are in the movement but nobody had asked me this before. And I thought of that when you asked about our priorities. Priority number one is to contain all the efforts being made by different groups in the country to destroy the peace accords. Now, they haven't mentioned to tear it to shreds as some would have wished. It's not a lack of desire. It's because they haven't been able to do it. And we're doing our little bit to keep that from happening. That's priority number one. Under that overarching priority there are some strategic tasks that we have some mentioned by Lisa and others by Laura. First of all, how can it be in a country like Columbia that signed peace accords with a guerrilla group that caused so much harm and having signed that and having saved so many lives police and military and guerrillas lives? How can it be that after all of that human rights defenders and social leaders are still being killed? That is not acceptable. It's unacceptable. We mustn't tolerate it. And that is our number one priority as a society. We can't just turn a blind eye and be apathetic to the killing of our local leaders. And that is why Defendamos La Paz is calling this March for July 26th than many of the cities throughout the country but also in cities around the world calling upon Colombians who want to defend peace to take to the streets. And many public figures will be joining and it isn't a march against anything. It's for those social leaders. Today, for instance, a major journalist and author, Patricio Lara in El Espectador wrote an article saying come out and march with us, Mr. President, and send a message to those who would commit acts of violence and show your support for our social leaders. So we're working on that. But not just in the march. And the Catholic Church has joined in and the ombudsman and important writers like Juan Gabriel Vasquez, Héctor Rabat because it's about protecting the lives of leaders until we're also doing work locally where the people are being killed to prevent such attacks and asking certain political sectors in the government to change their rhetoric which is stigmatizing the work of these social leaders throughout the land. So that's our first task. And the second task also referred to by Steve. Those who are familiar with the Peace Accords know that the Accord created special development programs, tertiary development programs in 170 different places and also created transitional congressional seats 16 districts specifically in the House of Representatives that would give those particular districts a district that have historically been underrepresented politically that weren't properly represented in Congress. They could elect their spokespeople to ensure implementation of the peace and that never happened because there was such stigmatization happening. The people who were against the Peace Accords were spreading the false message that those special seats in Congress were for the FARC. And so now we're gathering a million signatures in Columbia to direct a letter to the Council of State in Columbia which is a judicial entity and is now reviewing a vote to determine whether these representatives, these special representatives may be elected to their seats or not. Thank you, thank you very much. One last question about the movement itself. You have highlighted the great diversity amongst your members, political, geographic, and other types of diversity. Many in Columbia say that what is undermining implementation is the economy and political polarization. What contribution do you think Defendamos la Paz can make to try to soften that polarization? Perhaps Luis Alberto Laura can address that. Well, we see great difficulties in implementing the Accords and we're going to continue to try to contain those attempts to modify the Accords. But in terms of implementation, we do see an opportunity for dialogue with the government and support implementation. As a movement, what we want to do, talking about implementation specifically, yes, are difficulties and the government is moving forward in some areas, not as much as we would like, perhaps not with the approach that we think it should bring to bear, but there is an opportunity to say to the government, okay, we're here and we are here to help you in whichever way we can. That can be our contribution. To say we are not here to oppose you per se, we're not saying that we disagree with everything you're doing. Luis Alberto, yes, I'd like to add something and it might seem minor, but it is of symbolic importance. First of all, you have to disarm language. Defendamos la paz as providing an example there. How can we build peace through language and to avoid polarization? Because we've created an environment for dialogue. Our movement can be instrumental in creating a platform for national dialogue with civil society on two or three major issues around which we agree with the government, one of them, to protect the lives of social leaders and former combatants. That could be one. Another simple agreement when we were in the government, we agreed with the Centro Democrática on some issues of sustainable development in the environment. That's another area where we could make progress and this would send a message to the country that we are reducing polarization. Thank you so much Luis Alberto. I'd like to now take about half an hour to talk about the specific conditions in the country right now and perhaps the three of you can provide your individual views, whether they're majority or minority views. You can just clarify your perspectives and just indicate whether it's the view of all of Defendamos la paz or whether it is actually a matter of internal debate given the diversity of opinions. The first question, we already touched upon it discussing polarization around peace. President Duque campaigned against the peace accords are just for an implementation with some adjustments and 110 million votes. Colombian society, is it really against peace? What is your assessment? Perhaps Juan Fernando can start out in terms of public opinion around the peace process in Colombia. Thank you Steve for that question because it gives me the opportunity to comment on something said by Carlos Trujillo who was here in Washington who was mentioning some election figures that were not quite in line with reality. And I'd like to set that right. The foreign minister said that they insisted on changes to the peace accords because the Colombian people had voted and given them the mandate to amend that agreement. Though it wasn't much of a mandate because Duque got 10 million and the chief negotiator with the FARC got under 400,000 votes. So really it's a manipulation of the facts as regards public opinion in Colombia. I'm convinced that there is much more support for the peace accords now than at the time the referendum took place. But of course we need to recognize that the agreement was rejected in the referendum and that President Duque won legitimately but the figures that he cited are not those, the real figures if you wanna look at the figures beyond perceptions and beyond the polls. In the first round of the presidential elections in Colombia, five candidates participated. Gustavo Petro, Sergio Fajardo, Humberto de la Calle, Hermann Vargasieras and President Duque. Four of those candidates, the first four that I've just mentioned throughout the campaign pledged to go forward with the peace agreement, to implement the peace agreement with each placing different points of emphasis as is only natural in a political campaign. Now those four candidates got more than 10 million votes on the first round and Ivan Duque on the first round got seven million votes. So if we wanna look at the figures that have been referred to here in order to justify saying there's a mandate to change the peace accords, 10 million plus was Gustavo Petro, Sergio Fajardo, Hermann Vargasieras and Humberto de la Calle and seven million votes were the votes that President Duque got. So there was a clear majority on the first round. Now something different, I'm not gonna get into that debate. We all know the essence and spirit of second round elections in Columbia and around the world. It is a totally different election depending on who moves on to the second round. So the affirmation that assertion is false but not only is it false, it's also mistaken. I would like to make an appeal to the government. If you have a mistaken assessment and you're convinced of that mistaken assessment, then that's gonna take you to mistaken solutions. The government is making mistakes believing that is answering to a citizen mandate that does not exist. Moreover, in addition to that, if you wanna make a value judgment, you cannot say that each individual who voted for President Duque was motivated by his campaign against the peace accords. They were motivated by many other considerations, not just the peace accords. Indeed, what I perceive today, Steve, is very contradictory. Much of the support for President Duque, particularly from the Colombian business class, which supported Duque for various reasons, not because of his position on the peace agreement, is now second tired of polarization and the persistence of trying to keep us in the past and what they have said and what they want is, well, independent of what each of us thinks about each particular point of the peace accords, we need to turn the page and build the country of the future and our vision is that the country of the future depends. We see that it's set it so well. Peace is not everything. The end of the conflict is not everything, but it is an essential condition for being able to positively transform Colombia. Very well, thank you very much Juan Fernando. I would now like to ask Laura a question about implementation of the agreement with the FARC as such. What are the areas? Well, there are several points of implementation and there were several points on the negotiating agenda. What are the most worrisome areas for you and perhaps for Defendamos la Paz as a whole? We're very much concerned. Well, there are two fundamental points, I think, that have to do one with the practice and the other with the law. Now, in terms of practice, we don't have a peace budget. One of the legislative acts that was adopted to develop the peace accords demanded that the peace budget be clearly defined in the National Development Plan. And what has happened is that there is no peace budget. That has disappeared and the government's argument is that the peace budget is incorporated in all the other budget items and that you need to go and look for it. Now, some of us members of Defendamos la Paz, such as Juanita Goberto, who is a member of Congress, took the work to go line by line through the National Development Plan in order to measure how much money could be used to implement peace. And she concluded that 29% of what would be needed for this year's goals is there as a peace budget. In other words, we have 29% of what it should be and it's distributed all over the place. That's one of our main concerns. The second concern has to do with legislative implementation. There are certain chapters of the peace agreement in other words, the peace agreement needs to be translated into law in Columbia and not a single law has been adopted on certain aspects of it. For example, on rural development. That's chapter one of the peace accords and it's fundamental for a basic reason. What is set out there are things that Columbia should be doing for rural development with or without an agreement, as Lisa indicated in her introductory remarks. And finally, I wanna share something with you. We recognize that there are things that the government is doing in terms of reintegration of former combatants. We think that it is doing that. Now, there is implementation and there is implementation with the approach based on the agreement. But we find that the government's implementation cuts the agreement short. Why? Because it is limited to disarmament demobilization and reintegration of former combatants. The agreement went much further than DDR. It had a territorial focus. What did it say? It said, we need to reintegrate these people, have reconciliation with the victims that they caused in their territory but with an approach that means rural development for those communities. And that is why it created the development plans with territorial focus. Now, the law passed by the administration creates certain strategic integral zones for consolidation, which send us back to 2000, 2003, 2004, 2005. This is the vision of former President Álvaro Uribe. So he's transformed this territorial approach that looks at the territory itself as the victim and considers that reparation comes with its development and replaces it with a purely militaristic point of view with presence of the state with armed forces in these zones. So we also say implementation, yes, but also with the focus of the peace accords. Now, even so, even so in saying all of these things, at Defendamos La Paz, we do believe that we have to note what is of value in implementation that has been done and try to cooperate with that. So we are examining what has been done and what has not been done with focus of the agreement, but we believe that where things have been done and done properly, we need to be ready to collaborate. Now I have a question for Luis Gilberto about one of the issues that is also of concern to you, but you didn't mention. We've talked about social leaders. Luis Gilberto, can you share with us your understanding of the causes and the phenomena behind these attacks on and assassinations of social leaders? Perhaps you could cite some examples from your own department. Yes, Steve, this is really one of the most painful and unacceptable phenomena occurring in Colombia, the assassinations of social leaders in Colombia. It's very painful for the country and because of this, we are going to go out and walk and shout out for life. Next July 26th. Very unfortunate incidents have occurred. 40% of the leaders who have been assassinated are from Afro-descendant and indigenous communities but there are also so many from peasant communities in that other Colombia. The causes are very related, obviously, to the illegal forces that want to stop implementation of the peace process. And it would appear, and this is what we don't want, it would appear that history is being repeated in Colombia, which is to say every time we move towards peace agreements, the implementation of those agreements begins and then social leaders, community leaders are assassinated and the wars become recycled. That is what we need to avoid on this occasion. And that's obviously part of the causes and many have related to the rights for which these leaders are struggling. Maria Elvira Urtado, an Afro-Columbian leader was assassinated in northern Colombia right in front of her children. And I know that some of you will have seen the video in which it was practically impossible to console her son at all. And this incident really moved the country so as to break with that lack of knowledge, ignoring and being apathetic about that suffering. Now I would note that the social leaders, men and women, are the basis of the peace process. They're the basis for building peace and for implementing peace in those territories. And we need to go forward working hand in hand with them. And the previous administration left in place an architecture for going forward in working with these leaders and their organizations for their own protection. Priority should be assigned to the work that the commission on guarantees for protection of leaders in former combatants. That was set up to be able to sit down and talk with them about how to ensure their protection. And third, it has to do with the mechanisms, collective mechanisms for protection of these leaders because protecting these leaders and the protection for the leaders in these territories is not conventional. And that needs to be worked on with the leaders themselves. And beyond that, the confidence that needs to be generated. We don't want to fill those territories with police and army presence, but rather we wanna generate confidence in these leaders that they feel protected and that they feel protected by the police and armed forces and the construction of that confidence building is done on a day-to-day, by interacting with them on a day-to-day basis. So I invite you and we thank you because the international community has been very active supporting Colombian society in defending the leaders. But we need to continue forward with this because it's really a major priority to be able to protect them. Thank you very much, Luis Gilberto. Now I'd like to put another question to Juan Fernando. There's a talk and about, and Defendamos la Paz itself, here's a lot of its actions to the commitment of the Colombian government and the Colombian state to implement the peace agreement with the FARC. Could you explain to us your view of the FARC, now a political party and its commitment to implementing the agreements? There's been talk of internal tensions. We have seen that San Trij seems to have fled of late and Ivan Marcos as well. Perhaps you could explain what you think and what the FARC role is or what they are doing within Defendamos la Paz. The first thing we need to say is that the beginning of the FARC as a political party has been unfortunate because they needed a PR advisor and a strategy advisor to have called the party that came about from their own demobilization, the FARC grillers, to have called them by the same acronym, FARC. Well, I don't wanna say more about it, but I wouldn't wanna make any mistakes. But I hope that they can go forward in overcoming that mistake, which they made and many of us warned them before they made the mistake. But beyond that political error, what has led them to recalcitrant sectors and bad faith sectors in Colombian society tried to link the FARC political party with the FARC dissident fronts. That's one reason why I say it was a mistake. Beyond that mistake, what we have seen are two fundamental issues. First, when the negotiation with the FARC began in 2012, the skeptics and those who were in opposition said at least half of the FARC are involved in drug trafficking. They are never going to become involved in a negotiation. They're never going to accept an agreement. This is what was said to those of us who not in the government were still friends of a negotiation. Now, once the agreement was signed, 95% of the FARC accepted the agreement, only one FARC in the Guavari department in the south of Colombia that can't really be called the dissident front because they never became involved in the peace process. They were marginalized and they continue to be marginalized. They need to be fought militarily. They were fought during the census administration. Now they're being fought as well. And I hope that there is success in that military combat because these are people who are exclusively devoted to drug trafficking. After the agreement was signed and as it's been developed, differences have come about in terms of how members of the FARC have responded to the peace accords and what has happened with Yvonne Marcus and subsequently with El Pisa and now with Santhrich has come to pass. But the FARC political party, the main, the immense majority of the FARC, 90% of the people who accepted the agreement today are committed to the agreement. Today they are respecting the institutions. They are respecting justice in Colombia. They are involved in politics. They're debating and discussing and participating in programs to form an opinion, trying to create a political party in the different regions. This was the fundamental purpose of the peace agreement. And I think the government makes a mistake when it doesn't value it sufficiently looking only at that part of the FARC that are not following through with the accords. So much, so is there a commitment that there has been a profound break on the part of the FARC political party structure. I think this is evident today. The majority, not only of the commanders, not only of those who are in the Senate and the House today, but of the rank and file of the guerrillas in the territories today are committed to the agreement. In recent days, we've seen numerous expressions of the process of re-incorporation in different parts of the country, productive projects, undertakings, people studying, 700 members of the FARC are part of the National Protection Unit in the protection arrangements with no problems. They work in mine removal. So I would say that there is a process of social and economic re-incorporation that is, well, from the standpoint that is consolidating politically with candidates to councils and mayor's offices in the October regional election. So I think that the FARC have been complying with the agreement and carrying out the agreement with the exception of those who definitively decided to not follow through with the country and to cause major damage to peace, to Colombian, to the FARC themselves. Steve asked me to tell an anecdote about what life is like negotiating these positions on the chat. One of the most surprising things to see the transformation on the part of those who were the FARC negotiators. Those of us who have always defended peace in human rights are convinced that they will come before the special jurisdiction for peace and that they will answer for the crimes of the FARC. So we share this chat with them and we reach joint positions and it's been a whole experience. So let me tell you the following anecdote. One day, a journalist published something that we thought was a lie regarding implementation of the peace accords and someone published it on the chat with in a very critical tone and I supported their critical tone. And the one who came down on us was a former commander of the FARC who said, be more patient, be more tolerant vis-a-vis this point of view, the point of view of people who oppose the accords because I understand there are people who hate us. And it made me think the country has changed so much. There have been such great peace dividends here where you have a former FARC commander who is hushing up our criticisms telling, asking that we be more tolerant, understanding that these are difficulties that are just to be expected in the path of implementation. So that chat personally, not politically, but personally has been a pedagogic educational chat. I think it has made us all better persons because we have set aside any prejudices, Sergio Fajardo, Gustavo Petro both participate, the former commanders of the FARC participate and it has, well, you know, the first thing that happens is when you have someone who you consider the adversary, well, then you cannot see the humanity of the other. And I think this chat has been so useful because it has made us all more tolerant and the conversation is going forward and continues to deepen. Thank you very much, Laura. I'd like to stay with you right now. I mentioned the case of Sanctuiche, which obviously has implications for bilateral relations with the United States, but especially with this institution that is so important for the peace screen, which is the special jurisdiction for peace. After the decision that he should not be, Sanctuiche should not be extradited. There have been many criticisms of special jurisdiction for peace and its credibility has been criticized for many sectors. What does the special jurisdiction for peace need to do to strengthen its legitimacy vis-a-vis public opinion in Columbia and here in the United States? Well, let me begin with what I think we should do for the special jurisdiction for peace to increase its legitimacy and it's very simple. Give it a little bit of time. The special jurisdiction for peace was not given the instruments needed for it to be able to operate swiftly and by its nature it is an institution with, well, its implementation has been further delayed because the government wasn't supporting its implementation. So the government says it's not acting swiftly yet it places obstacles in its way. So I say we need to give the special jurisdiction for peace time. Its first judgment has not yet been handed down. Now I do think that there are things to be done. What has happened with the Sanctuiche case, no doubt has put the special jurisdiction for peace in the eye of the hurricane. In Columbia the process for requesting extradition is or is not authorized by the Supreme Court of Justice. Now the peace accords established certain mechanisms to guarantee non-extradition for the commanders unless they've committed crimes after the signing of the peace accords, after the signing of the peace accords, the guarantee of non-extradition doesn't apply. Now the special jurisdiction for peace has allowed the process to continue. There were 48 to 53 people who have asked that the extradition process be stopped. Now what is needed to clarify the mechanisms? Well what does the special jurisdiction say in the case of Sanctuiche? It says we have no way to identify the date because the United States is refusing to tell us the date on which these crimes were committed. It's not sharing the information. We knew publicly and what the media said but there was no official sharing of the information and therefore the special jurisdiction for peace said in effect there's no information available so as to be able to deny him the guarantee of non-extradition. And so the process was stopped temporarily at least at that point so in terms of bilateral relations I think the first thing that needs to be done is to clarify how one is going to proceed so as to be able to share information and so that cases such as this not come up again a case that put the special jurisdiction for peace in a very delicate situation now what more can the HEP do? Well let me tell you quickly three points that have been indicated by the International Commission of Juris which came to Columbia on a mission and they left us with three thoughts. One is for the HEP to have a closer relationship with the victims. The complaint is not just the complaint of those who have been victims of the FARC, it's general. One need, they need to facilitate incorporation of the victims into the proceedings. The second one must assure that the HEP takes into account reparations in its judgments. Why? Because since there is a law and victims there's a risk that the HEP could say that all of the compensation should be handled administratively and third restorative sanctions should be real sanctions. Now they should not make transitional justice or make a mockery of it in the eyes of the victims but we need to give the special jurisdiction time. We trust that the special jurisdiction for peace will hear, bear in mind these recommendations and the members of the FARC will answer for their crimes before the HEP and the HEP will use transitional justice to strike a balance that the country needs so as to take a step towards reconciliation. Thank you very much, Laura. Continuing with my last two questions on the dissidences and following up on my last two questions on the dissidences and internal tensions within the FARC and the exit of Sandrich, there have been rumors, leak of intelligence reports to the press about the possibility that Sandrich and Ivan Marquez might make alliances with the other Colombian guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army ELN which participated in a parallel process to the negotiations with the FARC. I'd like to put this question to Luis Gilberto. Perhaps you could give your personal opinion or the views of Defendamos la Paz. What is your position on the possibility of continuing to insist on negotiating with and disarming the ELN before a alliance of these actors who have become marginalized from the peace process becomes consolidated? First of all, I'd like to say that obviously the department where I was governor is one of the hardest hit by the actions of the ELN and in the movement Defendamos la Paz, well, we has sent a letter to the ELN demanding of them signs of a willingness to reach peace because what is clear and I shift to giving my more personal position here, public opinion is very skeptical about the ELN and negotiations with the ELN because it is not showing signs of an interest in peace. Quite to the contrary, everything would appear to indicate that they are not really interested in advancing along that path. So we continue to demand those shows of peace of an interest in peace which shouldn't be too difficult for that girl group to do. First of all, attacking the oil infrastructure makes no sense. From the environmental standpoint and I suffered this as minister of environment responding to such attacks and carrying out activities to try to contain the impact of those attacks on the oil infrastructure, impacts on water resources, on soil, on forests, impacts on the communities, many of those communities ended up without drinking water and that is terrible suffering and recovering those areas will take years. So there is a possibility there of showing specifically, concretely, interest in peace. And we're going to continue. It's not a question of convincing the government, it's a question of convincing public opinion, Colombian public opinion that they really do have a willingness to go forward in a negotiation so that we can finally have a complete peace in my personal opinion and the movement, that was La Paz has also said, so we need to continue to demand of the ELN that they come up with signs of peace to show the whole country. The ELN, like certain sectors of the government and the government party, seem like they think they're living in the Columbia of 15 or 20 years ago. They don't realize that 15 years have gone by the Colombian society has changed thanks to the Peace Accord with the FARC. Today, Colombian society fortunately does not tolerate attacks on oil pipelines. It does not tolerate and rejects unanimously kidnappings, which wasn't the case before. They continue to think that by carrying out kidnappings, attacking the oil pipelines of the civilian population is the way to get to the negotiating table. They live in another world. They need to come down to ground, realize we're in 2019 and the Colombian society has changed and it's going to be otherwise, it's going to be very difficult for any possibility of negotiation with them to go forward. But on that, and this is a very personal thing, we need to continue insisting. We need to understand that we need to continue and persist. I would hope that the government would carry out or comply with the protocols of the negotiations. This is a first step, but at least there should continue to be a contact and dialogue and they should continue demanding those signs of willingness for peace. One thing that's discussed a great deal in Washington is great concern around the Venezuelan crisis and the role of the ELN within Venezuelan territory. Now without getting into all the debates about Venezuela and what solutions there might be to that crisis, Lisa as a person with an international viewpoint and a lot of experience in the region, could you draw that connection for us between what's going on domestically in Colombia and the solution to the Venezuelan crisis? Well, you most likely know that the Duque administration has made support for Guaidó and Venezuela's democratic transition a priority. We believe that in order to facilitate a democratic transition in Venezuela, it's important to strengthen the peace process in Colombia first. Let's not focus on the transition first in Venezuela and then worry about Colombia. I think that it's very important for Venezuela to have the dissident fronts dealt with in Colombia so that they don't spill over into Venezuela and become one more driver of violence that destabilizes a transition. If we're demobilizing the FARC and the president takes six months just to decide whether or not he is in favor of the law establishing the half the spiritual jurisdiction for peace, it took that long. And he presented his issues and we spent months working out his issues with the law. If you're a former combatant in a transitional area and you're waiting, you're going to ask yourself, where's the legal certainty for me? And so that situation raises the risk of people not believing in the rule of law here. If they don't find the backing with the government then they're going to find the banking with the regime of the neighboring country. These scenarios not only hinder implementation of the peace process in Colombia but they create an obstacle to a democratic transition in Venezuela. So we are calling upon our government to understand that what it's doing has regional implications. Thank you, Laura. I'm going to post this one last question that has to do with what's going on right now. Yesterday the constitutional court issued a ruling on the use of aerial fumigation in Colombia. It seems to reduce the restrictions on glyphosate spraying. So how do you interpret that court ruling and what is the position of your movement as regards the peace accords provisions for voluntary crops substitution so that people who were growing cocoa could do something else? Well, Luis Roberto is the expert on this. Well, I did deal with it a lot in the past. The first thing we need to highlight is that 50 years of drug war have shown that the battle has been lost and criminalizing the parts of the supply chain and in the US criminalizing ethnic minorities across the board it's been a disaster that's recognized and we need to take a multilateral approach. And secondly, specifically we do not agree with or where we don't agree with the government is with the approach of using this aerial fumigation as a main tool for several reasons. There's already a legal framework and in general the belief in Colombia that glyphosate roundup should not be used. This is a hot topic in the US too with the implications that it has for health and in Colombia with the impact it has on the environment. But it's also ineffective to fight illegal crops. I can give you just a couple of examples in Colombia just in the last, well just in two years, 2006, 2007 where most of the aerial spraying happened about 320,000 hectares. Instead of seeing a reduction in cocoa crops we saw more. We're talking about an area the size of Rhode Island. In Colombia, aerial spraying has covered almost 2 billion hectares, which is an area equivalent to the size of New Jersey. That much area has been sprayed with roundup. And this is a very strategic ecosystem that the spraying has happened on and imagine the impacts. And there's a 60% replanting rate. So there's only a 35% effectiveness rate with this approach. So it's not a good alternative and the costs are enormous. So we agree, I think the country agrees and it's in the peace accords. We need to choose manual eradication and to do it in accord with families. There are 100,000 families in this crops substitution program, there could be more. And there's a 90% compliance rate with the agreements that have been signed in that way. And then there's just a 0.6 replanting rate with that other approach, compare that to 60% replanting rate. So this is working. So then there's the approach of forced manual eradication where there's law enforcement along and the conjunction with demining. But there are also other approaches. There's this alternative development in the context of the peace accords. Well, here comes the constitutional accords ruling. The constitutional court has been very clear. Review the conditions or maintain the conditions. No modulation is requested by the government. And it does open a minor possibility for the government to regulate the situation through the National Narcotics Office. But it is clear in its ruling that it must be done in the context of the country's legal framework, which includes the peace accords, which call for voluntary manual eradication first. And so I believe that the country is going to maintain its ban on aerial spraying. Because from my perspective, they will not be able to demonstrate that aerial spraying and roundup, roundup don't cause serious harm to health and the environment in Columbia. Thank you, Luis, I've gone through all my questions. I might keep a couple up my sleeve for later, but I wanted to give the audience the opportunity to ask these three members of Devendamos la Paz, their questions about what's going on in the country. So perhaps we'll start with Mark down here. Thank you, Mark Schneider. I'm so happy to see this movement and the efforts to sustain the peace process. I have two questions. One is really for the minister. The UN Secretary General issued his latest report for the verification mission in which the focus is on the concern that we all share regarding the killings of activists and ex-combatants. And what the report says is that not just the current administration, but the Santos administration too, failed to guarantee the effective presence of the state in these 170 post-conflict municipalities. And my question is why? Because everyone was calling for it. Why was there not a strategic plan as Laura referred to, to increase the number of schools and law enforcement in these 170 municipalities and to do so sooner? And to evaluate what resources are on hand and what could be done, why was an international donors conference not called through the IDB or the World Bank or the United Nations? That is my first question. Second, you have now seen references to the Adias law with the return of minister Adias to Columbia through a law supposedly put forward by former President Uribe, which would enable any officer sentenced between or since 91 to have a different court process, court proceeding. So my question is what implications this might have for implementation of the piece of courts. Those are the two questions. Oh, is that all? I'd like to take a few questions more first and then we'll hear from our three leaders. We have one up here in the last row. Thank you. Edward O'Donnell from the McCain Institute and Arizona State University. Along the lines of Mr. Snyder, to what extent do you want help from outside? There are plenty of USAID programs on democracy and human rights. Are you looking for that kind of support from outside from the US government from possibly the OAS or IDB or other friends of Columbia, European governments, European Union? Or do you want to keep this a movement that is strictly national without outside influence? How do you see that sort of balance in terms of your needs and support from outside of Columbia? Thank you. Great, thanks. A third question up here. The gentleman up here. Good morning, I'm Camilo Romero. I have a question that has to do with the work that we're doing in the Chocot region where efforts have focused on the desires of young people to have a sense of belonging with the peace process and the civic process, kind of what's happening with the US too, where there are a lot of young people that have gotten involved in the political campaigns, especially inspired now by the current US president. So I'd like to know what tools you see to promote this idea that any young person can join in the fight, the civilian fight. We've got a literature for children project in conflict areas, specifically Chocot, but it's hard to awaken that drive to express one's vote and one's voice. And since you're here and you have this special role, we'd like to hear your opinion on that. Thank you. Why don't we take a fourth question, Stephanie down here. Thank you, I'm Stephanie Burgess from Oxfam. This has been a really interesting and very important presentation. I don't closely follow the media in Columbia, but you spoke of the importance of changing the narrative here outside Columbia. It seems like the narrative has been changed by the current administration, which insists that it is implementing the peace accords and that it has the right to interpret how it should implement it, but you also mentioned the importance of full implementation and that you're willing to collaborate with the government where it's making progress and point out where it isn't. But as Lisa says, it's a document in and of itself, a very complex document, and the devil is in the details. It seems to me that the great challenge lies in ensuring full implementation of all those details and not allowing things to be twisted. So my question is, how important do you think those details are and how much focus should be placed on not straying from the true intent of the peace accords? Thank you. Thank you, Stephanie. So the first question from Mark had to do with the government's plans to extend its reach into areas previously controlled by the FARC. You were the minister of the interior, so perhaps we can hear from you first one. Answer Mark's question and the last one because I think I can tie them together and share a reflection. On how they're connected. The killings of social leaders did not start on August 7th, 2018. They had been happening prior. And for that reason, the peace accords include the specific point for the protection of the lives, not just as former FARC combatants who do mobilize and lay down their arms, but also for social leaders in these areas because as Luis Gilberto pointed out, they are the ones that need to be building the peace in those areas. So who is killing the social leaders? The narco mafia, which is opposed to the work of the social leaders who are encouraging crop substitution locally. The mafia of illegal mining, which is opposed to the leaders work protecting the environment. The land grab mafia, which is opposed to the land restitution policy that began with the previous administration. So the issue is that the mechanisms in place to ensure the protection of these leaders were laid out in the accords and the new administration simply tossed them aside and began to make up their own policies without the participation of human rights groups and civil society. You can't just design a protection policy without the involvement of those who need protecting. That's obvious. This is as regards social leaders. And I know that your question went far beyond just those killings, but I think that this is a case where there was there was a plan to get the state's presence out into the areas that had been controlled by the FARC. It was a partial plan to start with and very hard to implement, of course, because these areas are very difficult to get to, but it was never a fleshed out plan. Because we had the territorial development plans for the 170 municipalities and that's a big process. It couldn't be done overnight. It's an ongoing process. And there, yes, the Colombian state was slow. This administration and prior and the military institutions were slow on what they needed to do. And so now we need to implement these development plans because they were part of a participatory process. 250,000 people were involved in formulating these territorial development plans for building sidewalks or schools or what have you. And now somebody from Gata Tumbo or North Santander to come to the Congress and say, gentlemen, where is the state? You're not there. We don't have a territorial judge. Look, we don't have a school. We don't have a health clinic. These were the things that were supposed to be in place to ensure government control. And it has been very hard for us. And the cost has been the killing of leaders and there's been a cost in terms of the sense of frustration felt by these communities because those communities don't care about Santrich or Arias. The people who are in the Cacata, Putomayo, or Cata Tumbo, San Caristo areas, Choco, what have you, they don't care whether Santrich gets extradited or not. And they don't care if Arias stays in the US or ends up in Columbia again. What they care about is the impact on their daily lives of the peace accords, which had brought them great hope because they had been included, engaged in the process. And so it's so frustrating that no progress is being made on that front. The issue of Felipe Arias. In content terms, I don't think it needs to affect the peace accords. It's a justice issue that involves the courts and the Congress, but where there will be an impact is in the political environment. It takes us back to polarization instead of worrying about how to take care of the communities with their high hopes for the peace accords. We are discussing whether Santrich is in Venezuela or not and whether Arias should be detained in military barracks or in la picota jail. And again, we had the president wasting six months discussing his objections to the Jep law and now another six months talking about this instead of worrying about what they should be worrying about the things that have a greater human impact. I see it as an incredible waste. And just to wrap up, to tie it together with the other question touching on something that Laura mentioned at the outset. The peace accords were to be implemented through 2030. That date was not chosen arbitrarily. We knew, everyone knew how hard it would be to implement. As Laura said, this wasn't just a simple disarmament demobilization process. It was meant to truly transform the country. It's much more than just come here, lay down your weapons and we'll give you some money or a job. It was a long-term process. And this is a personal view, which I'll point out because Steve asked us to do that. It's not a defendamos la paz view, but many people have discussed this and many people agree. We cannot seek to implement a peace accord of this region, of this type in just three or four years, even if a proponent of the peace accords had won the last election, there would be difficulties in implementing the process. There wouldn't be as much time wasted with the debates and arguments, but there would still be implementation issues. Implementation was meant to go through 2030. Now, Steve asked about polarization and what contribution defendamos la paz could make. And I think that it would be very positive and constructive for our country in terms of local peace building if we could somehow all agree on a few basic minimum points. Let's not demand as many radical groups do that implementation be 100% right away. The government has to do everything at the same time. That would be hard even if there weren't a lack of will on the part of the administration. So my reflection is why not say to the government, what points of the accords do you find the least contrary to your vision for the country because they won the elections, we can't deny that. You can't force a duly elected administration to do things they don't believe in even if it is part of a peace accord. We'd have to be very naive or extremely stubborn to ask a center Democrat administration to carry out rural reform because it's antithetical to their ideological and political platform. Why waste efforts on that when it's going to create controversy? Some might say it's even cynical to focus all that efforts there. It's not going to happen. So if we want to see that happen then we're going to have to wait for an administration that believes in those same values even under the Santos administration which did believe in those things owing to a lack of time and other things. We couldn't carry anything out because there was opposition from land owners and politicians with vested interests and keeping things as they were. And now you have administration with a different vision for local development. So let's focus on the territorial development plans that reintegration of ex gorillas. I think the government might find that to be in its interest and it's in the interest of our movement. We could find points of agreement and create a climate of understanding that can help drive a long implementation. Looking past Arias, past Santrich, past extradition. Thank you so much Juan Fernando. There were two pretty hefty questions there from Mark. Laura, maybe you can help us with Camilo's question regarding young people being engaged in your movement and Ed's question about what support the movement might want from the international people. Well, I'll start with the gentleman from the University, Arizona State University. We have had some discussions internally as to what we're going to do with a movement that grew organically so quickly over just five months. All of us, there are public figures and people come to us and say, we want to belong, we want to be part of this. And we don't have the operating capacity to keep bringing people in and growing even more. So we've discussed what do we do? What do we not want? We do not wish to become one more NGO that's just going to compete with other NGOs. And we don't want to kill the magic of this dynamic that we've built through the chat and all the awareness we've raised by that means. If we seek legal status as an organization, we're going to kill what has been born here. So what do we need? All of us, we have jobs, we're working. This has become kind of a side hustle that has ended up taking up a lot of energy. We all, not just the majority, I'd say we all have work and lives and things to do. So we do need a minimal structure that allows for coordination, maybe somebody in communication, somebody who could help us keep a database so that we could continue to grow. That is what I would say that we need. It's not really financing that we need. That's not a high-priced thing. The other thing we need, we would like to have some financial cushion to be able to do this and that is to be able to have a presence when threatened leaders, when leaders are threatened. Why? Because we believe that accompaniment, that a presence on the ground of some of us could quickly mobilize. If we could mobilize, we could send a message and that would have a deterrent effect. Minister Cristo knows it. When he was minister, a public pronouncement at the particular moment would succeed in stopping the action of the violent actors. One's word and one's presence matter. Those are the things we'd like to do. Those are the things for which we need financing. We're just recently getting organized. We've not, but we don't want to become some kind of NGO or organization that would stand in the way of us continuing to work the way we've been working. So the financing we need is really minor financing and we believe that at some point in time we need to get organized and go out and ask for it. Now, as regards the youth, we have a youth chat. Why is the youth chat so important for us? Well, it is very close to my heart and I'll tell you why, because when we lost the referendum, well, you could imagine what this means for the country. It was to lose by 50,000 votes, a soccer stadium. Those who lifted us out of our depression were those youth and university students who took to the streets and said try to negotiate an agreement. Try to renegotiate that, but this cannot just be left like that. And you may recall those marches with millions of people in the street. Those were youth leaders, young leaders. Us old folks, well, he was renegotiating. And the rest of us who were around this were in a depression, so we're depressed. So it was the youth who brought us out of that. And the movement has maintained ties with the youth and there's a youth chat that continues to grow. There are more and more people getting in and a project like Literature for Children, the project you've talked about. Well, everybody's projects become strengthened. So I invite you to participate in the chat. Indeed, all the Colombians who are here who want to join, come up to me, give me your data, your contact information, and we can see in which of the many chats we have, you might have the best participation. I invite you to participate in more than welcome. Thank you very much, Laura. Unfortunately, give me just one minute. I will, I will give you the last word. We're gonna hear the final comments from the three of you. I would invite you to share just a few words of optimism, speaking out depression, that has struck the peace movement at certain times, optimism, and your message. As individuals who are speaking on behalf of Defendamos la Paz for the public here in Washington, the audience in Washington, what is your message of optimism for the future of peace in Colombia? Luis Gilberto and then Juan Fernando. Just one brief comment. Obviously, what we need, well, the peace accord set forth a vision for the country, particularly for the other Colombia, the Colombia that I'm from. That is the problem of the country. That other Colombia has been abandoned. And so the peace accord involves a proposal for integrating that Colombia. What we see is lacking in what is being put forward by the government at this time is that alternative proposal and the vision they have for us in that other Colombia. We don't see any, but there are elements of hope. And so to answer to what Mark Schneider was saying about why don't we mobilize resources, let me cite one specific example. We created the Colombia Sostenible Fund. It is a $100 million credit of $100 million from the IDP, $200 million in cooperation from Norway and similar from other European Union countries to get to $500 million. The resources are there. That's when we left the government, that was there. Today the government, and this is a sign of peace, has given continuity to those processes. And it just allocated $27 million of those resources to have a greater presence on environmental issues and capitalize on the environmental dividends of peace in the regions. So I think that is an important sign of hope. And I think we need to continue working along at those lines, but with a vision of how to incorporate that other Colombia. Thank you, Luis Gilberto. Well, I wanted to tell you that, albeit all the difficulties in implementing the peace accords, we understand that if a government that was more friendly vis-a-vis the agreement had come into power, we wouldn't be involved in all of this, please take with you the idea that the country that we have today is a much better country than when we were a country at war, despite so many difficulties. That is my first message. The peace evidence can be seen. The number of homicides in Colombia has dropped from 2012. Significantly, it kept dropping. We had never seen this for decades. Now, unfortunately, the number of homicides has going up a bit. But what I want to tell you is that we have savored what it means to be close to peace. There were regions to which peace was brought. There were regions where they feel, they have already felt and experienced what it means to be at ease, peace of mind. I have a 15-year-old son, and I tell him, well, ever since he's been watching the news, Colombia's been negotiating peace. But before that was massacre after massacre every two days. There'd be a massacre in the news. That's my first message. The second message is that the United States has always been a friend of peace in Colombia. In the case of the objections, it took a position in which the defendamos la paz position, and the position of the US mission were contrary. But in general, the United States has provided significant support for peace. We're very grateful, and we hope that continues. We hope that the expedition issue can be resolved. With a bilateral agreement that would make things very clear for the courts in Colombia and of clarity in Washington about what the courts need, and the Colombian courts need to be confident that they'll get the information that they need in order to make a ruling. But the United States support has been crucial. We're seeing it today. The human rights conditionalities in US legislation, for example, have already brought about changes in the armed forces that were announced today. We're convinced that were it not for the permanent oversight of the United States, we would not be where we are at today. So we do feel that gratitude, but at the same time, we ask that you remind Congress, the US Congress, of just how important it is to maintain support for implementation of the accords. Thank you. Well, Steve has asked us to convey a message of optimism, and that's important. And I'm gonna leave you with the following thought. Unfortunately, the electoral periods have had an interplay with the peace process. The referendum, which was convened then the presidential elections. And this year in October, we have regional elections. That is an element that we can't forget about because it could explain in large measure the attitudes, the statements and the decisions of the Duke administration, and particularly the statements and positions of the governing party, the Cetro Democrático vis-a-vis the October elections. And the optimism is that one would hope that after October and two years of no elections, that might create a space or allow for a space for dialogue and negotiation, and to be able to go forward in implementing the accords. Practically no one imagines in Colombia. Well, I think that the government, when it comes down to it, is, understands ever more clearly that Colombia without a peace agreement with the FARC, Colombia or with substantial modifications to the peace accords would mean turning the clock back 15 years. It seems that people have forgotten about the massacres and the attacks on police stations. There are thousands of lives of soldiers, police and former combatants of the FARC that have been saved, not as of the signing of the peace accords, but since the beginning of the, from the beginning of the negotiations, the level of intensity of the conflict in Colombia began to come down. The number of persons killed, particularly in our armed forces and police, and likewise the guerrillas and the civilian population. And to reiterate what Laura has said, we may have thousands of difficulties, but the country we have today, I have an 18 year old son. The country we have today, my 18 year old son, Juan Nicolás, who is going to start university this year in Colombia is very different from the country that I experienced when I was 18 years old that we have experienced. It is a different country, a much better country. We Colombians really like self-flagration. And I think that it's good to not fall into that mistake and instead to look to the future. And second, something very clear and compelling. And my colleagues have heard me and in Defendamos la Paz, they've heard me. I insist on this so much. I seem to be one of the most pro-Yankee members of Defendamos la Paz. This peace accord was also reached thanks in large measure to the understanding, support and backing of the United States. Thanks to the strategic decision made by the Santos Administration to involve the United States because of the importance of our bilateral relationship, because of the antecedents, because of the role of drug trafficking through the conflict, the role that it has played in the last 20 years in professionalization of our armed forces, the United States with a special envoy with direct involvement of the President of the United States and the Secretary of State, the U.S. Congress. I remember that when we were beginning the negotiation, the famous issue of extradition came up and there are certain commas and certain deja vu that countries and human beings experience and precisely today it's the source of the conflict and the decision was very clear. We need to guarantee the non-extradition of those persons of the FARC who comply with the agreement and don't commit crimes after the agreement. And the United States said, make the decision, the SUC fit and we reserve the right to seek extradition. So there are two different extradition mechanisms today in our relationship. We need to supplement them. We need to see how a cooperation can unfold and that's the only issue on which I see, obviously, and related to illicit crops, where there's a source of conflict. As for the rest, the government of the United States, was, is and continues to be committed to peace in Colombia. This is what we feel. They continue to accompany the peace accords. There are many areas of cooperation. Resources are being invested in peace. USAID is participating actively as are the other US agencies and my invitation to the Congress and the government of the United States is to continue to be committed to peace in Colombia. It's very important for the stability of the entire region. Thank you very much. Thank you Juan Fernando. I hope that for our audience here, both those who are present and those who have followed this live streaming via internet, I hope that this international presentation of Defendamos La Paz has been useful for clarifying the strategy that I've finished the composition and the approaches of the readers of this movement and the movement as such. Laura has reminded me that at her website, La Linea del Medio, all of the pronouncements of Defendamos La Paz are published in there. You can find more information. I am pleased to see some representatives of other countries here. I think that this movement can learn so much from and share so much with movements from other countries in conflict where nonviolence and civil society can make a commitment to seek and promote nonviolent changes. I'd like to thank Maria Antonia Montes from the Institute and our whole team, Cristina Espinel of the Columbia Human Rights Committee, who has done quite a bit for this delegation to be able to come. Lisa, for her words, and the other partners, Michael, from the American Dialogue and our colleagues from Sahil, all for your help in making this event happen. And please join me in giving a strong round of applause for these three leaders. Thank you very much.