Mr. Eamon Gilmore:

Regarding my role, the High Representative’s request was that I would continue with my work on Colombia while doing my work as Special Representative for Human Rights. There is, as Deputy O’Sullivan said, an overlap in this regard. As it happens, the human rights dialogue with Colombia is due around now. We will have that formula on Monday morning. The consultations with civil society are taking place today and tomorrow and we will have a report on that on Monday morning when I am there. The new Government has committed to implementing the agreement and, as the Deputy said, Justice for Colombia has commented on that, which is very positive. I travelled with President Duque on his invitation to one of the FARC reintegration or reincorporation areas, met with former combatants and saw President Duque address them and commit to implementing the terms of the agreement. Regarding the six objections to which the Deputy referred, there is a law required to underpin the work of the transitional justice system of the JEP, the special jurisdiction that has been established. This required the signature of the President, and he sent it back to the Congress with six proposed changes. That is being considered by the Congress at present. The Congress referred it to the constitutional court, which has sent it back to the Congress, saying the Congress must complete its work on it, and it has been given a deadline for that work. That consideration is under way and, as in any parliamentary process, there is a lot of vigorous debate about the merits of the proposed changes, so we will have to see how that goes. The President has said he will accept what the Congress decides, so it is now a matter for the Congress to address that.

The second issue relating to the JEP is whether or not it applies to former state actors. A campaign is under way to have a separate process for state actors. This issue is also being considered by the constitutional court and a decision is to be made. In the meantime, as I said in my earlier statement, a very large number of former army officers and former police officers, something like 2,500 former members of the security services, have already submitted to the JEP, which is a very encouraging sign.

Land issues will take time, and there are issues relating to resources. As I said, there is a 15-year time horizon for dealing with rural development. It is not progressing very quickly, I must say, but it is an area where the European Union has been asked to provide accompaniment.

Regarding the coca situation, 70,000 have offered for voluntary substitution. The Government says it is committed to paying the compensation to be paid to them, which is good. The extent to which the voluntary crop substitution programme will progress after that remains to be seen. I will make a general point, however. The coca problem and the cocaine trade, in my view, cannot be solved purely at the supply end, and it is unreasonable and unrealistic of countries outside of Colombia to think it can be. It must also be addressed from the demand side. In the recent security discussions, the security dialogue between the EU and Colombia, we have discussed this issue and are doing some initial work on co-operation with Colombia as to how the demand side might also contribute to dealing with the coca situation.

On the issue of multinationals, the human rights challenges on the ground and the displacement of people in the various territories has more to do with the illegal economy than it has to do with the legal economy. It has to do with the drugs trade and the battle that is going on for control of that trade, and also with illegal mining. They are the biggest contributors to that.

I referred to two Senators not taking their seats. Senator Jesus Santrich is in custody following an extradition request from the United States for an alleged offence that was committed. It is alleged it was committed after the peace agreement started to be implemented. The question as to whether that was the case or not is also being addressed by the JEP. I understand that a decision on the case is due in the near future. Ivan Marquez left Bogota and decided not to take up his seat in the Congress.

In response to the point about legacy issues, I think the Colombian peace agreement is better on legacy issues and on the needs of victims than the Good Friday Agreement. Victims were made part of the negotiation process. Representatives of victims were brought to the table and there is an entire chapter of the Colombian agreement on victims. The Colombian agreement attempted to deal with the issue of victims in the main agreement and to deal with it upfront. To some extent, in the case of the Northern Ireland agreement it was something left to be dealt with afterwards. It remains to be seen how this will work out in practice but certainly from what I have seen of both agreements I think the Colombian approach was better.