Balza was addressing the participants after the conclusions of a report presented by 500 representatives of human rights groups and other social organisations from around the country were read out during a plenary session of the conference held in the Colombian capital. The report documented selective killings, forced disappearance, forced displacement, paramilitary violence, neglect by the state, and widespread impunity.
The Nov. 29-Dec. 1 conference is a follow-up to the meetings held by the international community in 2003 in London and in Colombia’s Caribbean resort city of Cartagena in 2005.
In London in 2003, representatives of the right-wing Colombian government of Álvaro Uribe met with delegates of the United Nations, the European Union, Switzerland, Norway, Canada, the United States and Japan, who along with Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Chile created the G24 international conference process, of which Balza is now the president.
This year’s conference was political in nature, rather than a meeting of donors, as in the past, Antonio Madariaga, head of the non-governmental organisation Corporación Viva la Ciudadanía, told IPS.
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