The Colombian Government will present its own version of the “peace plan” Venezuela intends to offer in response to allegations of FARC presence within its borders at the Union of South American States summit on Thursday.
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said that Colombia’s plan will be based on the surrender and demobilization of the guerrillas allegedly based in Venezuelan territory.
“If in Venezuela there is a peace plan, so too here (in Colombia) there is one,” Uribe said, adding that “there are some clear paths” to overcome “the guerrilla problem.”
The Colombian president said that the guerrillas who surrendered would be afforded the same rights and guarantees granted to demobilized paramilitaries under the Justice and Peace process.
“Peace is born of maintaining a firm authority that relies on democratic values,” Uribe said.
Foreign Minister Jaime Bemudez, who will be Colombia’s representative at the UNASUR meeting, rejected Venezuela’s “peace plan” earlier today, saying that “a true peace plan begins with not interfering in the internal affairs of any country.”
Venezuela’s “peace proposal for Colombia is as if Colombia of any other country were to speak of a plan for democracy for Venezuela,” the foreign minister continued.
“But, moreover, a true peace plan begins with not allowing criminals to exist in any place in the world, that they do not have any space, neither physical not political,” Bermudez said.
The Colombian foreign minister’s comments follow an announcement by his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro that Venezuela will present “a methodology for a peace plan” at the UNASUR summit in Quito, Ecuador on Thursday, in order to avoid “the outgoing [Colombian] government from undertaking desperate actions that may result in some type if military action.”
Maduro made the announcement following a meeting with Argentine President Cristina Fernandez in Buenos Aires. The Venezuelan foreign minister is touring South American to rally support for the socialist nation’s decision to break all ties with Colombia, after Colombia presented alleged evidence of 87 guerrilla camps in Venezuela to the Organization of American States (OAS) last Thursday.